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"Look again. You never know. Maybe some new options popped up since you looked yesterday."
I doubted it. But then again, Chicago was a huge city. I opened three websites and put my filters in—studio and the maximum of rent I was willing to pay—and then pressed Search. Nothing came up.
I groaned. I could probably look for roommates on Craigslist, but did I really want to live with strangers?
"You're considering living with Sam,"a small voice said at the back of my mind. But Sam wasn't a stranger in the real sense of the word. At one time, I knew him better than anyone else.
"What are you going to do?" Alana asked me. "Move in with Sam?"
"I don't know. I want to make a pro-and-con list."
She rose from her seat, opening the drawer of the sideboard behind her. "I can't believe you still do those. You need a paper and pen, right? Unless you do it digitally."
"No, still old-school paper and pen. It helps me decide when I see everything in front of me. Handwriting is a big part of it. Don't ask me why."
"Okay." She handed me a torn-off sheet of paper and a blue pen. "Sorry. I don't have colorful ones."
"Doesn’t matter.” In high school, I used to draw pros with pink, cons with blue.
I stared at the sheet of paper. In the pros list, I put the following:great rent, amazing loft, close to work.
I hesitated about the cons list before deciding on the biggest offenders.
1. Sam would be my roommate.
2. Sam is even hotter than he was in high school.
I took a deep breath before the third point, but I wrote it down because it was true.
3. I still react like a schoolgirl when I see him. It might be hard to resist him.
There it was, in black—or in this case, blue—and-white.
"So, what's the tally?" Alana asked. She sat across from me, putting her elbows on the table.
I held out the list for her.
She nodded. "Pretty much the way I imagined it. About that last point... Does he seem to have any sort of reaction to you?"
"I don't know," I admitted. "I was too busy trying to process the way I reacted to him to check for any signs that it was mutual."
"The way I see it, you don't have much to lose. You’re going to live in a great place with a guy you might or might not have the hots for."
"Alana, you're not helping."
"What? I'm just stating the facts. If the attraction is one-sided, you have nothing to worry about. If it's mutual, you could jump his bones at some point." She said this so matter-of-factly, like she was talking about how we would split cleaning chores.
"You’re a bad friend."
She gave me a wolfish smile. "I know, but I can't help myself. Don't you think maybe this is fate?"
I blinked rapidly. "What do you mean?"
"You've come back to Chicago, and suddenly you have an option to live with Sam."
"I also camped on your couch."
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, but you messaged me on Facebook, and we talked about it. But with Sam, it was, I don't know, serendipity, right? You replied to a post in the alumni group, and he happened to need an apartment at the same time." She shrugged. "Sounds like fate to me."
