The Arrangement [HS/LDR AU]

Roommates

The first thing Lana noticed when she awoke was the taste in her mouth: metallic, burnt, chemical. Jesus . . . What had she drunk last night?

The pounding in her head answered: too much. She reached for the glass of water sitting on the floor next to her mattress.

The tepid liquid soothed her parched throat but made her stomach churn and roll. She flopped back down, willing the nausea to abate. She didn't want to vomit into her overflowing wastebasket.

And she didn't want to stumble through the apartment to the tiny bathroom she shared with her two roommates. Her insides were just starting to settle when she noticed Miguel, sprawled on his back, snoring softly beside her.

Shit.

Lana must have been really wasted to have brought her coworker home. Again. She had made a vow not to hook up with Miguel anymore. Not because he wasn't sweet, and funny, and hot—he was. But he was also a little in love with her, and she didn't want that to turn into a lot in love with her. They were just twenty-one, both students who worked at the same bar.

A relationship with Miguel would be complicated, was bound to get messy. Lana had already been involved in one toxic, twisted, ultimately catastrophic relationship. She wasn't going to do complicated and messy again.

She lay there, for a moment, observing her sleeping partner. Next to Miguel's warm, brown back, Lana's naked body looked fish-belly pale. Her father's Gaelic genes, the dismal winter weather, and her poor diet were to blame.

When Lana was properly nourished and getting adequate sunshine, her skin was peaches and cream, in pleasing contrast to her thick dark hair. When she was perpetually bundled in a winter coat, hat, and scarf, subsisting on packaged ramen and frozen pierogies, her pallor became ghostly, her hair a flat, mousy brown. She needed sunshine, citrus fruit, and protein. But Mother Nature, and her bank account, were conspiring against her.

The third thing she noticed that morning—after the toxic taste in her mouth, the pounding in her head, and the bartender in her bed—was the noise from the kitchen. A cupboard door banged aggressively. Pots and pans crashed together as they were dropped into the sink. Her roommates were pissed about something and were relaying it in their usual passive-aggressive manner.

"I'm so fucking over this." The muffled voice belonged to Mara, an angular, ginger-haired NYU student. She was getting her master's in economics. Or was it political science? Something dry, dull, cerebral—at least to an art student like Lana. Mara was intense and easily irritated and borderline OCD. What normal college student organized her canned goods by expiration date? Cleaned the fridge and sink twice a week with a bleach solution?

Carried her toiletries back and forth from her bedroom to the bathroom, because, if left there, they'd be contaminated, with . . . what? Mildew? Urine? Feces?

"You were right," Toni grumbled, loud enough for Lana to hear, "we shouldn't have let an artist move in with us." The jab smarted. Toni and Lana had been friendly when Lana first rented the spare room in the Bushwick apartment, a couple years ago.

Unlike Mara, Toni was funny, messy, normal. Lana had felt an instant affinity for the girl with the bright smile, dark skin, and thick mass of braided hair. The pair had stayed up late drinking wine on a few occasions, had bonded over their love of salacious reality television and their adulation of Mariah Carey. But they'd grown apart recently.

Toni was a fourth-year nursing student now, who kept long and grueling hours. Apparently, she no longer had time for trash TV. Or a sense of humor.

There was another bang, a jar being slammed onto the countertop, and more cursing from one of the roomies. Lana knew she had to get up, had to apologize, had to make things right. The rent for her tiny bedroom in the rundown apartment was straining her budget, and she was already on unofficial probation after breaking Mara's Crock-Pot. A note had been slipped under her door after she'd attempted to cook a frozen pot roast and cracked the ceramic vessel.