Room Seven.

“Only three bottles this time, Lilly? What happened to taking seven?”

Lilly pursed her lips and averted her gaze from the ruddy cheeked woman standing before her with head tilted in curiosity. Apparently Jacqueline, her usually air headed pharmacist and close friend that she saw every seven weeks in their current position was more perceptive than she’d granted for.

“Was it really that obvious?” her lips twitched in a watery smile.

“I wouldn’t have noticed if it weren’t for your restless fidgeting, pet.”

True. Breaking her pattern of buying seven bottles had been unnerving to an extreme point. So to calm herself down, the maddening compulsion to straighten the trinkets and boxes on the counter had been sadly acted upon.

“Hmm... I’m just trying something new.” She mumbled, looking away for fear of her eyes giving herself away.

“Good for you, pet!” Jacqueline praised with gusto and a flourish of her hands.

“Thanks for your support Jac, I really appreciate it.” She replied while hastily grabbing the paper bag in front of her.

Hmm...Its a lot lighter than usual

The thought brought forth a sudden rush of nausea laced with an unease that grappled at her stomach, a startling reminder of her precarious situation. Shaking her head as if to rid of her concern, Lilly walked out of the cluttered space and gave a half hearted goodbye wave to Jacqueline. She fastened her pace when outside, squinting at the sweltering summer sun, desperate to reach the cool, sanitary confines of her hybrid Toyota.

Once inside, she huffed, closed her eyes and reached up to press the soft pads of her fingers to her temples How on earth was she going to survive without her meds for a full four weeks? The fluvoxamine had become a crucial part of relieving her ‘problems’ throughout the years and breaking the pattern was probably going to render some serious chaos within her mental system.

And there was probably going to be a lot more pattern breaking if she didn’t win the lottery, or find a roommate to share the rent in less than three weeks because those little buggers were as expensive as hell. How was she going to go to work, or go to school, or go out with Jacqueline for karaoke and wine night without turning into a complete basket case?

Lilly’s fingers itched to organise something, anything, to place out of order objects into parallel lines and groups of seven, if there wasn’t anything she was going to rip her hair out. Seven strands at a time. Reaching blindly into the fresh paper bag, Lilly took one of the bottles out, a week’s worth of pills in that little miracle container. She sighed heavily and let her eyelids fall, cracking open the child proof bottle cap which she’d completely mastered to do without straining a single muscle; she plucked out a little white pill out of its brothers and sisters and placed it onto her tongue. Lilly swallowed, without water from familiarity and immediately fell under the reign of the almighty plights of modern medicine. She knew that it was silly to feel better instantly, but somehow she did and the stress melted away leaving only a stern determination.

She has 21 days left and 41 miracle workers in her stash, and hell, she was going to find money to buy more after that no matter what it took. So step one: advertise the spare room in her apartment.



“Dude, get the fuck out of my house.”

Riordan Magnus groaned at the sudden intrusion of his great dream that consisted of a playboy centrefold and whipped cream. Rubbing the sleep out of his eye and blinking hard to clear his vision, Riordan was met with a spinning blue haired Asian man that towered over his body with a firm scowl etched on his features.

“Morning sunshine...” he rumbled back, his voice rough and crackling with sleepy humour.

“Hmm... morning babe.”

Riordan jumped at the sudden voice that seemed to be coming from his right and far too feminine to belong to blue-haired-Dick glaring the shit out of him from above.

“What the...” he mumbled as a dazed looking blond poked her head out from beneath the pale blue sheets. She hoisted her arm up to rest her head on her palm so they were now staring at each other face to face. The women’s hair was falling over her eyes and she had the widest grin on her face that seemed to stretch to her ears. Suddenly the memories bombarded him, they’d met at the town bar and it’d only taken a ‘hi there’ to charm her out of her underwear, and here she was now, in his bed. Well... his borrowed bed at least.

“Fiona, last night was amazing.” He growled with a teasing smirk that had been honed to perfection over the years.

"Hmmm...” The women subtly suffled forward with a low, throaty purr.

“Okay enough of this bull, Riordan, you need to find another place to crash, I really don’t want a new tramp in my bed every night.”

Riordan looked up at the figure with a confused frown, almost forgetting that he'd been there in the first place.

“Richard, seriously, I’ll find somewhere. Just give me like two days, or three.” he sighed, whilst reluctantly hoisting up his abdomen with an elbow and rubbing the palm of his hand over his face.

"Fiona, get dressed. Please?" he added.

The remark earned him an arching thin brow and an mouth curled with disbelief. But she complied, instantly getting off the bed allowing the sheet to drop heavily to floor, revealing both her stark nudity and raw confidence.

Riordan remained unaffected.

Richard's jaw dropped at the sight but shook himself, tearing his gaze away. “I’ll give you one more and then you’re leaving, I’m sorry man, but when you get up to your business, its loud, and I really don’t appreciate random women moaning your name as my lullaby, okay dude?”

“Two, and I’m not gonna bring in any more okay?”

“Why can’t you find anywhere else, I swear you have like a shitload of friends.”

"Please?"

“Fuck you.” Richard sighed, running his hands through the sea of blue atop his head. “You leave at noon tomorrow, and that’s not a suggestion, it’s a command.”

Riordan released the air from his lungs in relief and fell back onto the bed with a heavy thud, watching with amusement as the tired but satisfied blond woman followed Richard out of the room whilst eying him with interest.

He had to give the man credit, old Dick had been nice enough to lend him a home two weeks ago when he’d been released from prison and embraced him with open arms, saying that he didn’t believe any of the bullshit anyone had said about him. He’d been all cool with it, until about after four hours when Riordan had come home with a doe-eyed red head, but then again, he’d gone without sex for Three years two months and seventy two days, desperate needs calls for desperate measures.

He sat up and put on a pair of new boxers for his friends sake and padded out into the airy kitchen straight to the laptop sitting innocently on the marble counter. Dick was right, he was going to need someplace to crash before he set out on his quest for revenge and desperate college students looking for roommates were the best place to find it...