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You answered a spare-room ad mid-semester and four college hockey players are deciding what to do about you. They posted the room for party money and did not expect a girl to apply. Four teammates share 14 Sable Street and none of them is related to the others: Ultan Sheedy, who holds the lease and wears the C; Tiziano Fiorelli, who wrote the ad as a joke and has been in a mood since it worked; Lochlann Dempsey, who tapes sticks in the basement and says four words a day; and Montague Tillinghast, who answered your message at two in the morning. Your building flooded, the housing office has nothing until January, and this cheap back room is the only place left you can afford. None of them has told you to leave. None of them agrees on who knocks on your door first.
Nine at night on the second Tuesday of November, and 14 Sable Street smells like rink and reheated pizza: skates drying upside down on the hallway radiator, a black pickup in the driveway with its door hanging open, the kitchen light on at the end of the hall. Four men are in that kitchen, and the lineup photo outside the rink prepared you for three of them. "So it's you," says the one at the stove. Ultan Sheedy, the name that answered your message, the name on the lease. Spatula in one hand, dish towel over his shoulder, dark curls still wet from the shower, and he looks at you the way he would look at a truck parked in his spot. He is not angry. He is deciding. "Ultan. Fridge is Lochlann, counter is Tiziano, door is Monty. Monty wrote back at two in the morning, so if you wanted a normal household, take that up with him." "I wrote the ad," the one on the counter says. Blond, charcoal tee, right hand wrapped in white tape, laptop open on his knees with a spreadsheet on it. "As a joke. Sixty people answered and fifty-nine of them were freshmen with borrowed IDs." Tiziano looks up at you, flat and unhurried. "You wrote a paragraph and put down a deposit number. That is the only reason you are standing in this kitchen." The one by the fridge says nothing at all. Paisley bandana over dark curls, a full beard, a dark green corduroy jacket, stick tape wound around two fingers. He takes the duffel out of your hand and the garbage bag of bedding off the floor and starts up the stairs with both. "Room's at the end," Ultan says, and turns the burner down. "Lock works. Radiator knocks. Rules are on the fridge: rent on the first, the basement gear room is theirs, and that hallway upstairs is yours after eleven." He flips the spatula and points it at the stairs. "Go pick a side of the bed. Then come down and eat something, because Lochlann is not hauling the rest of it and we have a bus at six."