Page 116 of Roommate
“Like you’re all in, no matter what happens.”
“I am. That’s true.” He leans down and kisses my cheekbone. “Come inside and I’ll show you how all in I can be.” Then he kisses me for real.
We’re still going at it a minute later when Zara opens her front door. “Get a room, you two!” She cackles and shuts the door.
It’s good advice. So we do.
Two Years Later
Kieran
“Look at that kid.” Roddy nudges me under the table. “That’s ballsy.”
I turn my head and spot a blond kid, maybe twelve years old, riding a unicycle up the brick street, weaving in and out of the Church Street patrons. “Huh,” I say. “Nice reflexes.”
Roddy and I are just finishing dinner at an outdoor table at a Burlington noodle shop. Say what you will about our tiny state, but Burlington—population 42,000—is a great destination on a summer night. The marketplace is closed off to cars, so customers spill from the bars and restaurants onto the brick street. The outdoor tables are full of diners. It’s a nice place for dinner, and also great for people-watching.
Burlington is the closest thing we have to a real city, and it’s worth an hour's drive from Colebury. I've been coming here two days a week for the last two years for school. That's going pretty well—I’ve liked all my classes, and I've been tapping the alumni network to find freelance design jobs.
I’m on summer break, though, so Roddy and I are here just for the hell of it.
Cash is still tight, but date night happens anyway. Roddy loves to get out, and I love to make him happy. I still pick up Busy Bean shifts sometimes just for pocket money.
At the moment, my date is slyly tucking his credit card into a bill wallet that I never saw arrive at our table. “Sweetheart, did you just trick me into watching a kid on a unicycle so you could grab the check?”
He gives me a cheeky grin. “I’m just using all the resources available to me.”
“But you bought last time,” I argue.
He shrugs. “Can I ask you a serious question? Why do we do this?”
“Why do we argue about the check? Because you’re a conniving troublemaker.”
He hands the bill wallet off to the waitress before turning back to me with a thoughtful expression. “Why do we have separate accounts at all? Why don’t we just make a joint bank account and stop dividing all the bills in half? Isn’t it time?”
Whoa. I pick up my beer and drain it, readying my arguments. We can’t do that. Well, really we could. It’s too complicated… Eh. It would actually be simpler.
When you get right down to it, I really have only one true objection. “But I don’t make as much money as you do. How will I know if I’m paying my way?”
He shakes his head at me. “You pay your way every day. That’s the point. I don’t really care if your bank deposits aren’t as regular as mine.” Since Roddy has continued to grow in usefulness to Zara’s and Audrey’s various businesses, his paycheck is rock solid.
Mine ebb and flow with my freelance business, and school takes up a lot of my time. “I’m broke sometimes,” I point out.
“Yeah, and I remember how that feels.” He shrugs. “But it’s only a temporary condition. Nobody works harder than you. And we share everything else. The groceries. The heat. The cable bill. I love you, Kieran. We’re only going to share more things, right? Why not the bank account?”
He’s right—there’s no rational reason. But I’m struggling with this idea.
“Just think about it,” he says. “In the meantime, I have plans to get you drunk right now.”
“You do? At home?”
He shakes his head. “Remember when you told me there weren’t any gay bars in Vermont?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“There’s a brand-new one up the street, and I think we should check it out.”
“Wait, really?”
