“Did Ryan at least stop locking you out of your room?” Ryan is a total manwhore. One day after Noah ignored the tie on the doorknob to go in and grab his work badge, Ryan started locking the door whenever he had sex. Which was a lot.

“We have a truce.”

“How’d you manage that?”

“Told him if he did it again, I’d stab pins through his condoms.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“I totally would. And he knew it. That’s the only reason why he stopped. I was sick and tired of sleeping on the sofa while they played their games.” There are some shifting sounds, and I imagine him lounging on his bed. I’ve been in that room plenty of times—the door open, of course. Him on one side of the bed, me on the other, trying to throw Skittles into his mouth. “That’s one benefit of your job. No roommate drama.”

I look around my small room. I haven’t made much of a personal dent here. There’s a glass of water on the nightstand. A black charger cable waits for me to plug in. My clothes are neatly packed away in the dresser, the luggage—still muddy from its one use—is stowed in the closet. You can’t really see that it’s my room, but it feels like mine.

He’s touched me, he’s kissed me.

My room is one boundary that Mr. Rochester has not crossed.

“I don’t miss the drama.” My roomies were good people, but we were packed in three to a room. It was tight but the rent was dirt cheap. Doesn’t matter how hard you try to get along. When there’s less than two hundred square feet per person, you’re gonna have problems. “Or the claustrophobia. This place is pretty massive.”

“Rich people need some place to keep all the shit they buy.”

The acid in his tone makes me flinch. “I don’t know why you hate rich people so much. I mean, it sucks being poor, but they didn’t make us this way.”

“The whole capitalist system relies on some people doing menial labor for shit wages.”

I sigh. “I don’t want to argue with you, and maybe you’re right, but I just can’t hate these people for being born rich. Or working hard and earning money. That’s the dream, right?”

“It’s not your dream. Or are they rubbing off on you?”

“No,” I say, feeling defensive. “I still want to go to college and become a social worker, so I can help people. That’s my dream, but I need money to do it.”