This wasn’t happening.
I had to spend my senior year of college sharing an apartment with my uber-nerd stepbrother? No fucking way.
“I’m not supposed to live off-campus,” Jules said softly.
He was on a scholarship—of course he was—and I vaguely remembered that one of the rules for keeping it was that he had to live in the dorms.
“That only applied to your first three years. As long as you keep your grades up, you can live off-campus for senior year.”
“I…” He looked down at his plate, his ears pink and his jaw clenched.
“But I’ve already paid Tripp my first month’s rent.”
I’d made a deal with my dad that I’d pay Tripp directly, and he’d deposit the money in my account at the end of the month to cover it. We’d been doing that for the past two years.
“That will have to come out of your living allowance.” Mom pushed her chair away from the table and stood. “We’re going to pay for the apartment and insurance on the van, but you’re responsible for everything else.”
Jules glanced up, and our gazes locked.
He looked as shocked as I felt.
“What about furniture?” Jules asked. “It’s a week before the start of school. How are we supposed to get stuff to put into this apartment?”
“It’s furnished.” Ken said. “All you need to bring is your clothes, sheets, and towels.”
Jules and I exchanged another look.
Furnished apartments weren’t something you could find near campus, especially not a week before school started.
“Ashy?”
“Yes, munchkin.” I looked at Riley.
“You get to live with Jules next year. You’re sooooo lucky.”
“I sure am, munchkin.” I flicked my gaze to Jules. “We’re going to have a grand old time.”
3
JULES
“This place is a dump.”
For once, I agreed with Ash.
It was a dump.
The inside of our new apartment was even worse than the outside.
And we weren’t even close to school. Instead, we were on the other side of town, in a residential area.
Rutherford College was a small school in a small town. The area was divided by socioeconomic class, with the rich living close to the school and working in one of the surrounding towns and cities, while the poor lived in the outskirts.
There was no middle class, and the town’s population more than doubled every year when school started.
Objectively, we weren’t that much farther away from school than we would have been in off campus housing, but the area wasn’t nearly as safe. Students stayed away from the east side for a reason.
The square and squat outside hadn’t given me much hope. The brick facade of the five-story building was faded and grimy. The lobby consisted of an open area with ten mailboxes, one for each apartment. A fake potted plant stood in the corner, and the elevators had yellow caution tape stretched in front of them.