“No, I can work through this,” I told Luke. “There was also you, taking off your shirt.” So far so good. I pictured it and described what I saw. “Showing me your ridiculous, toned, tanned chest that I wanted to run my fingers down,” I heard Luke’s breath hitch. “I wanted to bring my mouth to your skin. Lick the drops of sweat away, slide my fingers up and down your body—”
Luke groaned as I finally mastered sexy times.
Okay, I was going to bite the bullet and take my pants off. A part of me I was not lame enough to name or call Ryan Jr. was becoming interested in the proceedings and wanted to come out and play. I chose the right time too, because I was in the process of trying to talk sexy, hold the phone, and shed clothing when my roommate walked in. It would have been even worse if I’d actually been naked. Probably.
However, it was hard to imagine anything being worse than what happened. I was trying to do three things at once, which was two more than the recommended amount for spazzes like me, so I was failing around wildly, and then I froze at an odd angle when Jeremey Roommate opened the door.
“Pretend there’s underwear on the door,” I told my roommate. Sometimes, I couldn’t even do one thing at once, why had I thought this was a good idea?
“What?” My roommate said, voice soon to be confused and horrified but not quite there yet because he was still processing what he was seeing and not quite getting there.
“What?” Luke asked, because I had been narrating the sexy times. “It got away from you again.”
“Isn’t that what you hang on the door when you have someone over?” My voice was doing a really good job of being confused and horrified. “Like, in a sex way?”
“Oh my god,” I heard Luke mutter over the phone. I was still frozen where I was, partly from embarrassment and also because now that I stopped moving, I didn’t know how to start again, how to extricate myself from this position without making anything worse; it didn’t seem possible.
“It’s a tie or a sock,” Roommate told me distantly. “And you don’t have anyone over.”
Right. Great point. Ugh. I didn’t say anything.
Speed. Speed would be the key to not being a broken question mark or whatever my body was doing; I had no idea as that thing never consulted me. I really wanted to hide under my covers, so I just sort of flung myself to one side and of course ended up in a heap on the floor but then I pulled the comforter down after me, even though it offered absolutely no comfort whatsoever. I prayed for the sweet released of death.
“The roommate,” Luke said, somewhere in the darkness of the blanket shield, sounding distant because of course I hadn’t managed to hang onto the phone. I didn’t know if he was talking to me or himself. “We should have thought of the roommate.”
“Maybe next time?” I offered weakly, finding the phone.
And then that, somehow, was the worst part. Not the moment we were interrupted, not the moment Jeremey’s eyes met mine and we were locked in the mother of all awkward and painful endless stares, not Luke and me fumbling around before we got to the good part, and not being interrupted right when we finally got to the good part… Instead of all of that, this was the worst moment.
Because as soon as I said maybe next time, a feeling of dread rushed through me and I could just imagine Luke feeling the same thing. The thought of being intimate with him didn’t bring excitement or anticipation or good nerves, eager and hopeful, but dread. What could go wrong next?
Yeah, that moment where I didn’t look forward to being with Luke? That was the worst part.
* * *
Lydia
I wasn’t kidding when I told Luke that me and Rose had summer plans that had to be postponed because she wasn’t coming home. We found a solution though. We made a bet.
The bet was to see who could keep Luke out of our room with weird decorations and ideally without Luke becoming suspicious about what we were doing. I arranged some unused pencils in a makeshift pentagram in one corner of the room on top of a little altar. Should I find a red marker and write 666, the number of the beast, on the wall? No, too obvious. I’d allude to devil worship but let Luke draw his own conclusions.
Alicia was helping me with the decorations, and once I arranged the altar to my liking, I spoke to her. “You heard me talking to Ryan when he left.” Was the universe punishing me for thinking I was better than Ryan and Luke’s bullshit problems? Even though I was better. Maybe the universe had gotten confused, and it gave this zany mix up to us instead of them.
“Uh, yeah.” She looked to me, then away to the poster she was hanging, but the poster was gross, so then she had nowhere to look. Apparently, Luke didn’t like scary movies. Rose picked a few she thought were sure to give him nightmares.
“That’s the last time I ever try to be nice to anyone,” I muttered. Lesson learned.
The poster had a sinister face made of blood and what might be some body parts out of focus and in one corner. Rose was using her insider knowledge from a lifetime of Luke. Smart. Rose and I hadn’t set the stakes yet and weren’t sure if there needed to be stakes. Keeping Luke out of our space was reward enough.
My girlfriend put the final pin in the poster and turned to me. “You had a point.” She seemed more nervous than usual and I didn’t like that. She was an actress; she was normally comfortable in her own skin or someone else’s. “Our friends are navigating this new, big relationship milestone and we’re in the same place we’ve always been.”
“No, I didn’t mean what I said.” Also, we didn’t have to do everything Ryan and Luke did, especially as I hated almost everything they did. “I was just being stupid.” I moved to the desk to arrange some creepy dolls on it that Alicia found at a thrift store. “Let’s just forget about it. I don’t want some dumb thing I said to ruin everything.”
“And I don’t want you to be unhappy with me.” She spoke quietly but with force. Damn. I could imagine her saying it on stage, how everyone would applaud her, how they would feel her pain instead of just me feeling it and not knowing what to do about it. How had this gotten out of hand so quickly?
“I’m never happy,” I said, reminding her of who I am. “But I’m not unhappy with you. Is that what you think?” I looked at the dolls for a moment and they seemed to look back at me. I turned them around.
“No, not right at this moment. But you never know. This is a pretty big difference between us.” Having this conversation as she handed me a bobblehead was surreal. It was for some player on the New York Yankees. Luke hated them and Rose went to school up there. “We at least need to discuss this.” She held up a hand before I could protest. “I wouldn’t make you have a conversation unless it was absolutely necessary.”
