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“How’s it going?” Dev asks as soon as I press the accept button.
If I actually believed in soul mates then I’d have to say that Devya is mine. She’s everything I’m not. Outspoken and confident. Petite and fine-boned. Whippet thin with light brown eyes and long black hair. More importantly she’s a gangster, a warrior princess in disguise. You don’t mess with Dev or Dev messes with you and you don’t want Dev messing with you. She’ll cut you and ask questions later. She also happens to have the biggest heart.
We met in Paris on a go-see our mutual modeling agency had sent us out on. According to the casting person Dev was too “ethnic” and I was too “fat.” Neither of us got the job, but we did get a best friend in the process. Which is why Dev and I have always said it was the best job we didn’t get.
France was really hard for me. Talk about a fish out of water aimlessly flopping around. I was alone in a foreign country not even able to speak the language for the first time in my life when I had never even been out of town. If it hadn’t been for Dev, I would’ve probably fallen off the edge of the world never to be heard from again.
“Hang on,” I tell her as I close the glass door that leads to the back. I walk to the edge of the patio, to where it meets the beach. I need some privacy for this conversation and Sam is playing his video game in the living room on the other side of the doors. “I’m living with an angry giant with a penchant for exhibitionism.”
Squinting into the darkness, I catch sight of a full moon along the shoreline. Not the real thing––the full moon belonging to my unwanted roommate as he dives into the Atlantic. For heaven’s sake, has he no respect for the neighbors?
Dev’s hum is all dry amusement. “Suspenseful. I can’t wait to hear all about it.”
“I walked into my brother’s house to find it trashed and his teammate staring into the refrigerator, chillin’ his balls.”
She laughs. “Did you get a good look at his assets?”
“I have less than zero interest in his assets. As a matter of fact, I wish he’d keep them as far away from my eyes as possible. The guy is a beast. He has the personality of an electro-shocked gorilla, hung like one, too––since you asked.” Brrrr. A shiver crawls all over me just thinking about it.
“Sounds like fun.”
Sadly, Dev has worse taste in men than me.
“Oh, yeah, the aggressive case of insta-hate he has for me has been loads of fun. You would think I gave this guy syphilis with the way he treats me.”
Dev cackles at my expense. “I’ll bring sage when I come out.”
“Bring holy water. But forget the roommate––evil shall be rooted out. I’m worried about Horvat. The wall that he said could be removed is now suddenly a weight-bearing one. Remind me why we hired this guy.”
She sighs loudly “Do you need me to come out sooner?”
“No. You have enough to do. I’ll deal with it.” While I’m handling business here, Dev is handling the studio in Manhattan until we close for August. “And throwing another person into the mix might upset the delicate eco balance.”
Speaking of…Hendricks springs out of the water and shakes out his hair. Water dribbles down his body the same way it does on the wildebeests of Animal Planet. Other things are shaking too, things that could knock out the national power grid if he keeps waving that bazooka around like that. But, yikes, I don’t have time to contemplate deep thoughts on the matter because he’s walking my way.
“Oh, shit, Dev. I gotta go.”
“Wait––”
“Can’t!”
In my haste to find cover I jump behind a bunch of bushes and land in what I am sure is razor wire. At least, that’s what it feels like against the skin of my bare legs. Stifling a scream of pain, I fumble with the phone and nearly drop it before I manage to corral it and stuff it in the back pocket of my shorts.
Hendricks ascends the stairs and walks across the patio with all the nonchalance of someone with a grossly inflated ego. I’ve never seen anyone so utterly comfortable with his nudity. He stops right in front of me and I’m forced to hold my breath.
I can’t believe my bad luck sometimes. It defies all the laws of anything good and right in this world. The last thing I need is for him to get the mistaken impression that I was ogling him. Like I need to give him that kind of ammunition. I’d rather drive steak knives into my eyes.
He grabs a towel off the lounge chair and proceeds to dry each and every square inch of wet, tanned flesh. This takes forever due to there being so much of it. Unfortunately, I have to bear witness to this painstakingly long process.
