The next few days, it only escalated. It went from sack lunches to reusable lunch totes with our names embroidered on the side. I could now find a homemade breakfast and dinner in the fridge or freezer with reheating instructions. Declan framed raised planting boxes in the yard, bought starters and planted them.

Apparently, it was too late in the year for seeds.

He dusted. He did my laundry and folded it. Van complained about cold feet one morning and now we all had matching slippers, again with our names on them. I was almost certain he wasn’t embroidering them himself, but I wouldn’t swear on it. A small decorative basket filled with tampons, pads, and condoms appeared in the bathroom for us and our guests. The period products were also all natural and compostable, because of course they were.

You couldn’t fight it, so we all pooled our various food budgets and left them in Declan’s room. Van told the ferrets that if Declan tried to hide the money back in our rooms, they should snitch on him immediately. Trick gave him a break on rent. Other than that, all we could do was just stand by and watch the carnage that was Declan’s alpha nesting behavior.

“I don’t understand why you find this so upsetting.” My mom was laughing at me.

“It’s not upsetting. I’m not upset.” I totally was. “Flustered! That’s the word. I find this flustering.” I moved the phone to my other ear as I closed down the reception area. This afternoon had been slow, and Mama Ami had sent Lainey home early, so I had the front desk to myself. Everyone else had left except me and Mama Ami. Trick was meeting us to work on binding him to Dammit.

The weaving got more complex the further we got into the process, so Mama Ami would oversee my work. Since I was her apprentice, I was her responsibility. Any big screw-up on my part would reflect poorly on her. If it was big enough, her license could be suspended. That didn’t happen often, but the idea left me cold.

My mom scoffed. “Hot man wants to cook for me? That’s the dream. You’re living the dream.”

“He sewed and stuffed sachets with cedar and put them in our closets and drawers to keep away moths. We don’t even get moths like that in Seattle.” I sniffed my shirt. “Now everything smells like cedar.”

“You like cedar,” my mom pointed out reasonably, damn her. “You wear cedar deodorant. My car always smells like trees after you borrow it.”

I grumbled a reply. She was right. The cedar wasn’t the problem. It was Declan. All of my clothes, our towels, my sheets smelled like Declan. That was why I was flustered. It was like his scent had drifted into my clothes and I walked around all day surrounded by his pheromones, which couldn’t possibly be true. It was really difficult to concentrate on work when I kept smelling my hot roommate. It was giving me thoughts.