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“Invite me over.”
He reached up and closed the tailgate. “My roommates might be there.”
“So? I want to meet them.”
“Why?”
“They’re your roommates.”
“I barely know them.”
“Invite me over.”
“You’re relentless,” he said, but his eyes were glinting with affection.
“And you’re stubborn. I’m starting to think you’re hiding a secret wife or a harem or something and that’s why you don’t want me to see where you live.”
“That’s ridiculous. How could I afford to support a harem on a barista’s salary?”
She prodded him in the chest with her index finger. “If you want to have sex tonight, you have to invite me over.”
“Penny,” he said on an exasperated sigh.
“What?”
“Do you want to come over to my place later today?”
She rose up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Caleb wasn’t lying. His place was a dump.
He lived near LAX, in a cobalt blue stucco house with a ghastly white ironwork railing stretched across the front. A stunted, half-dead banana tree squatted in the middle of a patchy lawn next to a driveway so cracked it looked like a window someone had thrown a rock through. The doorbell had a piece of duct tape over it, so Penny pulled open the rusty burglar bars and knocked on the white paneled door.
Caleb answered it wearing a gray tank top and baggy athletic shorts. A sheen of sweat glistened on his face and arms. “You’ve been working out!” she exclaimed in delight.
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Just for you.”
She threw herself into his arms and he kissed her, spinning her around so he could shut the door.
The inside of his house was no better than the outside, she discovered as soon as she’d finished kissing him. The walls and trim and fixtures were all painted a dingy, yellowed white that made her think of rotten eggs, and the floor was covered with patterned orange ceramic tile that must have dated from the nineteen fifties.
“Don’t take off your shoes,” Caleb warned, following her gaze to the floor.
Footprints muddied the tile and drifts of dust bunnies crowded in the corners. It didn’t appear to have been swept or mopped since the house was built.
“My roommates don’t believe in cleaning, and I got tired of being their maid. We’re currently engaged in a war of attrition. These floors are the hill I’m going to die on.”
“Are you winning?” Penny lifted her foot and her shoe tried to stick to the floor, reluctantly letting go with a sticky sound.
Caleb let out a dispirited sigh. “I’m pretty sure they haven’t even noticed.”
Her fingers itched for a broom. And a mop. And possibly some napalm to burn the whole place to the ground. “You know, I could—”
“Don’t you dare. This is why I didn’t want to invite you over. I knew you’d want to clean, and you’re not allowed.”
She took in the rest of the living room. There was a couch covered in mustard yellow corduroy, two ancient vinyl La-Z-Boys that had been patched so much they were at least thirty percent duct tape, and a cheap veneer coffee table covered in beer bottles, coffee mugs, old pizza boxes, and dirty paper plates.
“It’s nice,” she said, trying to be polite.
