by Steph Nuss
***
After all of my things were unpacked and put away, everyone finally left. I jumped in the shower to wash away the sweat and grime of moving. Even though Justin’s place was nearly three times the size of mine, he only had one bathroom. We’d have to share, but that didn’t bother me since I grew up sharing with Trey. The vanity had his and hers sinks, and Justin had cleared out a few drawers and cabinets for my essentials. He also emptied one side of the shelf in the shower for my bathing items. When I noticed his during my shower, I couldn’t stop myself from smelling his shower gel. I’d spent years wondering what kind he used, basking in the scent that lingered around him all the time, and now I knew.
I chastised my curiosity during the remainder of my shower.
Smelling his stuff is not going to help you move on, Tessa! In fact, it’s kind of creepy.
Once I was finished, I hurried across the hall to my room, wrapped in a large, fluffy blue towel. I lotioned up and changed into a pair of yoga pants and a sweatshirt that hung off my shoulder. When I opened the door to my room, I heard the shower going again.
Great. Now, he’s showering.
My lady box grabbed her mic and hit it a few times to get my attention as images from my sex dream flashed in my mind. Now they were fusing with the fresh, clean scent of his shower gel that my olfactory senses had permanently memorized. I was turned on by the thought of him showering. Naked and alone. Touching himself. Standing in the same place that I’d just been naked.
Stop. It. Right. Now!
Turning my back toward the hall, I wandered around my room aimlessly, trying to rid my thoughts of Justin showering. I tidied up picture frames and other personal items that I’d unpacked earlier. Pretty soon, I found myself admiring my new room, since I really hadn’t had the time to do it earlier when everyone else was here. The walls were painted a light gray. The king-sized bed was much too big for me, but the pewter and cream-colored bedding was beautiful and plush, with its stylish pattern of stripes and leaves. The black tufted, upholstered headboard paired stunningly with the black furniture in the room. The dresser, nightstands, and desk all matched, with silver handles and intricate art carved into the dark wood. A gray and white area rug covered the light hardwood floors, adding much-needed warmth to the room.
“Do you like it?”
Turning my head at the sound of his voice, I found Justin standing barefoot in my doorway wearing light gray sweatpants and nothing else. He ran a hand through his shaggy, damp hair as his blue eyes smiled back at me. My eyes traveled down his ripped, lean torso to the delectable V etched into his firm hips. When I caught the outline in his pants, I stifled a groan and tried not to think about him going commando.
“I love it,” I replied, gazing around the room. “It’s about three times the size of my old room, but I wouldn’t change a thing.”
He laughed and leaned against the doorjamb, crossing his arms over his chest. “Are you hungry? I thought we could order something in if you’re interested.”
“Because you don’t have anything here to eat, right?” I teased.
“Yes, I’m terrible at shopping for food,” he admitted in an annoyed tone.
“That’s okay,” I giggled, walking toward him. “Because I’m really good at grocery shopping.”
Laughing, he led the way into the kitchen, which housed beautiful stainless steel appliances and white cabinets accented by gray soapstone countertops. His kitchen was a dream come true for me. The island added more counter space to cook: something I’d always wished I had more of at my place. I couldn’t wait to fill the fridge with food and start cooking in here.
Justin opened a small drawer, pulled out a handful of menus and laid them on the counter. My jaw dropped in shock at the number of choices spread out before me.
“Take your pick,” he offered, smiling.
“You have a drawer just for takeout menus?” I asked incredulously.
He hopped up on the counter and proudly stated, “Yep!”
I shook my head at him and shuffled through the menus until I finally found one from a place I’d never tried. “I’ve never eaten here before.”
“Really? This place is great,” he said, reaching for his cell phone. “What would you like?”
I leaned against the counter and smiled up at him. It was kind of cute to see him so excited for takeout, even though I wasn’t a huge fan of it. “What do you recommend?”
“Hmm, you’re not picky, so I’m going to suggest the grilled marinated chicken sandwich. It’s amazing.”
“Okay,” I said eagerly, my stomach rumbling at the thought of food. “What are you going to get?”
“The chipotle chicken wrap,” he replied with a smile as he began dialing the restaurant’s phone number. While he called in our order, I put the menus back in their drawer and couldn’t help noticing the high prices on most of them.
“It should be here in thirty minutes,” he said, hopping down from the counter.
“How much was it?” I asked, rounding the island to go fetch my purse.
Justin grabbed my arm and stopped me. “It’s your first night here; dinner is on me.”
“Thank you,” I said, rolling my eyes. “But do you realize how much money you could be saving if you didn’t eat out for every meal? Come on.”
I led him into the living room and playfully pushed him down on the couch. He’d outfitted the living room with a dark gray recliner and its matching couch and ottoman. Sitting down next to him with my legs curled underneath me, I pulled up the notes app on my phone and started a grocery list for us. “Okay, I’m making a list of groceries, so you need to tell me if you’re allergic to anything specific or if there are certain foods you don’t like. Go.”
“You’re not buying all of the grocer—”
Placing my hand on his mouth, I raised an eyebrow and glared. “I am. If you won’t let me pay you rent, I will buy stuff we need. We need food. I cannot live in a place with only condiments and beer.”
He laughed against my hand but surrendered. “Fine. I don’t have any food allergies, and I’m not picky when it comes to food.”
“Okay, are there any specific brands you like better than others?”
“Not really?” he asked, like he wasn’t really sure what I meant.
“So, you’ll take an off-brand ranch over Hidden Valley?” I offered, wrinkling my nose. “That’s just wrong.”
Laughing, he flung his arm over the back of the couch, seemingly entertained by my grocery rules. “Hidden Valley, it is.”
I tapped it into my phone. “Which I’m surprised you don’t already have.”
“I’m more of a Dorothy Lynch kind of guy,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
“Yuck!” I exclaimed, shaking my head. “I’ll just get a bunch of different stuff tomorrow to make dinners and lunches for us. I refuse to let you eat out every day.”
“It’s really not that bad,” he laughed.
“But it’s unhealthy,” I stated, giving him a once-over. “Not like that’s an issue for you since you have no fat on you whatsoever.”
“Everyone has fat on them,” he said, eyeing himself. He pushed his stomach out and pinched together a tiny flab of skin from his belly. “Look!”
“That doesn’t even count!” I laughed, smacking his abs. “You had to make that happen.”
“You’re the skinniest person I know,” he remarked, taking in my outfit.
“I am not,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Anyway, back to the list—”
He grabbed my phone and tossed it on the coffee table. “How about you pick up whatever you want. Really, I’ll eat anything.”
“I want to get stuff you like.”
“Tessa,” he said, leaning his head against his arm. “I like everything. My favorite food is homemade; it doesn’t matter what it is. You can’t really do wrong by that.”
“Okay,” I said with a nod.
We sat in silence for a while, just watching TV, until he looked over at me and
said, “You could’ve put some of your things out here, you know.”
“That’s okay.” I smiled at him and shook my head. “This is your living room.”
His brows furrowed for a second and then turned to face me with a sweet smile lingering on his lips. “This is your place now, too. I need you to understand that. I don’t want you tiptoeing around my things or me. I want you to feel at home here.”
I gave him a weak smile, but nodded. “It’s just going to take some time for me to settle in. I’m not used to having so much space, or such great water pressure in the shower, or a doorman who refuses to call me anything but Miss Wilder.”
That last part made him laugh. “George still calls me Mr. Jameson even though I continuously ask him not to.”
“I told him three times today to call me Tessa, and he just smiled each time.”
“That’s George,” he said, shaking his head. When his gaze fell back on mine, he continued. “Will you at least think about putting some things out here in the living room?”
“I really don’t have anything, Justin,” I said, fiddling with the frayed seam of my sweatshirt.
“Liar,” he said, poking me in the side. “What about the picture of the New York City skyline? I saw you put it in your closet when I walked by earlier. You could’ve at least hung it up on the wall in your room.”
I stared down at my lap, feeling guilty for not hanging up any of Trey’s pictures. He had a real gift for capturing moments, which was why he chose to study photography at NYU. I’d bought him his first professional camera, yet I hadn’t hung any of his photos because I didn’t want to chance ruining Justin’s walls.
“What’s wrong?” Justin asked, brushing a damp piece of hair out of my eyes.
Studying his face, I noted the genuine curiosity etched into each of his beautiful features. With his dark blond brows furrowed slightly, his ocean blue eyes calmly waited for my answer. His lips were pressed together in anticipation: his weak grin showing off his boyish dimples. For someone who’d always been so quiet around his friends, he was rather talkative now, which really surprised me. I’d expected ignorance and silence from him, but I’d been welcomed and cared for since the moment I walked into his place. Maybe Elly was right. Maybe we would open up to each other by living together.
“I didn’t hang anything because I didn’t want to ruin the walls,” I admitted shyly.
“Tessa,” he said softly, grabbing my hand. He pulled me up off the couch and nodded toward the hall. “Go get the picture.”
“Okay,” I said eagerly, rushing back to my room. Standing on my tiptoes, I reached up to the top shelf in the closet and grabbed Trey’s photos I had framed. There was the New York City skyline photo with the sunset as its backdrop. Trey had taken the second photo at work: a shot of the Knicks playing at Madison Square Garden. I had one photo of Yankee Stadium at dusk, and another one of New Year’s in Times Square. Carrying them all out to the living room, I found Justin sitting on his coffee table, studying the walls. One wall was lined with bookshelves brimming with fiction and nonfiction tomes. His parents’ textbooks filled the bottom shelf. The other wall housed his entertainment system with his TV anchored to the wall and everything else neatly set up underneath it.
I set the photos on the couch next to him. “We don’t have to hang all of these.”
He examined each of them closely. “These are amazing, Tessa. Where did you get them?”
“Trey took them,” I replied proudly, gazing down at them over his shoulder. “He even helped me pick out the frames for them.”
“He’s really good,” he chuckled to himself. “No wonder he’s not into my psych class.”
I laughed. “I had no idea he was in your class until the other night.”
“I thought he looked familiar when you guys got here today.” Justin stood up, taking the skyline photo with him, and placed it against the wall. “He hasn’t missed a single lecture this semester.”
“Good,” I mumbled to myself. “Or else I’d kick his ass.”
“I’m sure,” he said, smiling back at me. “What do you think about putting it here?”
I nodded. “It’ll look great there.”
“We could put these New York ones on this wall with the windows, and then the sports ones on either side of the TV. Sound good?”
“Perfect.”
We aligned each picture perfectly, and then pressed hanger hooks into the drywall and hung the pictures on the walls. By the time we were finished, a knock at the door signaled the arrival of our food. Justin paid the guy while I admired Trey’s pictures. Appreciating his work made me miss him a little bit, and I hadn’t even been gone a full day. Reaching for my phone, I took a panoramic picture of the living room and sent it to Trey.
Me: Check out our wall decor!
Trey: Looks great.
“God, this smells amazing,” Justin said, setting the bag of food on the coffee table. “I’m starving.”
“Me too,” I said, taking a seat on the couch.
“You want a beer?” he asked, wandering into the kitchen.
The smell of chicken entered the room, and my stomach growled again. “I’d love one.”
He grabbed two of out the fridge, popped the tops off, and handed one to me. With our containers of food in our laps, he lifted his beer bottle in a toast and smiled. “Welcome home, Tessa. I hope you enjoy it here.”
With you, how could I not? I thought as I tapped my bottle to his. “Thank you. It’s good to be here.”
Chapter Four
It’d been almost a week since Tessa moved in—five days to be exact—and she was already driving me crazy. Not in a bad way where I thought about killing her every time I saw her, but in a way that suffocated me. She, herself, was not smothering, but her actions overwhelmed me. For years, I’d lived alone. I went from living with two people who I wouldn’t even really consider parents, since they only thought of me as a post-coital experiment rather than their son, to living with my grandma during my early college years as a teen, and then to my own place by myself. I wasn’t used to living with someone. I knew asking her to move in would be a change for me, but I didn’t think it would be this drastic.
So, when I got home Thursday night and found Tessa hovered over the stove, stirring something in a pan, I snapped.
“Hey!” she said cheerfully. “Are you hungry? I’m making—”
“I don’t care what you’re making,” I muttered, in an agitated tone that quickly grabbed her attention. I flung my bag onto the back of a barstool, and then grabbed a beer from the fridge, which was now fully stocked and lacking takeout boxes. “This shit has to stop.”
She turned off the stove, pulled the skillet of meat off the burner, and faced me with confusion in her eyes. “W-what are you talking about?”
“THIS!” I shouted, pointing to the skillet. “You cook every single night! You make me breakfast. You make me lunches. You pick up my dry cleaning, when I didn’t even know I had dry cleaning to pick up! You do my laundry. You—”
“Okay, I get it!” she yelled, crossing her arms over her chest. “I just—”
“I’m not done,” I stated harshly, shaking my head. Tipping my beer bottle back, I drank the rest of its contents and then continued more calmly. “Look, I know this is normal for you. You’ve been taking care of someone your entire life, but I don’t need you to take care of me. I know you think you need to do all this crap to earn your stay here because I won’t let you pay rent, but you don’t, Tessa.”
“I’m sorry.” She turned her worried gaze down to the floor, and I immediately felt bad for being a dick. “I didn’t realize I was bugging you so much.”
I placed my empty beer bottle on the countertop and wrapped my arms around her in a hug. “It’s not you so much as the things you do.”
She nodded against my chest without a word.
“Let’s talk,” I said, lifting her up onto the countertop. I hopped up onto the counter opposite from her
and leaned back against the cabinets. Sadness invaded her features, twisting the dreadful knot in my stomach tighter. “I love your cooking, and I appreciate everything you do around here. All I’m saying is that you don’t have to do it. I don’t want you to take care of everything.”
“Okay.” Again, she nodded and continued avoiding eye contact with me. “I can move out if I’m that much of a bother to you. I know you don’t do well with change.”
“I don’t want you to move out!” I exclaimed, shaking my head. “I just want you to stop doing everything for me! I grew up with a nanny who did everything for me because my parents were too busy running their labs. I used to be part of their experiments until I got older and they grew bored of studying me. That’s all I’ve ever been to them: a post-coital science project. So, they hired a nanny. We also had a chef because they couldn’t make their own meals. They hired people to run every aspect of their lives because they were too busy working. Then when I got into college really young, I moved in with my grandma in the city, where she continued doing everything for me. By the time I turned eighteen, I was so sick of people running my life, I moved out and got a place of my own using the money from my savings.
“I know it doesn’t sound like a hardship, but I hated growing up like that. I hated having a nanny. I wanted to have dinners with my mom and dad, not some lady who was just getting paid to take care of me. I mean, she was nice and everything, but sometimes I got the feeling that she’d rather be at home with her own kids.”
“Justin … I’m so sorry.”
Shaking my head, I smiled back at her. “You have nothing to be sorry about; it’s not your fault. I want you to enjoy living here, and having you do shit for me is not what I had in mind. I love your cooking, but I want to help you cook dinner. I don’t want to come home and have my meal already decided for me. That means, some nights I’m going to want to eat out. I’ve grown used to it, and it’s a habit I’m finding really hard to break. I’m also a fan of leftovers, so some nights we don’t have to do anything but heat something up. Hell, we don’t even have to eat together if you don’t want to. I know you probably think I’m crazy for getting so worked up over all this, but I just don’t want to go back to the way things were when I was younger. I don’t want you doing shit around here because you think you have to. You live here rent-free because you’re my friend and I care about you; you owe me nothing for that. Do you understand?”