Tell Me Lies

TELL ME LIES

by

Locklyn Marx

Copyright 2012, Locklyn Marx, al rights reserved.

Reid Lawson was going to kil his brother. There’d been times in the past he’d thought about kil ing Jack for one thing or another – pyramid schemes, gambling rings, the time Jack tried to use Reid’s name to get a credit card at the GAP – but
this.
This real y took the cake.

“I’m sorry,” Reid said to the girl standing in the hal way in front of his apartment.

He shook his head. “Did you say you’re my new roommate?”

“Yes.” She pushed her blonde hair away from her face and sighed. She seemed exasperated. Not that he blamed her.

After al , he’d asked her the same question three times now. “I’m Alexis. Jack didn’t tel you I was coming?”

“No.”

She shook her head and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Why not?”

“I have no idea.” Who knew what the hel his brother was thinking half the time?

Jack was notoriously flakey and couldn’t be relied on for anything. So when he’d told Reid three weeks ago that he was moving out, Reid wasn’t angry. In fact, he was relieved.

Jack had shown up in New York a couple of months ago, out of work (again), with no place to live (again), and looking for someone to help him get back on his feet (again.)

Reid had let him stay in his spare room, until last week when Jack announced he was leaving. Apparently Jack had saved enough money from his temp jobs to travel around the country. His first stop was going to be the Napa Val ey so that he could

“experience wine country.” He’d been ridiculously excited about it, and kept babbling on about al the different kinds of grapes there were. It was very suspect. Jack had never shown an interest in wine in his life.

“Excuse me for one moment,” Reid said now. “I have to make a phone cal .”

“Wel , can I come in at least?” Alexis asked incredulously, like he was being rude. Which was pretty fucking nervy, since she was the one knocking on his door at seven in the morning on a random Wednesday, claiming to be his new roommate.

“Oh, sorry, of course,” he said, rol ing his eyes. “Come on in.” He thought about being a prick and asking her if she wanted him to whip her up some scrambled eggs while he was at it, but he stopped himself. It wasn’t her fault his brother was a complete screw-up.

She pushed past him and into the apartment, and Reid took the opportunity to check her out. Long blonde hair that fel in soft waves around her shoulders. Sparkling blue eyes. She was wearing a pair of black yoga pants that showed off long legs, but her bulky sweatshirt didn’t give him any idea about what was hiding under there. It was a shame. If there was one thing Reid specialized in, it was blondes. Or brunettes. Hel , just women in general.

Reid walked into his bedroom, shut the door, and immediately dialed Jack.

“’Lo?” Jack said when he answered. In the background, Reid could hear people talking and clapping. Talking and clapping? Where the hel could Jack be at seven in the morning where there was apparently some kind of crowd?

“Where the hel are you?” Reid demanded.

“Out,” Jack said. “What do you want?” Jack got ornery in the mornings, a fact that had led to much strife between the two brothers when they’d been living together.

“What I
want
is for you to explain to me why there’s a girl named Alexis here who’s claiming to be my roommate.” He opened his bedroom door a crack and peered out. Woman or not, Alexis was a stranger. Reid didn’t like strangers, especial y ones who’d been left unattended in his apartment. Who knew what she could be doing out there?

Filching things, contaminating things, poking around in his private, personal documents. Not that he had any private, personal documents hanging around out there.

But if he did, she’d probably be looking for them.

“Oh,” Jack said. He seemed to be thinking about it. “Wel , she’s a girl.”

“Yeah, thanks for that.” Reid watched through the crack as Alexis started wandering around the apartment. He kept his eyes on her hands just in case she tried to slip something in her pocket. “But what the hel is she doing here?

“You told me to find you a new roommate, so I found you a new roommate.”

“I didn’t tel you to find me a new roommate!”

“Yes, you did. I told you I was leaving, and you said ‘That’s great, Jack, but you know you have to give me thirty days notice and find someone to take over your lease.’”

Reid was speechless. He pul ed the phone away from his ear and stared at it for a moment, unable to believe what he was hearing. He almost glanced around his room to see if maybe there were hidden cameras. Surely this had to be a joke.

“Jack,” he said slowly. “I was being sarcastic. You don’t have a lease on this apartment. I own this apartment. It’s
mine.
I bought it. And I didn’t have a roommate before you moved in, so why would I need you to find me a replacement?”

“Oh.” Silence. “Wel , I thought it was kind of weird, but I know how you are about these things.”

“How I am about what things?”

“You know, etiquette and things like that. You’re so uptight about it. How was I supposed to know you were joking? I put an ad on Craigslist. Alexis was the first one that answered.”

“And you thought I’d want to live with a woman?”

“Why not?”

“Why would I?”

“Girls are cleaner.”

“I would never live with a woman.” How would he be able to bring women back to the apartment if one was already here? It made no sense.

“Reid, that kind of thing is il egal. It’s cal ed sexual discrimination.”

“Never mind,” Reid said, realizing that he was in an argument over a roommate that he didn’t even need and/or want. “Forget it. I’l deal with it.” He hung up the phone.

Alexis was in the kitchen. She was in the middle of making herself a peanut butter and jel y sandwich. A peanut butter and jel y sandwich. At seven o’clock in the morning.

“Hi,” she said when she saw him. She gave him an easy smile. “Everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah, everything’s great.” He tried not to get pissed off that she was eating his peanut butter. Obviously no one had told Alexis that you don’t take a knife that has jel y on it and put it in the peanut butter jar.

She caught him looking and held out the sandwich. “Want some?”

He stared at her. Was she real y offering him a bite of his own food? “No, that’s okay,” he said. “Listen, Alexis, I hate to tel you this, but there’s been a bit of a … mix-up.”

“What kind of mix-up?” She crossed the room to the refrigerator and pul ed out a bottle of water. She looked at it for a moment. “I’l pay you back for this, okay?”

“No, that’s okay, you can have it.” What was this, freshman year?

She shrugged, then uncapped the bottle and took a long drink. She stepped back and launched herself up onto the counter so that she was sitting on it. “So what’s wrong?”

“See, the thing is, Jack got a little confused. I don’t need a roommate.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you mean, you don’t need a roommate?”

“Just what I said.” God, this was turning into huge fucking headache. He glanced at the clock on the microwave. 7:17

am. He was late for his run. And if he was late for his run, that meant he was going to be late for work. He hated being late for work.

“If you didn’t need a roommate, then why did you post an ad for one?” She pul ed a crinkled up piece of paper out of her purse and handed it to him.

Reid’s eyes slid down the printout.
Nice two-bedroom in
Manhattan. Own room.

Awesome roommate. One thousand dollars a month,
includes heat and hot water.

Reid’s face darkened. The mortgage on this place was thirty-five hundred dol ars a month. If a roommate was going to pay half, the rent would be seventeen-fifty. Plus utilities.

God, Jack was such an asshole. But whatever. It didn’t matter. Because there was going to be no roommate. He didn’t
need
a roommate.

He continued moving his eyes down the printout. The description was fol owed by pictures of an apartment that looked amazing. It was big and open, with floor to ceiling windows and modern furniture. It was fol owed by a smal line at the bottom that said “
pictures are approximations
only, and are only used for dramatic purposes.”

Reid sighed. “Look,” he said, pushing the paper back at the girl. “You can’t stay here.”

She snatched the printout from him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s no apartment.”

She looked around. “Yes, there is. It’s right here.”

“Yes, but you’re not staying here.” He was starting to get annoyed. This girl was upsetting his perfectly ordered morning. He was supposed to be halfway around Central Park right now. He was hoping to run the New York City Marathon, and if he missed even one run, it was going to seriously set him back.

“Oh, I get it,” Alexis said, crossing her arms over her chest.

The motion pushed her breasts together, and they strained the material of her sweatshirt. It was too bad she was so bratty, Reid thought. He’d have loved to get a better look at what was under that sweatshirt she was wearing. “You don’t want me living here because I’m a woman.”

“No.” He shook his head. “That’s not it at al . My old roommate – ”

“Ha! So you admit that you do need a roommate.”

“No.” God, she was infuriating. “He wasn’t real y a roommate. Jack’s my brother. But he moved out. And now the place is mine.”

“And mine.”

“No, not yours.” What the hel was wrong with this girl? She obviously had some kind of screw loose and/or mental imbalance. It made sense. She was way too hot to be normal. Good-looking women were never normal.

“I’l sue you,” she declared, immediately supporting his mental imbalance theory.

“Sue
me? For what?”

“For sexual discrimination, false advertising.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. A mil ion different things.”

“Your lawsuit would have no merit.” He wasn’t sure if it was true. He obviously didn’t know anything about the law. He was an advertising executive for God’s sakes.

“Maybe, maybe not.” She said it like the merit of a case was inconsequential, like you could just bring lawsuits against people for no reason and possibly win. “My father’s a lawyer,” she said. “So I’d have to ask him. But most of the time these things settle out of court. To avoid a bigger lawsuit.”

He glared at her. Who did this chick think she was?

Showing up at his apartment, eating his goddamn peanut butter and jel y, and then threatening him with a frivolous lawsuit?

“Yeah, wel , I’m sure the judge wil be interested in the fact that you basical y just told me that you knew your lawsuit would be frivolous.”

“Prove it.” Her eyes were on his, chal enging.

“I won’t have to,” he said smugly. “The burden of proof is on the plaintiff. Do whatever you have to do, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Again.”

She looked shocked. She opened her mouth to say something else, but before she could get it out, her face crumpled. Her eyes fil ed with tears, and then, suddenly, she began to cry.

Shit.

Reid sighed. “You don’t have to cry about it,” he said, irritated.

But she didn’t stop. She just kept crying.

Oh, for the love of God. He crossed the kitchen to where she was standing and patted her shoulder. “Listen,” he said, “you’l find another place. Don’t worry about it.

There are a mil ion listings for a mil ion apartments in a mil ion different parts of the city.”

She mumbled something that sounded like, “NoIsland.”

“What?” Reid asked. “No Island?”

“No, I won’t find another place! I don’t know anyone in the city. I don’t have anywhere…anywhere else to go!” The volume of her voice had been slowly rising, and by the time she’d finished talking, she was wailing.

Great. What the fuck was he supposed to do now? Throw her out on the street?

He took a deep breath and patted her shoulder again. And then, suddenly and surprisingly, Alexis threw herself against him, burying her face in his chest.