The American Roommate Experiment (Spanish Love Deception #2)(34)

Parking that thought aside, I pointed my head to the left. “Especially that one picture hanging over there.”

It was a framed picture of her and Lina—shockingly large in size—where they were dressed up as Minions. They even had their faces painted in yellow and had two toilet paper rolls glued over their eyes. The costumes were ridiculous, but the fact that this was two adult women proudly staring into the camera was… captivating. Goofy.

“And cute,” I said under my breath before turning to look at her face. “Do you think we should take it back to Lina’s? Maybe you miss having it around. I would if I were you.”

“Hilarious.” She pouted. “It was a gift from Lina, okay?” Of course, it was. “And I think I’ll survive without it.”

I snickered, feeling a strange satisfaction at the lightness in her tone and the way she’d seemed to forget about the other two men in the room.

“Miss Graham,” Aiden called from the other section of the living room, breaking off the moment. Rosie and I looked over at him, finding him with his head tilted back, inspecting the ceiling. “Is this all the damage? No more sections of the ceiling collapsed?”

Collapsed?

Hadn’t Rosie talked about a crack? With all my focus on keeping an eye on her, I’d forgotten to check that myself. I glanced up, searching the ceiling and I—

“Pero qué cojones.” The Spanish curse slipped right out.

Mr. Allen scoffed at me, and Rosie shuffled to Aiden’s side. “Yes, that’s all.”

“That’s all?” I blurted out, disbelief coating my words. “Rosie, that could have knocked someone down. You said it was a crack.”

“Yes,” Aiden confirmed. “This could have gotten ugly real quick if someone had been standing right beneath this section of the ceiling when it went down.”

“Jesus,” I muttered as I stared at Rosie’s profile.

“But no one was,” Rosie said softly. “It just fell at my feet.”

A strangled sound climbed up my throat.

“Miss Graham,” Aiden said before I could speak. “Is there any other damage elsewhere in the apartment? Bedroom, bathroom, kitchen?”

Rosie shook her head. “Just this. Or at least, this is all I could see.”

The contractor slipped the notepad he had been scribbling on under an arm. “All right. If you don’t mind, I’d like to have a look in all rooms. Would that be okay?”

“Yes, of course.” Rosie let out a sigh. “Please, take your time. And sorry for the mess. I left in a rush when everything… went down. No pun intended.”

With a nod, Aiden turned around and left the room.

Rosie’s lips fell, pressing in a tight line.

Getting a hold of my shock and, quite frankly, frustration at her downplaying the risk when she could have been hurt, I regained the distance she’d put between us and nudged her shoulder with mine. “Hey.”

She glanced at me, her expression neutral, seemingly passive, but her eyes telling a whole other story.

“I’m sorry I just got a little mad,” I told her.

She shrugged a shoulder. “You shouldn’t apologize.” Her lips turned down. “Or get mad over nothing.”

I ignored that, the need to make her smile sprouting deep in my gut. “I can’t believe I missed it when I came in,” I started, and she looked over at me. “Who knew that I had a thing for women in yellow paint,” I added as casually as I could. “And by women, I really don’t mean my cousin.”

She blinked, then let out a half laugh, half snort. “Feeling funny today, huh?”

“I thought I was always funny.” I winked, and that seemed to distract her enough for her to give me another one of those half-assed laughs. “Now seriously, are you okay?”

A shrug. “Yeah.”

“It’s okay if you aren’t.” I paused. “This is a lot, Rosie.”

She held my gaze, as if she wanted to say something, but she seemed to change her mind. “This.” She threw her head back and looked at the hole—and definitely not just a crack—above us. “This is nothing, really. No big deal. Just a little inconvenience. It’ll be fixed in no time.”

It wasn’t little. It really wasn’t.

Mr. Allen, who had been surprisingly quiet, scoffed, reminded us of his presence. “There’s nothing little about this, Miss Graham.”

Upper lip curled upward, he appeared in front of us, his fingers tightening the knot of what looked like an expensive tie. He reminded me of the crazy guy from that black comedy horror movie from the early 2000s. The one with the psychopath.

And while I agreed with him on this one, I still took a small step forward at his tone.

Mr. Allen’s gaze bounced from Rosie to me before returning to Rosie. “I suppose you don’t own property, Miss Graham.”

“No, I don’t. But I was just trying to make light of the situation—”

“Exactly,” Psycho Landlord interrupted her, making my spine straighten at the change in his voice. “And that’s only because you aren’t aware of the cost that patching this no big deal is going to entail. But of course”—he paused, his lip now impossibly high on his face—“this is my time, Miss Graham. My money, too. Do you know how much I lose by standing here, dealing with this?”