by Mia Sosa
I dig into the oyakodon bowl, a mixture of rice, chicken, eggs, and scallions, while Ashley gorges on katsudon, murmuring her appreciation.
She uses her chopsticks to hold out a piece of fried pork. “Want some?”
Without thinking, I lean forward and part my lips. Our eyes meet as she drops the meat into my mouth. She watches me chew, her gaze never wavering. An unspoken battle ensues, although I’m not sure what’s at stake. All I know is I don’t want to avert my eyes first. Maybe I want her to think she doesn’t scare me, which isn’t true at all. She terrifies me. When I’m with her, it’s hard to remember why I shouldn’t pursue her. When she reciprocates my interest, like I think she’s doing now, it’s damn near impossible to remember anything at all.
Fuck it. I know when to stand down. I take a big sip of water and clear my throat. “Let’s discuss how to make this work.”
She sets the chopsticks across the rim of her bowl and places her elbows on the table, steepling her fingers. “Okay.”
“Let’s begin with what might annoy us. That’s usually a good place to start. Complete this sentence with the first thing that pops into your head. It really annoyed me when my roommate—”
I gesture for her to finish.
“Left me on the toilet with no tissue within arm’s reach.” She crosses her eyes as soon as the words are out.
“I can’t unsee it.”
She laughs as she picks up her bowl again. “You asked.”
“Okay, okay,” I say on a chuckle. “That won’t be a problem. You’ll have your own bathroom. It’ll be up to you to ensure you have the appropriate . . . supplies.”
“What about you?” she asks. “I’m guessing you have a long list.”
“I should be offended by that remark, but it’s true. I hate when people leave dishes in the sink. There’s a dishwasher for a reason. Also, it’s not cool to leave only a gulp of milk in the container. My roommates in college did that all the time. It pissed me off. If there’s not enough to fill a cereal bowl, it’s time to buy another carton.”
“What else? There’s more, right?”
“I hate the smell of microwave popcorn. It makes my stomach turn. I’m not saying you shouldn’t eat it. Just give me a warning, and I’ll steer clear of the kitchen when you make it.”
“What about your hours? I like to play my guitar in the evenings. That okay?”
“I didn’t know you still played.”
She drops her gaze, and her hands disappear underneath the table. “It’s just a hobby.”
It’s not like Ashley to be shy about anything, and I’m tempted to lift her chin and ask why she’s hiding this aspect of herself from me. But touching Ashley would be dangerous, so talking will have to do. “That’s quite a hobby. You were what? Twelve? Thirteen when you started? I’ve probably had twenty hobbies in that span.”
She perks up. “Oh, yeah, like what?”
Interesting that she sidestepped my question. I’ll let it slide for now. Besides, there’s more than one way to get an answer. “Golf.”
“How’d that work out for you?”
After taking another sip of water, I say, “It didn’t. Got into it mostly for my job. But golfing requires talking with your partners, and I didn’t have the patience for it.”
“You’re an agent. How can you not have the patience for talking?”
I shrug because I honestly don’t know the answer. I’ve asked myself the same question many times in recent years. “Hard to explain. The conversations just felt fake. Forced. And so damn boring. I’m not a golfer, but I know how to advocate for my clients. You want to talk to me about industry trends? Fine. You want to talk to me about handicaps? Big yawn.”
“Did anything stick?”
“Cooking.”
She sets her bowl down, places one of her hands on her chest, and grabs my wrist with the other. “Stop. You cook?”
My gaze zeroes in on the way her soft fingers close around my arm, their warmth wrapping around me in a way I suspect she didn’t intend. I give her a self-satisfied smile, hoping to appear unaffected by her touch. “I do.”
“Like what? Scrambled eggs? Spaghetti?”
“More like eggs Benedict and bucatini with mushrooms.”
She covers her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Enough, please. Any more of that and I’ll orgasm right here.”
More images than I can process flash in my brain. Ashley bent over a table, my body covering hers. Ashley on top of me, her long legs tangling with mine. Ashley coming long and hard, her body shuddering underneath me. And given what I heard last night, I know the soundtrack that would be playing in the background. It’s too much to handle. The circulating air changes course, pushing all the coolness out of the room. I take a long breath, pulling the remaining heat into my lungs, and my body tenses. “That. You can’t do that.”
She flutters her eyes and then regards me with innocence under the veil of her long lashes. “Do what?”
The vixen. She knows what she’s doing, and she doesn’t possess an ounce of shame about it. “Make sexual references around me. That’s not who we are. Together, I mean.”
She’s the sweet, shy girl who used to trail after Carter and me when we played hoops in the front yard. Except she isn’t. Not anymore. When I wasn’t looking, she grew up. Picked up a ton of sass—and a mouth made for long, slow kisses. It’s unsettling in the best and worst ways.
She compresses her face like she’s tasted something sour. “Who are we then?”
“We’re old family friends. Roomies for the short-term. Let’s not make it awkward.”
She blows out a long breath, pretending to be put out by my practical suggestion. “Well, if we’re talking about awkward, let’s address the elephant in the room.” Under her breath, she mutters, “Literally.”
I lean in to hear her better. “What?”
“C’mon, Julian. Your lack of underwear, that’s what. Your dick was practically swinging at me like a bat when you walked in here. For a minute, I considered ducking.”
My head snaps back. I’m not entirely sure I’ve heard her correctly. Did Ashley just say something about my junk? I shake my head as I try to regain my mental footing. This is her superpower—keeping me off balance—and I don’t like it. So now it’s clear. Whether or not I freeball, while Ashley’s here, this place will no longer be my sanctuary.
Chapter Five
Ashley
TOO MUCH?
Maybe. But Julian needs to think of me as more than Carter’s younger sister, and what better way to spur that process than to discuss his dangling private parts?
Julian works his eyebrows in a fascinating display of confusion, embarrassment, and disbelief. Up, down, scrunched together, all in under four seconds. He drops his head, avoiding my gaze, and then he rises, his bowl and glass in hand. “On that ridiculous note, I think I’ll head to bed.”
What? He’s not even going to address it? I place a hand on his wrist to stop him, momentarily distracted by the strong pulse that beats under my fingers. I take so much pleasure in touching him, he should charge me for the privilege.
He doesn’t say a word as he slowly sits back down, his mouth agape and his brows furrowed.
“I was just kidding, Julian. Sort of. The point is, we should be talking about states of undress, too. Like, I’ll promise not to run out here in my bra and panties, and you’ll promise not to grab a beer from the fridge in your skivvies or something. Isn’t that how this should go?”
He swallows, and my gaze settles on his Adam’s apple. I’m tempted to proposition him this minute. To ask that for just one night, he’ll pretend I’m not Ashley and think of me instead as a stranger he desires. But Julian’s too pragmatic to accept such a proposal. He’d say no without much thought and avoid me for the rest of my stay. If I’m going to have any chance with him, I’ll have to get him to the point where he’s incapable of rational thought. And that’s going to take time. And machinations.
He shakes his head as though he’s been pulled out of a trance, and then he sighs as he scrubs his face. “We’ll both agree to be fully dressed when we’re in the common areas, okay?”
“That works. And I won’t be here for long stretches of time anyway. I’m too junior to know my flight schedule well in advance, but most weeks I’ll be gone four or five days.”
Julian smiles at the news. I’m not bothered by his obvious relief. It means there’s something about my presence that makes him uncomfortable. And given the way he was staring at my mouth only minutes ago, I’m guessing the discomfort relates to our mutual but unspoken attraction. Well, that’s what I’m hoping at least.
He rises from the seat, taking his bowl and glass with him. “This will work out fine, then. During the work week, I’m usually not home until ten or so, and most weekends I’ve got somewhere to be. We’ll be like two ships passing in the night.”
Ah, Julian. That’s unlikely. Because if all goes according to my plan, we’ll be like two ships colliding in the night. And hopefully, we’ll both get wrecked.
IT TAKES ME less than twenty-four hours to break our agreement, but I didn’t orchestrate this, I swear.
Yes, I have a perfectly logical explanation for walking through the house in a tiny towel. A fellow flight attendant doubles as a beauty consultant, and a few weeks ago, she convinced me to try an organic cleanser. A cleanser that requires refrigeration. He wasn’t supposed to be here—it’s just past seven in the evening after all—but there he is, staring at me from the doorway because I’m wearing the linen closet equivalent of booty shorts. One day after promising not to walk around in my underwear. Well, I’m not even wearing undies, but I get it: spirit of the agreement and such.
“Sorry! I just needed to grab something,” I say.
For a few seconds, he peruses my face and body, and the heat in his eyes blazes across my skin. I swear time suspends, as if I could bridge the distance between us, steal a kiss, and return to my original spot before he blinks an eye.
After a shake of his head, he turns around. “I’ll give you a minute.”
I scramble to the fridge, grab the bottle, and hightail it out of the room, yelling “all clear” over my shoulder. As I wash my face, I listen for evidence of his movements. He runs the kitchen sink and slams a few cabinet doors. A minute later, when I collapse onto the bed, my face freshly scrubbed and moisturized, I hear a soft click, suggesting he’s retreated to his bedroom.
Given Julian’s reaction to seeing me close to bare, I suspect subtlety is the only way to get him to let his guard down around me. If he senses a threat, he’ll institute measures to protect himself against it. And one thing’s now clear: I’m a threat.
I throw on my roomiest pair of sweatpants—the ones I usually wear the second day of my cycle—and a loose T-shirt. Then I pull my acoustic guitar from its case and tiptoe to the living area, figuring the sound will be less obtrusive to Julian if I’m not propped against the wall that abuts his.
After sitting cross-legged at one end of Julian’s plush navy couch, I strum a few chords, tightening the strings to get my prized instrument in tune. I sing the first verse of the song I wrote when my roommate accused me of trying to seduce her boyfriend—by “parading” in my own kitchen in sleep clothes:
You never got to know me
Never really wanted to
You thought you had me figured out
All along my heart was true
You chose him over me
I didn’t want to face
That in your mind
I’d always be second place
I shouldn’t have been surprised that Elise sided with her boyfriend. We’d maintained a healthy distance, never pretending to be best friends. It was a convenient arrangement, born of our need to share living expenses and nothing more. Notwithstanding the evidence of her man’s wandering eyes, she wanted to believe he was as wrapped up in her as she was in him. His unwelcome hands on my ass fucked up the narrative.
The day it all went down, I used my artistic license and poured my frustration into these lyrics, accompanying them with a D-minor chord progression that matched my sullen mood. Tonight, I tweak the song’s opening, making slight alterations that don’t improve it in any meaningful way. Stasis. It’s suffocating. Makes me want to spring to my feet and move around. Sighing overdramatically, I place the guitar beside me. I never finished the song. And maybe I never will.
“Don’t stop.”
I look up and find Julian leaning against the entryway, one hand resting above him on the doorframe. Seeing him like this, stripped of his power suit and dressed in sweats and a loose T-shirt, I want to peel his other layers and get to the man beneath the polish. What does he like to do? Who does he spend time with? Is he happy? What drives him? I hope my newfound access to him will provide the answers to these questions. For now, though, I need to avoid playing this song. It captures a moment of vulnerability, a state I don’t like sharing with anyone.
I wave him off. “Oh, I was just messing around.”
He pads across the floor and joins me on the couch, tucking one leg under him and angling his body in my direction. Then he grabs a slate gray pillow and places it on his lap.
For a moment I’m consumed by other questions: Is he still letting his balls hang free? Is that the reason for the pillow?
“Why do you do that?” he asks.
Obsess about his balls? Not sure. Although that’s probably not what he’s referring to, right? Bad, Ashley. Heel. “Do what?”
“Minimize your guitar playing.”
“I don’t,” I say in an assured voice.
“You do,” he says with equal confidence. “You said it was a hobby yesterday. Today you’re just messing around. Yet you’ve been at it for more than a decade.”
“Hmm. I never noticed.” And I’m surprised he did. The men in my life tend to be oblivious to anything unrelated to their own needs and wants. “The deal is, I’m composing a song, but I’m stuck.”
“How many songs have you composed?”
“A hundred, maybe?”
He leans forward, his eyes widening as if he’s looking at me through a microscopic lens, and I freeze, my limbs rigid from being pinned to his petri dish. Somehow, I tamp down the urge to flee the room. “What? What’s that look for?”
“One hundred songs?” he says, his voice rising an octave.
Oh. That. I shrug because I know the crap I’ve composed. “Give or take. I don’t know for sure. And some of them are terrible, believe me. I wrote a dozen my thirteenth summer alone. So much angst.”
He massages his chin as he regards me with a pensive expression. “That may be, but you don’t write over one hundred songs for the fun of it. Ever thought of pursuing it as a career?”
“No.”
He waits for more, giving me an encouraging nod.
“Well, maybe. Okay, yes, I did, for like two seconds. But I dismissed the idea a long time ago.”
“Why?”
“Because I have realistic expectations. How many singer-songwriters do you know?”
“One.”
“Other than me.”
He lowers his chin, a hint of a smile softening the hard angles of his face. “None.”
“Well, there you go.” I point to the guitar in my lap. “This won’t pay the bills. Besides, Carter’s the star in our family.”
“But it’s your dream. I can tell.”
“How?”
“Because you’ve kept at it for over a decade. Because you’ve written over a hundred songs in that time. Because your face lights up when you strum that guitar. And when we were going over the house rules, your one true concern was whether you’d bother me if you played.”
His words alone move me, but pair them with his soothing tone, and I’m swoony putty in his hands. I wish I could lay my head in his lap, close my eyes, and ask him to repeat what he just said. But that would be weird, right? Yeah, of course it would. More to the
point, Julian’s picking up on things I’d never notice on my own. Makes me wonder what kind of expression I wear when I’m playing.
“When I was a teenager, I wanted to perform at local festivals and fairs. To get a sense of what it would be like. But my mom was busy with her counseling duties at Weston, and my dad was shuttling Carter to auditions in New York. Once, I even worked up the nerve to perform in the middle school talent show. Neither of my parents showed up. Said they had the wrong date in their calendar.” I grip the neck of the guitar and fiddle with the tuners, suppressing the grimace that usually accompanies that memory. “Anyway, it just . . . never happened for me. I’m good with that.”
And besides, how likely would it be for my family to have two successful children in the entertainment industry? It happens, sure, but it’s still rare.
“What about teaching guitar? To kids? Or other adults like you who are scared to follow their dreams?”
“Julian,” I warn, my voice low and tight.
He takes a deep breath and releases it. “Fine. But I know one thing. If you ever decide to pursue music as a career, you’ll need an upgrade. It’s looking a bit battered.”
I scoop up the guitar with both hands and wrap my arms around it. “Hush your mouth. This is a Taylor 300 series. Sitka spruce stop. Mahogany neck. The company doesn’t make that combination anymore.”
Julian regards me with a raised brow. “I’m guessing there’s a good reason for that.”
Yes, time and the sun’s rays have aged the wood, and okay, the metallic star stickers I placed on it each time I finished a song are peeling at the edges, but she’s a beauty. Caressing the sides and top, I whisper, “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, Melanie. You’re special, and anyone who can’t see that isn’t worth your time.”
“Melanie? You named your guitar Melanie?”
“I did. She’s named after my favorite teacher in grade school, Ms. Adams. I was eleven when I got her, mind you. Now take it back.”
He holds up his hands. “All right, all right, I take it back. She’s a classic. Would you and Melanie be willing to play something for me? A song that you’re proud of?”