Roomies

by Christina Lauren

I feel Calvin shift behind me. “I am really sorry that we didn’t involve you in the decision—”

  “But it wasn’t up to him,” I interrupt, glancing over my shoulder before looking back at my uncles. “I made it clear Calvin can handle his family, I can handle mine.”

  Robert looks up at me, eyes searching. “You’re legally married?”

  I nod.

  “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.” Jeff closes his eyes and takes a calming breath before reaching for his coat and folding it over his arm. “I’m going home to take a bottle of blood pressure medicine and try not to call your mother—my sister—who will want to kill me when she finds out.” Turning to Robert, he adds, “We’ll discuss this when you get home. Which—considering you have a new guitarist—will be early today.”

  Robert nods obediently and walks Jeff into the hallway. While he tells him goodbye—speaking too softly for us to hear—Calvin and I share a grimace.

  That could have gone better.

  With Jeff gone, Robert closes the door and moves to his desk, motioning for us to take the seats opposite him. Hands folded neatly on the chaos of portfolios and résumés in front of him, he looks crankily at each of us in turn. “Okay. You did this, so we may as well deal with it.”

  I . . . think we pulled it off?

  I mean, Robert is furious with me—with both of us—but I’m not homeless or on a plane back to Des Moines, so I’m calling it a win. Best of all? Calvin has officially been offered the part for Possessed and even if Robert won’t admit outright that he’s ecstatic, he’s droopy with obvious relief. After we’d gone over the details, he called in the rest of the team. He was practically vibrating with creative energy. I did that.

  Mission accomplished.

  But we aren’t done yet. Despite his anger at all of us, Jeff still forwarded the email he got from Sam Dougherty, his childhood friend who now works at USCIS—US Citizenship and Immigration Services. That’s heartening, at least. But my mood wilts when I count the number of attachments; it feels like there are a thousand forms for us to fill out.

  Calvin and I spend the rest of the morning gathering birth certificates and medical records and copying them in triplicate. By that afternoon, the coffee table is stacked with tidy piles of official documents. We haven’t even started the process of filling anything out yet, and my brain is goo.

  Calvin finds me blinking into the open kitchen cabinet, staring at the mugs there. I was listening to an audiobook as I put dishes away and boom—surreal slaps me across the face: I see Calvin’s Juilliard mug on the shelf next to the one Davis gave me for Christmas last year that reads WORLD’S MOST OKAYEST SISTER.

  “Everything all right?” he asks, eyeing me.

  “Just having a momentary freak-out. I’m great now.”

  Calvin laughs. “I hear that.” He picks up an apple, absently polishing it with the hem of his T-shirt. I keep my eyes at chin level. Mostly. “Do you think everything with your uncles will be okay? Jeff seemed pissed off.”

  I close the cabinet door and turn toward the fridge. We stopped for some groceries on the walk home, and I grab two beers now. I don’t care what time it is, it’s five o’clock somewhere.

  “Jeff might take a little longer to calm down, but the great thing about family is they have to forgive me.” I hand Calvin a beer. “I think we both need this.”

  We crack them open and head back to the task in the living room. Calvin takes a seat at my side on the couch, stretching his legs out on the table in front of him.

  He’s not wearing any shoes, and has these screaming purple argyle socks that I immediately adore. Purple socks, happy trail, electrocution hair. I have this dream man in my apartment, and he is distracting as hell.

  I can’t wait to see how tonight’s sex dream plays out.

  I reach for my laptop and wake it up with a swipe of my finger across the trackpad. It’s been ages since I’ve looked at this thing, let alone turned it on. The expensive novel-writing software sits in the toolbar with a little book icon reminding me how much I suck.

  Ignoring it as usual, I open my email instead. “Jeff’s note said there are forms for each of us. Did you get a link?”

  Calvin takes a sip of his beer and sits back to click through to his account. “Form I-485. Check.”

  “I’m I-130,” I say. “He has a note that we can file these two concurrently, and fill out the rest of the package for him to send off once we get the initial approval. There’s also another list of things we need to make copies of, and a to-do list.”

  Calvin looks over at me and I try to ignore the way the lamp behind him makes the tips of his eyelashes glow. I like seeing him on my couch. I like knowing what color his socks are, and what his sleepy face looks like before he’s had his tea.

  He scratches his chin. “A to-do list?”

  “You’ll need a medical exam. And until you’re officially on the books, I need to provide pay stubs to show I can support us both.” I let out a hearty guffaw. “Which means Brian will need to give me a raise. If you think he was great today you should hang around for that conversation. It’s going to be a doozy.” I tap my pencil to my lips, reading. “And we’ll need documents that prove our marriage is bona fide. His suggestions are a shared lease—easy enough—joint club memberships . . .” I look over at him. “Do you go to the gym?”

  An amused curve shapes his lips and he folds his arms across his chest in that way all guys do when they want to emphasize the guns. “I do. I can add you to my membership, unless you have one of your own and want to add me?”

  “Just go ahead and add me to yours,” I say quickly, as if I don’t routinely have a king-size Snickers for lunch and view treadmills as a mindless way to run and never actually get anywhere. “He suggests we have emails and texts between us, so I guess we should do that?”

  “Texts like ‘Can you pick up a gallon of milk?’—or like . . . personal?”

  I absolutely can’t look at him right now. I fix my gaze on the far wall. “We want to be convincing . . . so a mix of both?”

  He pulls out his ChapStick, drawing my attention back to his mouth. He’s only about two feet away from me. I’ve never had the chance to look at his hands close up before. His nails are trimmed—thank God—his fingers long, but not delicate. He’s wearing my ring.

  “To be clear,” he says slowly, recapping the lip balm, “so they don’t arrive and scare the hell out of you, we’re talking about I can’t wait to get your kit off kind of personal?”

  My heart stands up, waves the white flag.

  “Uhhh . . . yeah, I think so.” I immediately return to the safety of my bullet-point list while he picks up his phone, typing something. “What else . . . ? Letters or cards congratulating us on our marriage, bills in both our names like utilities, credit cards, that sort of thing.”

  My phone buzzes with a text from Calvin. Are you coming home before work?

  I type in casually, I’ll be home in about 30.

  He replies, Good. I want to taste you again before you leave.

  I choke, sliding my phone back down on the coffee table. “That’s—good job. I . . . approve.”

  Honestly . . . how often has he done this?

  He laughs, his face a little pink. “I feel sort of bad making you go to all this trouble.”

  I wave off his concern. “It won’t be bad. Some sexting, a couple more copies, a couple yes-or-no questionnaires. Honestly, how hard can it be?”

  Shoot me in the face.

  Have you ever tried to do your own tax returns? Immigration paperwork is a lot like that, but with less math and far more opportunities for perjury.

  My form was easy enough to fill out—names, addresses, and former employers. But Calvin’s are so in-depth that even when we split them it takes over an hour to get through the first two.

  I look up at him from the other side of the coffee table. I’m on my second beer of the afternoon and my pencil is lost somewhere in my hair. “Can you list pas
t and present memberships or affiliations with every organization, fund, foundation, party, club, society, or group you’ve been a part of since the age of sixteen, along with the location, nature, and dates of said affiliation?”

  He stares blankly, exhausted. “I don’t even know the name of the band I was in last year, let alone from when I was sixteen.”

  I check the form before glancing up at him again. “You better remember, because it wants that, too.”

  Calvin leans back and runs a hand through his hair, laughing. An apple core sits on a plate in front of him, along with a handful of orange peels, the empty wrappers of two granola bars, and a bit of crust from one peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Calvin revelation: he eats a lot.

  I move on to the next section. “Tell me about your parents.”

  “They’re called Padraig and Marina. They’re . . .” He trails off, shrugging. “They’re nice.”

  “Padraig?” I say, doing my best to repeat his pronunciation.

  He turns to face me, tucking a purple-socked foot underneath him. His hair is standing straight up, almost as if it is as delighted as he is by my mistake. “Pat-rick,” he repeats in an obnoxious American accent, emphasizing each letter this time.

  I feel my face heat. “Oh. Patrick. I am an idiot.”

  “You Americans speak at the back of your mouth and crowd all your consonants together. Where you might say ‘How are you?’ ” he says, now using an almost perfect American accent, “an Irishman would simply say, ‘Hawarya?’ ”

  My voice comes out shaky and soft: “I like that.”

  Close your mouth, Holland.

  He continues as if he hasn’t noticed my swoon. “The accent is stronger some times than others—like when I’ve had a few pints and I have to remind myself to slow down. If we were in Galway, you wouldn’t understand a thing I said.”

  “I’m sure we sound fairly boring in comparison.”

  He gives a slight shake of his head. “I like the way you sound, though.”

  Oh.

  I clear my throat and look down to the forms.

  We spend the next fifteen minutes going through his phone, looking at photos of his family while I write down the full names and birth dates of all his siblings. He’s twenty-seven, the oldest of four: Brigid is twenty-five and closest to Calvin, Finnian is twenty-three, and Molly is nineteen.

  “So is the birth order rule true?” I ask him. “Are you the dependable oldest child? The conscientious, overachieving, structured . . .”

  He laughs and tips his beer to his lips to take a swallow. “I’m here on an expired visa and had to marry a stranger to get the job of my dreams. ‘Conscientious’ might not fit me to a T.” Pausing, he scratches his jaw. “But yeah, I was a know-it-all with them, and a bit of a bossy little shite, especially when our parents weren’t around. But they retaliated sometimes. Once, a girl I fancied was outside with a friend in the street, and Brigid and Finn stripped me bare and pushed me out the front door.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Eh, I’m sure I deserved it.” He tilts his chin to me. “What about you, baby of six? Are you the classic youngest child?”

  “I’m sure Davis would say I am. I mean, Robert created a job for me and my uncle pays most of my rent, so . . .” I trail off and motion to the room around us, as if to say see? “I’d say that’s a yes.”

  “I don’t know,” he says, elbows on his knees while he looks at me. “This feels pretty selfless. Giving up half your space and putting yourself at risk.”

  “I think you’re giving me too much credit.” I busy myself straightening a pile of papers. Guilt is like a little stopwatch tick-tick-ticking away in the back of my head. In my heart, I know I did this for Robert. But having Calvin here so close . . . and feeling like I’ve finally done something useful for the production . . . I can’t deny that I also did it at least a little for me.

  “Thomas,” Calvin mutters, tapping his list of my siblings’ names with the tip of his pencil. “Bram, Matthew, Olivia, Davis, Holland.”

  “That’s right,” I say, and stand to get us each another beer. “Thomas is an ophthalmologist in Des Moines. Bram is a high school math teacher in Fargo. Matthew is in tech support at the University of Iowa . . .”

  He cuts in: “Davis lives in Wisconsin, and Olivia is . . . ?” He shuffles through his notes, but I know he won’t find anything.

  “Who knows,” I tell him, returning with the bottles. “Last week she wanted to go to massage school. Before that, she decided she was going to turn Mom and Dad’s land into an organic farm.”

  “Every family needs one of those.” He points his thumb to his chest.

  “Some of these yes-or-no questions are really easy.” I motion for him to hand me his laptop, and he does, almost gladly.

  “Cheers.” He leans back again, wiggling his purple socks.

  “Never been arrested . . .” I click the box marked NO and move on to the next one. “While in the United States, do you plan to engage in espionage?”

  He gives me an evil smirk.

  I grin, and then look back to the form. “Plan to engage in any activity a purpose of which is opposition to, or the control or overthrow of, the Government of the United States, by force, violence, or other unlawful means?”

  He pretends to think, and I move on. “Have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” He shakes his head and I click the correct box. “Do you intend to practice polygamy in the United States?”

  “Let’s see how this one goes first.”

  Butterflies twist into a tornado inside me. “Within the past ten years, have you been a prostitute or procured anyone for prostitution, or do you intend to engage in such activities in the future?”

  “I’m trying to cut back.”

  He can’t see over my shoulder, and I know this could be a golden opportunity to get a little Calvin info. “Have you ever conspired to engage in, or do you intend to engage in any form of terrorist activity?”

  “No.”

  “Counterfeiting?”

  “No.”

  “When was your last relationship?”

  He stops with his beer halfway to his mouth. “It wants to know that?”

  I hold my hands up in mock innocence. “I didn’t make up the questions.”

  “Erm, a while ago.”

  I pause with my fingers hovering over the keys. “It wants a date.”

  “About ten months ago, I suppose. Though it wasn’t very serious.”

  “Have you ever joined or do you plan to ever join the mile-high club?”

  Calvin opens his mouth to answer, but seems to figure out what I’m doing. “You little shite!”

  I laugh, ducking the pillow he lobs in my direction.

  twelve

  More often than not, it’s me pounding at the door of Robert and Jeff’s apartment with arms full of groceries. But Friday night—three days after the wedding—Uncle Jeff shows up loaded down with takeout.

  Although he’s silently forwarded communications between us and Sam Dougherty, we haven’t spoken since the morning he left Robert’s office, fuming. Jeff and I have never gone this long in an anger-induced silence, and I’m so grateful to see him that I throw myself into his arms. More accurately, since he’s holding bags from Pure Thai Cookhouse, I hurl myself at him, pinning his free arm at his side with my non-casted one.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, taking a step back and swiping at my eyes. Calvin is there to rescue us and slips in, taking the food from him with a smile. Jeff nods in thanks before pulling me into a genuine hug.

  “You’re an idiot,” he says into my hair. “But I suppose you’re my idiot, and I’m pretty grateful for that.”

  I press my face into his dress shirt, smearing tears and mascara onto the blue-and-white-checkered cotton. “So you’re okay with all this?”

  “I’m definitely not okay.” He pulls back enough to swipe at my cheeks with his thumbs. “But I understand it a little better. There’s not
hing I wouldn’t do for him, either. Anyway,” he says, stepping back. “I come with an army.” He gives me a silent look of pleading.

  Robert is, of course, at the theater, but it’s true that Jeff isn’t alone. Behind him, Lulu holds up two bottles of tequila, and behind her is Gene, Lulu’s . . . bed-friend, holding a bag of limes and sporting the world’s most enormous mustache.

  I take the bag of limes from him. “Are you guessing my weight tonight?”

  Jeff laughs in a loud bark before heading into the kitchen, but Gene does a bewildered double take. “What?”

  “Do I get to shoot a water gun to knock down the ducks?”

  I see the moment he gets it because his giant mustache twitches under his suppressed grin. “I’ll take my limes home if you’re going to be sassy, miss.”

  “You look like an old-timey auction barker,” I say. “Or Yosemite Sam. I have this sudden urge to buy a few head of cattle.” Behind me, Calvin snickers.

  “You wish you could grow a ’stache like this.”

  I burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, I can’t even hear what you’re saying through that thing.”

  “I told him it’s awful.” Lulu tugs at it and Gene leans away.

  He smoothes it down proudly. “I’m so lazy, and this is much more low maintenance than shaving.”

  I don’t need to look that closely to see he’s clearly waxed and styled it with a comb. It’s really not an afterthought mustache; it’s the kind that a person chooses from a book on various mustache styles—the perfect accessory for his very carefully crafted I don’t care enough to even glance in the mirror look (which Lulu tells me takes him a long time in front of the mirror).

  Gene steps inside and Lulu stops in the open doorway. I don’t think I have to ask how she ended up coming along with Jeff tonight. “He called and yelled at you, didn’t he?”

  She leans in, pressing a kiss to my cheek. “He sure did. But I appeased him by sending him all the photos. He said I did a great job with your hair.”

  I laugh as she makes her way into the kitchen, and I close the door in time to see Jeff step up to Calvin.

  “I don’t believe we were properly introduced.” My uncle extends his hand. “And I want to apologize for being rude. Holland is my youngest niece, and more like a daughter to me, so I’m very protective of her.”