The Roommate Arrangement Read online

  He reached for his mouse and clicked a few times, probably opening his email. A few seconds later, Steph’s voice drifted through the speakers on his desk. “Have you ever noticed how most comedians come from messed-up families? Not me, of course. No, no, really. I’m the only normal one in my family. The others are all psychologists. My sister has half a dozen abbreviations after her name… PsyD, LMFT, PCC… Well, I have a few that people usually tag on after my name too—PITA, FUBAR, and TMI.”

  Mr. Hicks didn’t laugh. Not even a twitch of his lips beneath his goatee.

  Jeez, between him and Rae, Steph could really get an inferiority complex.

  He clicked around a few times. Was he looking at the other information on her website? He didn’t seem impressed by what he was seeing. “No TV credits?”

  “Not yet, but I’m working on it.”

  “Yeah, come back when you’ve done Colbert or Fallon.” He paused. “Um, not done them, done them, but you know what I mean.”

  Steph knew only too well what he meant. That was her dilemma: she needed TV credits to play bigger rooms like The Fun Zone, but to get network bookers interested, she had to have headlined for some of the popular clubs. Okay, time to put her cards on the table. “You know this business. You managed a club in Denver before you bought The Fun Zone.” It didn’t hurt for him to see that she’d done her homework.

  He had already turned back toward his paperwork, but now he lifted his head. “Yes.” He waved at her to go on.

  “You know how things work. The comedy boom is over. Really talented people might never get any TV credits—unless someone gives them a chance.”

  “And you want that someone to be me.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Why not? You didn’t get where you are by playing it safe.”

  He stroked his goatee and regarded her for a while before leafing through a folder on his desk. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll let you emcee a week in January.”

  Steph had emceed at clubs like The Fun Zone many times before. At this stage of her career, it wasn’t what she wanted or needed. MCs were supposed to introduce the other comics, warm up the crowd, make announcements about any specials, and explain the house rules to the audience. If they were lucky, they could squeeze in a few minutes of their own material, but that was it. “Thank you, but I’m not a newbie. I’ve been doing stand-up for nearly ten years. I’ve headlined all over the country the entire year.”

  “Not in LA,” Mr. Hicks said. “Not at my club.”

  “Not yet.” Steph refused to meekly avert her gaze and just accept his decision.

  “Damn, I can see where that PITA abbreviation after your name is coming from. You really are a pain in the ass,” he muttered. “Do you have any idea what running a comedy club costs? We need to fill every seat to avoid losing money, and you don’t have the name to draw a crowd.”

  “Neither did Amy Schumer, Chris Rock, or Sarah Silverman before they were discovered. I’ve got to start somewhere. It might as well be your club.”

  The stroking of his goatee became a tugging. “Forget it. I’m not letting you headline. But…” Steph held her breath while he flipped through the folder again. “If you are as quick-witted up on stage as you are in here, I’ll give you a feature spot.”

  A feature spot… That meant she’d get to do twenty to thirty minutes of material in between the MC and the headliner. It wouldn’t pay as much, but if she impressed Mr. Hicks, it would increase her chance of getting a headline spot.

  “Deal,” she said quickly before he could change his mind. “When?”

  Mr. Hicks paused on a page in the folder. “Sunday.”

  “This Sunday?” Steph squeaked out. That meant she’d be part of the Thanksgiving weekend show that had been promoted heavily all over LA. She barely held herself back from dancing a little jig.

  He snorted. “No. The late show on the Sunday after.”

  Steph’s bubble of happiness burst, but she adjusted quickly. Any Sunday would be good since it was often the only day Mr. Hicks would be at the club all evening because he had to be there to sign paychecks anyway. If she was lucky, he’d pop in to see bits of her act, and if he liked what he saw, it might open the door for larger opportunities at The Fun Zone. “That’s great. Thanks. I promise you won’t regret it.”

  “I’d better not. I’ll have my assistant manager email you the details.” He made a shooing motion. “Now get out of here and let me get my work done.”

  Steph made it out of his office in record time, barely stopping herself from skipping to the door. As soon as she was outside, she jumped up and down like a kangaroo on speed. Yes! She had gotten it—the first of hopefully many big chances.

  With a cheerful wave, she rushed past the guys at the bar and out the door.

  The line in front of the club had disappeared, and so had Brandon, but Rae was still there, guarding the entrance and letting in stragglers.

  When Steph came up from behind, Rae flinched but recovered quickly and sent her an expectant gaze. “What did he say?”

  “He’s not giving me a headliner spot.”

  Rae’s lips tightened. “Don’t take it personally. He—”

  “But he’s letting me feature next week.” Unable to contain her excitement any longer, she threw her arms around Rae for an exuberant hug.

  As soon as their bodies made contact, both of them froze.

  Rae’s arms had come up automatically, and her hands settled on Steph’s back, holding her against her even as her body stiffened.

  Steph allowed herself to rest against Rae’s powerful frame for a moment, then let go and stepped back. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

  “It’s okay.”

  With only half a step of space between them, they stared into each other’s eyes.

  Rae’s eyes were fascinating. Not only because one of them moved less than the other, especially when she was looking down, as she did now, but also because of their color. From a distance, they looked simply brown. But up close, Steph discovered that they were flecked with amber around the pupils, making them seem to dance like flames.

  Yeah, and you could get burned easily if you’re not careful, Steph reminded herself. Her roommate was the one woman who was off limits, even for just a night. Not that Rae would ever be interested in a few hours of fun with her.

  Rae turned her head away, clearly as uncomfortable with the close scrutiny as she had been with the embrace. Even though Steph’s hug hadn’t been tight enough to leave any wrinkles, Rae slid her hands over her suit jacket like a bird smoothing down its ruffled feathers. “I’m just not the huggy type.”

  Steph put on a stunned expression. “No!”

  “Smart-ass,” Rae grumbled.

  Steph sobered for a moment. She wanted Rae to understand what this meant to her. “This is big for me. Really big. Truth be told, I knew he wouldn’t let me headline, but a feature spot… It could practically be an audition for the headline act.”

  Rae gave her an awkward pat on the arm. “Congratulations.” She looked sincere. “I’m sure you’ll do great. And if you’re nice to me, I won’t even seat a bachelorette party in the first row on your big night.”

  Steph laughed. “Thanks, I guess.”

  In the silence between them, honking and whoops from Melrose Avenue drifted over.

  Rae shifted her weight and pointed over her shoulder. “So are you going back in to celebrate with your buddies?”

  “No. I’m going home to start preparing. This is my big chance—and I’m grabbing ahold of it with both hands.”

  Rae gave her a respectful nod. “See you at home, then.”

  Brandon joined them in front of the club. “At home?” He looked back and forth between Rae and Steph, his eyes going wide. “Holy motherfucker! You two are shacking up?” He let out a piercing wolf whistle. “Man, that’s—”r />
  “If you say ‘hot,’ I’m gonna break your nose.” Rae looked fierce, as if she might actually do it.

  Steph put her hand on Rae’s arm. Tense muscles vibrated beneath her fingers. “We’re roommates, Brandon. I bet being on the door staff pays as shitty as being on stage, so we both needed some help covering the rent.”

  “Ah.” Brandon rubbed his nose. “Yeah, that makes sense. This job doesn’t pay enough to keep a cockroach alive.”

  Rae grunted her agreement, and the tension in her muscles receded.

  Steph pulled her hand back. Phew. Good thing they weren’t actually a couple and would never be one. If Rae was already this protective when they were just roommates, she probably would have turned Brandon’s nose into mashed potatoes if they had really been an item.

  Not that she condoned violence of any kind, but she had to admit that it felt good. She’d grown a thick skin around comedy clubs since most comics had no filter, and she had stopped counting how many less-than-subtle offers of a threesome she had gotten over the years—as if being bisexual meant wanting to sleep with a man and a woman at the same time. But just because she could take it and reply with a witty comeback didn’t mean she appreciated those comments.

  “Okay, I’m off now. Do you need me to pick you up later?” Steph pointed at the club’s parking lot. “I realized you don’t have your car.”

  “Nah, I’ll walk,” Rae said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I can give you a ride home,” Brandon said.

  Rae firmly shook her head. “I’ll walk.”

  “Jeez, if I didn’t know your middle name, I’d think it was stubborn,” Steph muttered.

  “Ooh, what’s her middle name?” Brandon asked.

  “I don’t have one.” Rae leveled a threatening glare at Steph, who held up her hands and backed away, laughing.

  “I’m not getting involved in this, guys. Good night.” With a quick wave, she walked to her car.

  Rae reached for a tomato, then looked at a second one and hesitated. Should she make enough salad for Steph too? When they had moved in with each other four weeks ago, she couldn’t have imagined doing such a thing since it might set a precedent. One of her unwritten house rules had been that each of them had to get her own food and prepare her own meals.

  But Steph had been either in her room, perfecting her routine, or out, working corporate holiday parties or testing new jokes at open mics, since she had gotten Mr. Hicks to give her the feature spot a week ago. Rae had to admit that she had misjudged comedians—or at least this comedian. She had always thought that comics had a pretty cushy job: sleeping in until noon, spending their days watching funny YouTube videos, and then making money by working less than an hour every night.

  That wasn’t Steph’s daily routine at all. She got up around the same time Rae did and usually worked all morning before leaving for her side job. Rae knew because she often heard her talk to herself while she worked on her material. Except for a couple of hours she’d spent with her family on Thanksgiving, Steph hadn’t stopped perfecting her set.

  Even now the low murmur drifted over from Steph’s room.

  Rae took the second tomato and weighed it in her hand. Okay, she would do it. But just this one time and only because she didn’t want the pizza delivery guy to ring their doorbell late at night, after Steph realized she had skipped dinner.

  She washed and sliced the tomatoes, a bit of romaine lettuce, and a red bell pepper before crumbling some feta cheese into the bowl. For a moment, she eyed the olives and onions but decided to leave them out since she had no idea if Steph liked them. With quick flicks of her wrist, she whisked together olive oil and lemon juice and added oregano and pepper.

  Just as she was about to pour the dressing over the salad, she paused. Something was missing. Where was the cucumber she’d bought at the farmers market yesterday?

  She opened the fridge and rooted through the veggie drawer. Nothing. It also wasn’t in the bowl next to the fridge, where she kept the tomatoes so they wouldn’t lose their aroma.

  What the hell? Had Steph taken it? Since Steph’s major food groups seemed to be chocolate, burgers, and pasta, it didn’t seem likely. But where else could the cucumber have gone?

  Frowning, Rae knocked on Steph’s door to solve the mysterious case of the missing cucumber.

  The low murmur stopped. “Come on in,” Steph called.

  Rae swung the door open. “Sorry to interrupt, but have you by any chance seen—” Then she caught sight of the missing vegetable.

  Steph held the cucumber in her left hand, raised to her mouth as if it were a microphone. She smiled at Rae as if it were the most normal thing in the world to kidnap a vegetable for comedy purposes.

  “Um, what are you doing with that poor cucumber?”

  Steph sensually slid her hand up and down the vegetable. “What does it look like I’m doing?” She lowered her voice to a seductive purr.

  A shiver went through Rae, and she cursed her body for its automatic reaction. She kept her face impassive and gave her a look.

  “Okay, okay.” Chuckling, Steph stopped caressing the cucumber. “Don’t look at me like I’m some kind of veggie pervert. I’m practicing my set, which means I need a mic.”

  Rae shook her head. Someone really needed to write a comedy routine about the peculiar ideas comics came up with. “And the cucumber seemed to be the obvious choice to you? Didn’t your parents teach you not to play with your food?”

  Steph shrugged and gave her a charming grin. “Well, strictly speaking, it’s your food, and I don’t even want to know what my parents would say if they caught me playing with a cucumber. They’re psychologists.”

  “Both of them and your sister?”

  “Yep. Pretty much the entire family except for me. Well, Uncle Albert is a psychiatrist.”

  “Jesus,” Rae blurted before she could hold it back. Her head started spinning as she tried to imagine growing up like that. Apparently, they had one thing in common after all: they had both grown up in families that weren’t quite conventional.

  “Well, it has its good sides too. For one thing, it gives me plenty of material for my routine.”

  Rae studied her but couldn’t tell if she was joking. Did Steph really talk about her family on stage? If she did, was her family fine with being made the butt of jokes?

  “So what was it that you came in here for?” Steph asked.

  Rae pointed at the cucumber. “The mic.”

  “Why would you need a mic?” Steph twirled the cucumber. “I thought you weren’t the type to go up on stage and tell jokes.”

  “I’m the type who wants to eat her vitamins. Come on. Hand it over.”

  When Rae tugged on the cucumber, Steph playfully held on to her end.

  “Dammit, Steph!” Rae let out a growl. She wasn’t in the mood for a tug-of-war, even though she knew she could easily overpower her more slender roommate. But if she gave a powerful yank, Steph would tumble forward and end up in her arms. That was a big no-no. “Let go, or…”

  “Or?” A seductive note seemed to vibrate in Steph’s voice.

  Heat rushed down Rae’s belly. Simmer down, she told her traitorous body. Steph was just playing around and didn’t mean anything by it. “Or you won’t get any of the delicious Greek salad I’m preparing.”

  Steph let go so abruptly that Rae overcompensated, stumbled backward, and crashed against the door. The doorknob hit her hipbone, and she lost her grip on the cucumber, which rolled along the floor.

  Damn. Rae rubbed her hip. That’s gonna bruise.

  “Oh shit. Rae, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…” Steph rushed over. “Let me see.” Her hands fluttered over Rae’s hips, then along her back as she tried to tug Rae’s shirt from her pants and pull the waistband of her jeans down a little.

  A ripple
of sensation washed through Rae as her body reacted without consulting her brain. Fuck. She grabbed Steph’s hands and pulled them away from her body. “Stop it,” she said more forcefully than she had intended. She struggled to soften her tone. “I’m fine.”

  Steph withdrew her hands but didn’t move away. “Are you sure? That looked like it hurt.”

  “As a beat cop, I’ve been shot at, kicked in the gut, and thrown against a wall by a guy three times your size. This was nothing.”

  Instead of reassuring her, the words seemed to alarm Steph even more. “Shot at?”

  Every muscle in Rae’s body went rigid. Damn. Why had she told Steph that? “Yeah.” She tried to make it sound as if it were no big deal. “Twice, actually.”

  Steph paled. “God,” she whispered. “And I thought being booed off stage was bad.”

  “Every job has its pros and cons, I guess.”

  “That’s all you’re gonna say about it?”

  “What else am I supposed to say? I survived. But I might die of hunger if I don’t get something to eat within the next ten minutes.” She picked up the cucumber she had dropped earlier, careful not to lose her balance in the process, and strode to the kitchen. Even without peripheral vision on her left side, she sensed Steph following and taking up position next to her.

  Steph watched as she washed and sliced the cucumber. Rae’s fingers started to ache from clenching them around the knife, in expectation of more questions.

  But Steph seemed to sense that Rae had reached her limit. “No olives?”

  Rae turned her head and looked at her. She hoped her relief wasn’t too obvious. “Wasn’t sure you like them.”

  “I love them.” Steph went to the fridge and returned with the jar of black olives. “Toss them in.”

  When Rae took the jar from her, their fingers touched. Rae’s gaze flickered from Steph’s hand to her face. For a moment, Rae thought she would tell Steph something unexpected—maybe something about being shot at—but then reason returned and she just nodded at her. “Thanks.”

  “You’re very welcome.”