It takes three trips. Mike comes back out on the second one, cigarette gone, and leans against the truck watching us work with his coffee cup in hand, chatting with Nate and Iris.
And I swear to god, I think I see him look Nate up and down.
It takes everything in me not to drop the mattress I’m maneuvering through the front door.
The room looks different with my stuff in it. Like mine in a way that the dorm never did. I think back to this morning, when Nate said I should take some of my stuff from my room at home. My band posters. My guitars. Knick-knacks I’ve collected.
I could here. There would be plenty of room.
But I can’t. This is the only way I can feel comfortable. Move on the way I’m supposed to.
The way everyone else has.
The gray comforter, the IKEA desk, the things I picked up at Target on move-in day freshman year. That’s who I am now.
By the time we’ve got everything upstairs and the boxes stacked against the wall for future me to deal with, I’m ready to sit down and not get up for the next year. Nate’s fine because he’s always fine, and that’s an especially annoying quality right now.
After it’s all settled, Nate and I make our way down the stairs, following the sound of voices until we find Iris and Mike in the kitchen. They’re standing on opposite sides of the island, and Mike isstilltalking, and Iris is laughing, not in a polite way, a real way, and I don’t know what to do with how that makes me feel.
“Alex didn’t tell me his parents were hot,” Mike announces, looking between Nate and me with a smile that has no businessexisting on a person’s actual face. “Feels like something he should have mentioned.”
I stare at him. Unable to believe that he actually said that.
To Nate.
“We’re not his parents,” Iris says.
“I’m his brother, and Iris is my wife,” Nate adds, and to his credit, he doesn’t sound offended that a guy called him hot.
“Good genes run in the family, then,” Mike says without missing a beat, those eyes landing on me in a specific way that makes me want to squirm. “No offense.”
I clear my throat, but my voice still comes out rough. “None taken.”
Iris catches my eye then, smiling in that specific way she has, that means she thinks she knows something. Well, she doesn’t know anything. Nothing is happening here. No feelings. No attraction.
I look up at the ceiling.
Nate shakes Mike’s hand before they leave, while Iris hugs me and sayscall meagainst my shoulder. I won’t be doing that for the foreseeable future. Not until she forgets about whatever she thinks she saw.
“I like him,” Iris says once we’re out by the truck, hopping in and buckling her seatbelt.
“I’m glad someone does.”
Nate leans out the window. “You good?”
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”
He frowns, knowing I’m not entirely telling the truth, but he doesn’t call me out on it. “Alright, bud. Call us if you need anything.”
The house feels different when it’s just us, without my family filling the silence. It’s just me and Mike, roommates who barely know each other.
He’s still in the kitchen when I come in, rinsing out the cups from earlier, but he looks up when the door closes.“They gone?”
“Yeah,” I say. “They’re gone.”
He nods, setting a cup on the drying rack. “They seem nice.”
There’s a tense moment of silence where I can’t think of anything to say. Outside, I hear a car go past. Mike leans back against the counter and looks at me with that open expression I’ve never seen him without. Maybe because he’s never had a reason to close it off.
