But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? That by exposing the most vulnerable parts of me to the guy who shares my water bill, I’d somehow prepare myself for doing the same thing with a stranger later.
Weirdly, even though that was the whole point of everything, I found myself recoiling a little from the idea of a stranger in my future. I mean, of course I knew that anyone I started dating wouldn’t remain a stranger for long, it’s just that… well, I liked what I already had. Shaking my head, I reminded myself that I didn’t exactly have anything. Except perhaps a touch of social anxiety. Actually, that explained everything.
My tendency to drink a little too much when the specter of sex reared its head, my sudden new desire not to find a boyfriend—I couldn’t believe I hadn’t self-diagnosed earlier. It all made so much sense. I fired off a text to the girls immediately. As per the usual, the replies were mixed.
Scarlett: This explains a lot
Ava: U just need some eggplant emoji lolol
Lizzie: We don’t joke about mental illness sweetie I knew Marc was a bad idea
I both loved and hated my friends. On one hand, I got a perfect cross-section of opinions, but on the other, I got a perfect cross-section of opinions. Disregarding the opinions I didn’t like, I sent my next text to Scarlett alone.
Will I ever get eggplant emoji-d? Maybe I should come to Bible group. Or group therapy. Whatever you suggest.
She didn’t answer for long enough that I wasn’t surprised when the text finally came through.
I’m sorry, but no. To both.
I couldn’t even be truly irritated, because she was right. To both. I made myself a coffee and took off my bathrobe. Did a little work on my Screwmates comic. How did I have five thousand reblogs on the last one? The first few only had a hundred or so. I bet it was a glitch. Or at least a fluke. After all, even with a provocative title like the one I’d used, there was just no way that many people were looking at my work.
Or at least, I swallowed my nervousness down, I hoped there weren’t that many eyeballs on me.
Next I checked my email. Awaiting me was something that was supposedly from an agent, but I know a scam when I see one, so I didn’t open it. An agent did sound really nice, though, so I decided to double down on the webcomic. If I could get a couple more “episodes” inked in advance, I could consider doing a print run.
I mean, I knew it would mostly just sell to friends and family—scratch that. It would never, ever be seen by family. But the girls would definitely buy copies, and I did have a small following locally, enough to justify the cost of a small batch. I could afford to do twenty-five or thirty.
Just the thought of having actual comic books instead of just a website with a bunch of superhero concepts and a handful of characters that looked cool on shirts really energized me. So I got a little carried away and had done several pages when the sound of a key in the lock suddenly startled me out of my zone.
I scrambled for my bathrobe, but it was too late. Marc was already gazing at my Adventure Time pajamas… complete with a Jake the Cat hat.
“I like that show,” he finally said. I was learning more and more about him, and understanding less and less. I certainly wouldn’t have been wearing those had I realized he was on his way, though. Or would I? I definitely would have been wearing the bathrobe. And would have also washed the ink stains off my right forearm. But there he was, walking through the door with a bottle of wine that appeared pretty nice to my untrained eyes.
And it wasn’t a jumbo bottle, either. Just a normal sized one. And dangling from his arm was a bag of groceries. What ho! I jumped up to help put stuff away, but he waved me off.
“Let me go throw some jeans on, at least,” I said.
“Why bother? You look comfortable. In fact, I might change into a pair of sweats myself. Can you rinse off the veggies for me?” He didn’t wait for a response, just gave me one of those devastating grins as he headed back to his room. Utterly unfair. With that smile, he could make me do absolutely anything at all. Lucky for me that he used his powers for good, and not in a Jessica Jones way.
I could barely cook, but rinsing vegetables was a skillset I possessed. One by one, I pulled things out of the bag. There was a head of lettuce, dirt still clinging to the outer leaves. Tomatoes, sun-warm and plump. Green beans, colorful peppers, and even some fuzzy green things that a quick google image search informed me were okra in their natural state.
Here I thought their natural state was deep-fried and served next to a platter of burnt end barbecue. What can I say, I’m not the farmer around the house.
I set my phone down and started drying things just as Marc walked back out. Imagine my joy when I saw that the pair of sweats he had put on apparently didn’t have a top half. The drawstring top hung loosely from his hips, allowing every bit of that farm-raised chest and abdomen to be on glorious display.
He must have noticed the way I enjoyed watching those muscles flex as he began to chop veggies and heat pans, but he was too polite to tell me to stop drooling. Soon enough, the kitchen was filling up with amazing smells and I was drooling for entirely different reasons.
“I didn’t think you were much of a cook,” I said, wondering if he’d been putting on an act at the cooking class.
“Oh, I can’t make fancy things. This is just a garden dinner.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Like your mom made.”
A slideshow of the dinners my mother had cooked over the years ran through my head. Sandwiches, frozen things, the week she’d tried out the cabbage soup diet which meant me and Dad were also on the cabbage soup diet until we mutinied with a giant Chinese takeout order…
“Yep, just like Mom,” I told him. “I’d offer to help, but you seem to have it all under control.”
“You could open the wine,” he suggested. Wine uncorking was another skill I was confident in, so I poured us each a glass. Since it wasn’t a giant bottle, I poured smaller servings. It kind of looked like how they serve it in restaurants. I admired my handiwork, and then returned to admiring Marc’s body.
“So, how were the meetings?” I asked. “Also, what were the meetings?” Truly, I should be a better roommate and ask these things in advance, I thought.
“You really want to hear about my work?” His voice was warm, like he didn’t expect me to be actually interested enough to ask. It gave me a touch of the guilt, seeing as he’d asked me plenty about my drawings.
“I do.” I sipped my wine, and handed him the head of garlic he pointed to.
“So I know I talk about the France thing like it’s all about debauchery, but I really couldn’t justify a trip there just for fun with the student loans I’m going to have to start paying soon. So I’d planned on spending a good amount of time working on research for a book I’m writing about William T. Fitzsimons and Wayne Miner.” He pulled a couple cloves off and smashed them with the flat part of his knife before peeling them.