by Claire Adams
“Oh, I think I know. The guys next door are having a party tonight, and those are their 'hoes,' or whatever they call them.”
Leslie busted out laughing. “Their 'hoes,' huh? Really, Brooke?”
I looked at her, my head cocked to the side. “What? I'm not joking, Les! I met one of them half an hour ago when I took the garbage downstairs. She was wearing the shortest cocktail dress I've ever seen. It was practically screaming 'hey everyone, look at my panties!' every time she took a step. That is if she was even wearing panties. And her boobs looked like they were planning a jailbreak from the top of that dress. Not that it would have been much of a jailbreak. Those things were barely covered by an inch of fabric to begin with.”
Leslie lost it. She was laughing so hard she had to sit down in a chair at the kitchen table. “Oh, my god, are you serious?”
Her laughter was infectious. I couldn't help letting out a few giggles myself and grinning from ear to ear, even if I was feeling a bit jealous thinking about Emerson and bimbo Barbie. “I'm completely serious. She looked like she just stepped off the set of a porn film.”
Leslie laughed again. “Damn, so that's what those two players next door to us are into, huh?”
“I guess it is. Are you really surprised, though? I mean, that’s exactly what I imagined Chris would be into.”
She shrugged and shook her head, still laughing. “Well, I guess not.”
Another bout of bawdy laughter echoed outside our door and a high-pitched, exaggerated, “Oh, my God!” boomed down the corridor. We exchanged glances and then both burst out laughing.
“Oh, my God,” repeated Leslie in a mocking high-pitched voice that sounded very much like a stereotypical airhead.
I couldn't help laughing hysterically.
Then we heard Chris's voice booming outside. “Ladies! Welcome to the party palace!”
That’s when we really lost it. We almost fell over laughing at that one. After that, though, the noise died down, as they'd all gone inside the apartment. We could hear a bit of bass coming through the walls from the music, but that was about it. We prepared the rest of our dinner giggling and sporadically blurting out, “Oh, my God!”
***
After dinner, the music ramped up a bit.
“Sounds like things are getting serious over there,” I remarked to Leslie.
“That it does. You wanna go over there and join ‘em?”
I laughed. But part of me wasn’t so sure she might not have meant it. “No thanks! But seriously, the music is getting a bit much, don't you think?”
“Yeah, it is kinda getting on my nerves. Should we go over and ask 'em to turn it down a little?”
A shot of uncomfortable heat coursed through my veins at the thought of seeing Emerson drunk with those half-naked bimbos. Then the thought that he might very well be half-naked, too, took over. I didn't really want to see anything like that at the moment.
“Um, nah. It's Friday night, you know; we should just let them have their fun. Besides, we just moved in. Let’s not be those neighbors on the first night here.”
“Valid point,” she agreed.
“Let's crack open a bottle of wine and watch some TV. We've got a long way to go to catch up to where The Walking Dead is, right? C'mon, I'll get some snacks and we can chill out on the sofa. The sounds of zombies on TV will drown out the sounds of the zombies next door.”
Leslie chuckled. “Sounds like a plan. I'll put the dishes in the dishwasher, and you can get snacks and wine.”
A few minutes later, we settled down on the sofa with a glass of wine each and chips with salsa.
“This really is a comfy sofa! Especially without the plastic wrap,” I teased.
“You know what old people say, they don't make 'em like they used to. Well, that's true for a few things, I think! This sofa being one of 'em.”
“It sure is! Alright, let's get our Walking Dead on.”
We put on the show, settled down on the big, plush sofa and started to enjoy the evening. As we had hoped, the sound of the show managed to drown out the strains of music coming through the walls, and soon we'd all but forgotten about the party going on in the apartment next to ours.
After we'd watched two episodes, Leslie started yawning, and her eyes looked as if they were about to close, with her eyelids hanging heavily.
“I'm tired, real tired,” she sighed. “All the effort of moving, carrying stuff, unpacking, cleaning… I think it's finally gotten to me. I’m gonna head to bed.”
“Aw, but, Les, we've just opened a second bottle of wine! And it's our first night together in our new place. You can't just fade out now!”
“Sorry, Bee, I'm just dead tired. You know I haven't slept much the past few nights, and it’s really catching up to me.”
“Well, who am I gonna watch Game of Thrones with then?”
Leslie rolled her eyes. “C'mon, Brooke, you know I only half-watch that anyway. Most of the time I sleep through it. I’m not crazy about it like you are.”
I knew she was right—she didn't care much for it. She watched it with me kind of like I watched Sons of Anarchy with her. I didn’t much like it, but it was only fair.
“And besides, haven’t you already watched the entire thing twice? I don’t know why you wanna watch it again, seriously.”
“Because it's like—”
“The best show ever, I know, I know. You’ve told me like, a million times!” she laughed as she got up from the sofa. “But really, Brooke, I'm spent for the day. I feel like one of the zombies from The Walking Dead. The combination of wine and exhaustion over the past few days has really knocked me out. I'm off to bed, girl.”
“Alright, alright,” I conceded. “See you in the morning. Sleep well!”
“Will do. You, too, when you eventually make it to bed, Night Owl.”
I watched her trudge off to her room and sighed as she shut the door quietly behind her. Here I was, sitting alone in front of the TV on a Friday night, with a bottle of wine. It all seemed just a little bit sad, suddenly. I tried to tell myself it wasn’t going to be every Friday night. Or is it? A shudder ran down my spine at the thought. I brushed it off as quickly as I could and started up an episode of Game of Thrones.
Leslie was right; I'd already watched it all the way through, twice. But hey, it really was my favorite show. I'm a sucker for a story with unexpected surprises and twists. And boy did this series have them. More than that, it had genuinely interesting and fascinating characters set in a world full of sorcery and magic. I have kind of been a closet geek-girl since I was a little kid, but because fantasy and sci-fi had always been seen as such a teenage boy kind of genre, I'd never had any female friends who were as into it as I was. Well, to be honest, who were into it period. Oddly enough, none of the guys I'd ever dated had been into it, either. Especially Andrew. He pretty much loathed it with a passion. We had never been able to relate at all on that level.
Come to think of it, we didn’t really relate on a lot of levels.
In fact, I felt like I could relate to fictional characters more than I ever could with Andrew. Arya Stark, for example—a headstrong, quick-witted girl who valued intelligence and independence far more than the conventional “girly” things, like beauty and dresses. That was me. I didn’t need to get all dolled up to feel like I could impress a man. I wanted more than a physical connection. Arya was also thrust into a totally different world in which she was moved around from place to place and had to rely on her own determination and grit to survive. She never got the chance to have any close friends because they were removed from her life by forces beyond her control. I could relate. I could totally relate.
I got comfy on the sofa and pressed play. At that moment, I heard noise outside in the hall. I paused the show so that I could hear what was going on a bit more clearly.
It was Emerson and Chris, of course, and their bevy of bimbos. They were all laughing raucously and talking in loud, boisterous voices. Clearly, they wer
e all wasted. Probably heading out to continue partying at a club somewhere. I shook my head, although a little bit of… something I couldn’t quite explain… twisted inside me at the thought of those girls pawing at Emerson's hard, muscular body and grinding against him on the dance floor--
Stop it, Brooke! I took a deep swig of wine and resumed playing the show. Game of Thrones would keep me company and entertain my mind in a far more effective manner than any brainless muscle-head. Let them go out and get wasted. Whatever.
I leaned back and let myself get whisked off into a different universe.
That is until I fell asleep.
I'm not sure how late it was when I woke up, but it must have been some time in the early hours of the morning. I felt a little disoriented, a shock of sudden panic hit me waking up in a completely unfamiliar place. It took a few seconds before I remembered I was in my own place, my new apartment.
I turned off the TV, heaved myself off the sofa, and stumbled to my bathroom, still feeling the effects from all the wine I'd drank. I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and got undressed. Then I slipped into bed, snuggling up to my sheets and pillow, the only familiar things in this new room.
And that’s when I heard it.
Bumping. Vigorous, regular, rhythmic bumping. It was coming from the room next to mine. Something was being knocked against the wall, with quite a fair amount of force. I listened for a second until I heard yet another sound on top of it.
“Oh, my God. Oh. My. God.”
It was the bimbo I'd met by the dumpster. I recognized that shrill, annoying voice. She was moaning and gasping. It was muffled by the wall, but there was no doubt that it was her voice. I also heard a guy's voice grunting and groaning with both effort and pleasure.
Awesome. They're having sex. Right next to me. Emerson and that damn slut.
I was too tired to deal with it. I didn't want to even picture the slightest hint of what was happening on the other side of the wall. I got up, got Tylenol PM out of my medicine drawer, and washed it down with the last of the wine. I then plugged my headphones into my iPhone, put on some Adele, and let her voice drown out the sounds of… whatever was going on next door. Soon, I drifted off into a deep sleep, oblivious to what was happening on the other side of the wall.
Chapter Four
Emerson
“Come on, bro, smash that shot! Smash it!”
Chris' eyes were practically bulging out of his head as he urged me on. He was seriously amped. He'd hit that point, as he always seemed to do, where the caffeine-infused energy drink and the high levels of alcohol in his blood had perfectly synthesized. And when Chris hit that point, a party really got started.
Me, on the other hand… Well, I just wasn't feeling it. In fact, I hadn't been feeling it for a while. I couldn’t tell you why. Partying had kind of been my life since my senior year in high school. I’d trudge through the school week living for the weekend, and I only got more into that lifestyle once I started college. But, lately, it had lost its appeal. Partying just didn't make me feel good anymore; didn't make me feel alive the way it had in the past.
However, peer pressure is a tough thing to resist—especially when it's coming from someone like Chris who doesn't seem to understand that politely declining his invitation should mean the conversation is over. So, with Chris egging me on, I downed yet another shot of Jägermeister. I shuddered as the fiery, medicinal-tasting liquid burned its way down the back of my throat and added itself to the sloshy mix of booze already in my stomach. I was feeling more than a little nauseated.
To my right, the biting annoyance of a shrill cheer reverberated in my head. Melissa.
“Woo! Way to go, Emerson!” she shouted, her grating voice caustic in my ears.
She tried to drape an arm around my shoulder, but I slipped away from her hold, mumbling that I wasn’t feeling so great. I didn't give her the chance to complain about it; instead, I just hurried off to the bathroom as fast as I could, stepped inside, and locked the door behind me.
Once inside, I closed the toilet seat lid, sat down, and put my head in my hands, resting my elbows on my knees for support. The night was turning out to be a real shit show. The friends Melissa had brought along were even more vapid and annoying than she was—something I didn't think possible, but there they were. It seemed I was wrong.
Sitting there trying to avoid Melissa’s advances I was beginning to feel worse and worse. I wondered if it was the booze or if I was actually coming down with something. Whichever it was, the beginnings of what was sure to be a bitch of a headache started to throb behind my eyes and my throat was scratchy and raw. I hoped it was the Jägermeister. With a new semester starting in a couple of days, I couldn't afford to get sick. I really wanted to nail the upcoming semester, especially seeing as I had failed to do that in the previous few semesters—most likely because of Chris, Melissa, and the relentless partying I couldn't escape, at least not while I lived with Chris.
A knock on the door jolted me from my thoughts. “Are you okay in there, Emerson? You're not throwing up or something, are you?”
Oh, God. Melissa. She was harder to get rid of than herpes. I paused before replying. I was about to say I was okay, but maybe if I said I was throwing up, she'd leave me alone. That strategy, however, could totally backfire… and I mean totally. I raced through the possible scenarios in my head, the worst being that she might insist on staying to “take care of me” while I was feeling sick, thereby setting up the exact situation she wanted—me alone with her while everyone else went out to the club.
That wasn’t a chance I was willing to take.
“I'm fine. I'm not sick,” I called out. “Just, uh, there's a lot of beer in me that's all trying to, uh, get out at once, you know? Sometimes these things can take a while if you know what I mean?”
A half-muffled giggle sounded through the door. “Alright, sexy,” she said, her voice slurred with drunkenness. “I'll be waiting for you with an ice-cold beer when you're done! Don't keep a lady waiting too long now, huh?”
“Uh, yeah. Alright.” I shook my head and sucked in a deep breath. There was no easy way out of it. I was going to have to go out there, get smashed, and hope I retained enough composure to keep Melissa away from me as much as I could for the rest of the evening.
I sat in the bathroom considering that it might be time for a change; thinking that I may need to start checking out other apartments or, more specifically, other roommates. An instant pang of guilt stabbed at me the moment the thought flew through me. Chris and I had been friends for most of our lives. He was like the brother I never had. Growing up in the suburbs with parents who both had full-time jobs and no siblings to do things with after school had made for a pretty lonely childhood. So, when Chris had moved into the house across the street from ours when I was seven years old, he had been a godsend. He and I had just clicked; we'd grown up together, been best friends. So, of course, it had been a natural progression for us to move in together when we both got into the same college.
Lately, though, I felt like we'd been outgrowing each other. Our priorities were different. We were growing up, turning into different people; people who didn’t see life the same way we once had. It wasn't that I'd been a nerd when it came to school—I certainly had not. My grades had always been sufficient, but they hadn't been nearly as good as they could have been if I'd actually put a little effort into my schoolwork. But I’d never found anything in school that really interested me. That is, until last semester when I took my first physics class. I changed my major because of that class. It had unearthed a passion I felt had been lying dormant in me for years.
Chris, on the other hand, had always loathed studying and anything academic, really. Being in college seemed to only amplify his hatred of books and learning. He was at the extreme end of the partying spectrum. I didn’t feel like I was at the other, but I was tired of the constant parties. There had to be a balance.
I suddenly thought of the new girl next
door, Brooke. Maybe she was the other extreme. She didn't look at all like Melissa or any of her airhead friends. There was nothing about Brooke that was textbook superficial—tanned, toned, curvy, and full only where it counted and slim everywhere else. Very artificial. Brooke was gorgeous. She had a natural beauty that was far more subtle than Melissa's. That fact alone made her more appealing in my eyes. Not only that, she seemed smart. Not just book smart, but she seemed to be genuinely intelligent, which is something that absolutely nobody could make the mistake of saying about Melissa and her friends.
But she came across as almost robotic. I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d ever let loose like we’re expected to do as college students. So, even though the appeal was there, I found myself hardening toward her. Because, as attractive as she was, Brooke seemed cold. I'm talking ice-cold. Yes, she was smart, but I had to wonder if she had any personality whatsoever. To be honest, aside from the quick glimpse I’d gotten of her laughing at the dumpsters earlier, all I'd seen from her was an aloofness that could only be described as stuck-up. And just thinking about that kind of canceled out anything that may have been stirring inside me. Even though I wasn’t into partying like I had been, I didn’t want to be robotic. Like I said, there had to be a balance. I just needed to do less partying.
But less would be the key word. Less, not none. I mean, come on! College wasn't only about expanding your mind and working hard for a degree. It was also about expanding your social circle, trying new things, and having some fun before you got into the routine of work and having a real job and real responsibilities.
Didn't Brooke get that?
Maybe not. She was, I guessed, one of those strait-laced prudes who did nothing but study during their college years. The kind of girls who turned their noses up at guys like me, guys who actually liked to cut loose, have a bit of fun and live a little once in a while.
I shook my head. It was ridiculous to think there was even a possibility there might be something between her and me. We were just too different. Regardless of any attraction that might have existed between us, it wasn’t enough.