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“How?”
“By teaching you how to be confident! Aren’t you listening to a word I’m saying?? Dude.” He crosses his arms and huffs. “And you call me the annoying one.”
I study the look in his eyes. There is nothing at all about his appearance that seems ghostly or dead. He can just be any other guy in my kitchen. Sure, his skin is somewhat pale, but not in a grayish dead-flesh sort of way. Hell, by all appearances, he might just be someone who hasn’t been outside in a while … and maybe hasn’t showered. Thankfully, I can’t smell him.
I lift my chin and squint. “How’d you die?”
He sighs. “This again?”
“You didn’t answer me last night. Seemed rather evasive about it, in fact. Why don’t you want me to know? What aren’t you telling me?”
“Maybe I don’t want to dwell on my death. Maybe it’s all I’ve been dwelling on since it happened. Maybe all I want to do is sit here with my new best friend and teach him how to get the damned job so he won’t—”
“Best friend?”
West shrugs. “You’re my only friend. So you’re my best friend by default. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”
“That also makes me your worst friend, too.”
“Will you just let me teach you?? You’re already dressed for it and everything. We’ll role-play, alright? I’ll be the interviewer. You’ll be … well, you.” I get up from my chair and go to the cabinet, pulling down a plate. “Hey, Griff, what’re you doing?”
“Haven’t eaten anything since I left this morning. A boy’s gotta eat.” I grab a couple slices of bread and smirk at him over my shoulder. “How am I expected to land my dream job on an empty stomach?”
West scowls at me. “You’re doing this on purpose.”
“Doing what?” I grab the peanut butter.
“You know what.”
“Want a sandwich, too?”
“It doesn’t matter. I can’t taste it anyway.”
“Your loss. My PB&Js are out of this world.”
He falls silent. After a while, I notice he’s taken a seat at the table where he has proceeded to simply glare at me the entire time I make my lunch. When I return to the table, I sit across from him, then proceed to slowly savor my sandwich, bite by bite. All he does is cross his arms and stare at me from a set of half-closed eyes, full of all the forced patience he can muster.
It’s when I’m halfway finished that he at last breaks the silence. “Alright. What’s going on?”
I lift an eyebrow. “Hmm?”
“You’ve been weird since you came home. I know you didn’t get a job or whatever, but something else is going on. You had this expression on your face when you were drinking that pumpkin spice crap you brought home. Shit, of all things I can’t smell or taste anymore, of course I’d be able to smell that crap from a thousand miles away. Sometimes I wonder if this is Hell.”
“I ask myself that every day.” I take another bite.
He drops the attitude and leans forward, elbows on the table. “You gonna tell me what’s going on? What is it? Hey, maybe I can do my other roommate obligation and be your shoulder.”
I chew, swallow, then study him. “Nah, I’m good.” I go for another bite.
“Griffin. Griff, Griff, Griff. My breathing buddy, my living pal. Don’t hold back with your bestie.” He tilts his head. “You having issues with the family? Your parents pissed at you? Getting on you? Nagging?”
“My parents love me,” I reply, mouth muffled.
“Hmm. Is it Madame Whacko across the hall?”
“Nope.”
“You got girl problems, then?” I swallow my bite, then consider how to answer that. He takes that for a silent admission. “Hah. Knew it. Girls on the mind. I get it, man. I was just like you. All dudes are the same.”
“Are they?”
“You bet. Now listen up. I’m gonna give you a girl lesson. Girls 101. How To Get The Gal 101. This is my Master Class, buddy. Take out your notebooks and get ready! Phew, guys back in the day would’ve killed for a lesson from me. Alright, first thing you gotta know—”
“It’s guy problems.”
West doesn’t compute that for a second. “Huh?”
“Guy problems.” I lower my sandwich. “That, my pal, is what I’m having. Not girl problems, because I don’t date girls.” I eye him. “I date guys.”
For some reason, I take a private satisfaction in watching the effect of my words play across his face like some kind of crawling, magic bug of discomfort. It last a lot longer than he likely intends.
“Oh, I bet you’re second-guessing this lovely little arrangement we’ve got going on now,” I say, chuckling as his freaked-out eyes snap to mine. “You thought you had me pinned, huh? Thought you had it all figured out? And now the ghost just made a grave realization.” I lean forward, all my caution abandoned. “You’re stuck here in this apartment with a homo.”
