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One
Dakota
There was something...off about my new roommates.
They weren't assholes, by any means, and they cleaned up after themselves. They were never too loud, they didn't eat my food, and they were never rude or caused any problems with the neighbors.
Actually, they were pretty much perfect as far as roommates were concerned. I'd consider myself lucky for finding such great roommates on my first try.
Except they were a little... weird, shall we say?
Like, for example, last night I woke up at around three, and I was on my way to the kitchen to get some water.
Walking past the living room, I spotted one of my roommates, Ryk, standing in front of the window, painting. In complete darkness. With his curls hanging into his face and his body hunched over in front of his easel, someone who believed in the paranormal might have mistaken him for a ghost.
The new moon would be two days later, so there wasn't even much moonlight coming in through the windows, and since the window opens up to the backyard, there wasn't any light pouring in from that way. How and why was he painting in the dark?
When I asked him if I could see the painting this morning, his eyes went wide, and he ran off to his room. He still hadn't come out by the time I left for work.
There were little things they did that made me wonder just how three individuals who were so unique ended up becoming my roommates. I knew they were friends from before they moved in with me, and I guessed their quirkiness had attracted them to each other.
Sometimes, I wondered if they were aliens dropped on Earth to study us puny humans, but of course, that only happened in movies and books.
Right?
"Dakota, did you get that email I sent?" Divya, my coworker, asked, and I glanced over at her. As always, she sat right on the edge of her chair, her blunt-nailed fingers digging into the armrests to keep her from slipping off.
"Email? About what?" I asked as I pulled up my account and scanned my inbox.
"Why don't you use your mouse and click on it to find out?" she suggested with a raise of one perfectly shaped eyebrow, and I rolled my eyes before doing as she'd asked.
As I read through the boring work email that seemed to be just a repeat of what our supervisor had told us the other day, my thoughts returned to my curious new roommates.
Nico was probably the least strange one of the trio, and even he had his quirks. He had a tendency of getting excited over the most ordinary things, though he was pretty good at hiding his reactions most of the time.
"Earth to Duck?" Divya called, and I scowled at her. She was the only one who got away with using that stupid nickname for me, and she took full advantage of the fact.
"What?" I snapped at her, and she merely gave me what I called her 'Cheshire cat grin,' her dark brown eyes twinkling with amusement.
"Whose thoughts are you lost in when you should be working? Did my B-cube find a boyfriend?"
I groaned loudly and wondered if I'd ever be able to understand this woman. Maybe she was an alien too.
"Now what the hell is B-cube?" I asked, and she chuckled.
"You, silly. You're my B-cube. Big buff bestie," she explained patiently, as if what she was saying wasn't complete baloney.
"I need to work," I said, turning back to my computer screen and ignoring her.
"Don't think you got away with it, Mister. Come lunchtime, I want to know all about it," she said, and I continued to ignore her, relaxing only when she'd turned her focus on her screen.
While I would love nothing more than to talk about my crazy new life with my roommates, a part of me also wanted to keep them all to myself.
Here were the facts. Despite all their little oddities, all three of my roommates were nice dudes. They were also a) absolutely fucking gorgeous and b) almost definitely in a relationship. They hadn't come out and told me as much, but I'd come home to find them all cuddled up on the couch more than once. Either they were dating or really close friends.
Either way, I was a gay man surrounded by delicious eye candy whenever I was home, so was it any wonder I couldn't stop thinking about them? Nico, Ryk, and Star were as different from each other as the sun, moon, and well…the stars, and yet they all fascinated me to no end. Ryk was like a cheerful golden retriever, all bright smiles and happy vibes, while Nico was a mother hen, always rushing around taking care of everyone. Star, though, was most definitely a cat. I could tell he cared about Ryk and Nico, but he rarely showed it.
I could think about them all day, but I also needed money to survive, so I forced myself to push them to the back of my mind for the time being and focus on my work. It was boring and mind-numbing, but it brought food to the table, so I exhaled deeply and started replying to the dozen emails that had popped into my inbox while I'd been lost in thought.
