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His face is so immediately striking, the man is a million-dollar model peeled right off the pages of a fashion magazine. He makes the plain white t-shirt glued to his muscles look like a designer’s choice, the way it makes his rich chestnut skin glow.
Then his harsh eyes fall on me. “The hell you looking at?”
I blink. “Is this Piazza Place? 4300 East Villa?”
He squints at me for an answer.
I go to take a step forward, but a pair of guys walk right past me, causing me to stumble. “I’m, um … looking for 4300 East Villa? I think this is the place. Piazza Place. Is this it? Do you live here? I’m Connor,” I add quickly, smiling.
He doesn’t move an inch. Standing at that top step like a statue of pure muscle and beauty—a very grumpy statue, I might add—only his eyes move as they take me in, inch by inch.
Then he grunts something under his breath, turns, and slips back into the building.
That’s when my eyes lift to a stone slab just above the door that reads, in crisp, chiseled letters: Piazza Place.
And apparently I’ve caught the attention of the couple making out against the café window again. “Ooh, you don’t want to piss him off,” one of them warns me. “Yep, that’s right, no matter who you’re here to bang in that building.”
“Oh. No, I’m not here to, uh, bang,” I tell them, somehow making that phrase sound casual. “I live here now. P-Piazza Place. See all my luggage? I’m moving in.”
The two men give each other a look, then stifle their laughter. “Welcome to the gayborhood!” one of them calls out, causing the other to laugh harder. Then the two ditch their spot by the window and saunter off, hand-in-hand.
The gayborhood? That’s cute. “I’ll get him to like me!” I call out at them as they saunter off, like a promise. “I have a way of growing on people! Uh, who is he, by the way? Guys?”
Neither respond as they walk away. I watch them lazily turn the corner, vanishing from sight.
I face the building once again, my excitement renewed for no reason at all. Today, my life begins! With a bag hanging on each shoulder and my tall suitcase rolling behind me like a plastic carcass on wheels, I ascend the front steps of Piazza Place and carefully sidestep the teenager’s colorful chalk equivalent of the Mona Lisa.
My rolling luggage catches on something on the way inside, and I crash noisily into the front entryway. There’s a door to apartment 101 on my left with a row of mailboxes next to it, and another door on my right with a staircase lining the wall. After making the unfortunate discovery that there’s clearly no elevator, I begin my laborious trek up the stairs, dragging my luggage behind me—and wincing at the obnoxious smack, smack, smack of the wheels against each step.
With a grunt (and a merry sigh of relief), I finally reach the top floor—the fifth—and stand in front of the door to apartment 501, right off the stairs. Despite a cramp making itself known in my left leg and my temporary fatigue, my heart races with excitement as I lift a hand to knock, eager to finally meet my roommate.
The door flies open before my knuckles even touch the wood.
A round-faced, linebacker-bodied, total frat-bro type appears before me, bright-eyed, full of energy, his otherwise smooth and peachy skin flushed like fire within his cheeks. He wears nothing but a pair of gym shorts and an oversized white tank top that hangs so low, his full muscled pecs and nipples are visible. Light brown hair spills like a bomb from underneath his tattered, backwards ball cap.
“Bro!” he cries out, spreading his arms. “Tell me you’re Connor! Bro! Tell me you’re fucking Connor! I’m Brett Macintyre! Your roommate!”
3
There’s only one way you can meet that much energy: “Yep! That’s me!” I cry out, matching him.
“Holy fucking fuck, bro! It’s me! Brett! Shit, I said that already. Hey, guys!” he shouts out over his back into the apartment. “Guys! It’s my new roommate! He’s adorable! He’s from—Wait, where are you from? Oh, right! Georgia!” he decides with a snap of his fingers, shouting over his shoulder. “My country-boy roommate from Georgia!”
“Kansas,” I politely correct him.
He doesn’t hear me. “Dude, let me help you with all that.” Without asking, he grabs both my bags off of my shoulders, lifting them as lightly as if they’re loafs of bread. I moan with relief. “Come on in, bro! This is our pad now. What’re you doing out there? Let me show you around!”
I pull my rolling suitcase inside. The front door opens to a long, narrow living room stuffed with a couch occupied by two guys and a big, colorful patchwork blanket thrown over its back. A green mismatched coatrack sits in the corner by a floor lamp and a small round table covered with action figures and half-empty shot glasses. A 40-inch TV is mounted on the wall sandwiched by windows, with a small table underneath it that holds a lamp, a tiny porcelain Buddha, and a PlayStation. A short hallway leads off from the other end of the living room to a bedroom and bathroom.
