Maybe Not (Maybe #1.5)(3)
Author: Colleen Hoover

Brennan stares at me, mulling over my admission. He pats me twice on the shoulder and returns to his suitcase. “She’s mean, Warren. Probably the meanest girl I’ve ever met in my life. So if she murders you in your sleep, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He closes his suitcase and begins to zip it. “She needed a place to stay and we have an extra room. Her life makes mine and Ridge’s look like a cakewalk, so go easy on her.”

I take a seat on the edge of his bed. I’m trying to be sympathetic to the situation, but the business manager in me is skeptical. “She just called you out of the blue and asked if she could move in with you? Don’t you think that’s a little suspicious, Brennan? You don’t think it has to do with the band finally making a name for itself?”

Brennan glares at me. “She’s not an opportunist, Warren. Trust me on that. And hit on her if you want, I couldn’t care less.”

He walks toward the door and grabs his keys off the dresser. “I’ll be back next week after the last show. Do you have our hotel rooms squared up?”

I nod. “I emailed you all the confirmation numbers.”

“Thanks,” he says as he walks out of the room.

I fall back onto the bed and hate the fact that Brennan isn’t into her. That means she’s fair game.

I was kind of hoping she wasn’t.

But then I smile, because she is.

Chapter Two

“What are you doing?” Ridge signs.

I walk back to Bridgette’s bedroom with another glass of water. Once I carefully place it on the floor with all the others, I come back to the living room. “She’s lived here two weeks,” I tell Ridge. “If she wants to be a roommate, she has to live with the pranks. It’s the rule.”

Ridge shakes his head disapprovingly.

“What?” I say defensively.

He sighs heavily. “She hardly seems like the type to embrace pranks. This will backfire on you. She hasn’t even spoken to us since she moved in.”

I disagree with a shake of my head. “She hasn’t spoken to you because you’re deaf and she doesn’t know sign language. She hasn’t spoken to me because I’m pretty sure I intimidate her.”

“You annoy her,” Ridge signs. “I don’t think that girl is capable of being intimidated.”

I shake my head. “I don’t annoy her. I think she might be attracted to me and that’s why she’s avoiding me. Because she knows it’s not a good idea for roommates to hook up.”

Ridge points to her bedroom. “Then why are you making an effort to prank her? Do you want her to speak to you? Because if you think roommates shouldn’t hook up, then you probably shouldn’t be . . .”

I interrupt him. “I didn’t say I think roommates shouldn’t hook up. I said I think that’s why she’s avoiding me.”

“So you want to hook up with her?”

I roll my eyes. “You don’t get it. No, I don’t want to hook up with her. Yes, I like staring at her ass. And I’m only pranking her because if she’s going to live here, she needs to get used to it. When in Rome . . .”

Ridge throws his hands up in defeat and heads toward his room, just as the front door begins to open. I rush to my bedroom and shut the door before she sees me.

I sit on the bed and wait.

And I wait.

And I wait some more.

I lie down on the bed. I wait some more.

She never makes a sound. I don’t hear her getting angry that I just filled over fifty cups of water and placed them strategically around her entire bedroom. I don’t hear her stomping into the kitchen to pour them out. I don’t hear her beating on my door to throw the cups of water at my face in retaliation.

I’m so confused.

I stand up and walk out of my bedroom, but she’s not in the kitchen or living room. Her work shoes are by the front door where she keeps them, so I know she came home. I know she went into her room.

What a disappointment. Her lack of response makes me feel like my prank was a failure, when I know it wasn’t. It was epic. There’s no way she could have made it one foot into her room without having to move all those cups of water.

I stalk back to my bedroom and lie down on the bed. I want to be pissed at her. I want to hate her for sucking at prank retaliation.

But I don’t. I can’t stop smiling because I love that her response caught me off guard. She’s unexpected, and I like that.

• • •

“Warren.”

Her voice sounds so sweet. I must be dreaming.

“Warren, wake up.”

So, so sweet. Angelic, even.

I give myself a few seconds to adjust to her voice, to the fact that she’s waking me up, to the randomness of her being at my bedroom door, calling out my name. I slowly open my eyes and roll onto my back. I lift up onto my elbows and look at her. She’s standing in the doorway between the bedroom and our bathroom. She’s wearing an oversized Sounds of Cedar T-shirt and it doesn’t even look like she’s wearing anything underneath it.

“What’s up?” I ask her.

She wants me. She totally wants me.

She folds her arms tightly over her chest. She tilts her head to the side, and I watch as her eyes narrow into tiny, angry slits. “Don’t ever step foot inside my bedroom again. Asshole.” She straightens up and backs into the bathroom, slamming the door.

I glance at the clock, and it’s two in the morning. That was an extremely delayed reaction to my prank. Was she just waiting for me to fall asleep so she could wake me up and yell at me? Is that her idea of revenge?

She’s such an amateur.

I smile to myself and roll over, shifting on the bed. I gasp when a rush of water pours down on top of me.

What the fuck?

I look up, just as an empty cup falls from the edge of the headboard and hits me square between the eyes.

I close my eyes, ashamed that I didn’t see that coming. I’m so disappointed in myself. And now I’ll have to sleep on towels, because my mattress is soaking wet.

I throw the covers off and swing my legs over the bed, only for my feet to be met with even more cups of water. I knock several of them over in my attempt to stand and it creates a sort of domino effect. I bend over and try to stop them from falling over, but I just make it worse. She’s placed them so close together, all over my bedroom floor, and I can’t find a safe spot to step.

I try to reach for the nightstand while at the same time lifting my right leg so that it doesn’t hit any more cups, but I lose my balance in the process and . . . yes. I fall down. Onto the remaining pile of cups that are full of water. Water that is now all over my carpet.