Love With No Filter - Book 1

7. INEZ

A/N - TW overdose and drug usage are briefly mentioned. If you are not comfortable you can skip (I will put a star when it starts and ends). Hope you enjoy x

The past four days had been chaos. My bed arrived (thank god) along with all my other boxes of belongings. Nick had laughed at me as I tried to unpack everything within a hour. I didn't much like messes - they always made my skin crawl.

Stacey and I had become fast friends. After our chat at the cafe on the outskirts of Central Park, we had developed a decent rapport and we exchanged numbers. It was less than 24 hours later that she insisted dropping by to help me unpack my stuff after I had briefly mentioned on my Instagram close friends story that all my boxes had arrived and I was swimming in a mess of clothes - yes I considered her a close friend already.

"You have to excuse the mess... and my ass of a roommate." I had told her as we walked down the hallway.

"Why's he an ass?" Stacey asked.

My ironic laugh was cut short as Nick opened his bedroom door, in doing so, colliding with me. I walked straight into his chest and gripped onto his arm for support. A weird feeling arose in my stomach for no reason whatsoever. But it might've been the hand he had on my hip or the way we made eye contact. It took a second to realise what had happened before I quickly pull myself away from his body.

"Watch it Charleen." He smirked as I looked away flustered.

"Shut up Nick."

He ignored me, his attention averting to Stacey. Nick raised an eyebrow.

"I'm Stacey, Inez's friend. We met yesterday at breakfast." She said, a warm smile touched her lips.

Nick snorted slightly, "Inez Charleen made a friend? Now there's something you don't see everyday. What did you have to pay her or something?" He said, his gaze flickered back to mine. And then he winked.

Oh god... it's the feeling in my stomach again. The fluttering feeling that makes me want to barf yet salvage every moment of it at the same time. And he wasn't even being nice to me!

"Piss off Raynott." I say, pushing past him and Stacey followed after me. Once we had entered my box infested room, she let out a laugh. I look at her confused.

"Well, that must be a pain having to live together." She says, picking up a box of stationary and books.

"Believe me, it is." I groan, flopping onto my back on the bed.

"Dont get me wrong, as dickish as he seems, he's hot. And you guys got some serious tension I mean did you see the way he caught you! You sure this isn't some enemies to lovers romance you two got going on?"

I snapped my head in her direction completely stupefied by her question. Nick and I? Lovers? What the fuck. Hell no.

"Absolutely not." I scowled without a flash uncertainty.

"Sorry, I've read too many romance books." She giggles, looking through my box of books. Most of them were indeed romance books but love was always very unrealistic on paper compared to real life.

Real life couples don't argue over murder and blackmail. I think if my partner murdered my ex-boyfriend out of jealousy, I would feel quite exasperated about the whole situation, not turned on. Couples in the real world are more likely to fight over which wine to buy or who's hogging the TV remote. Regardless, I loved books because the idea of love that they create is unrealistic so therefore it was nothing to envy. It was easy to fall in love with the idea of loving a billionaire or a wizard because you knew those dreams were unrealistic. Christian Grey or Harry Potter can't let me down because, as sad as it is, they aren't real.