Page 74 of Roommate
I’ll be your best roommate.
I’ll make it worth your while later.
He adds a wink emoji and then an eggplant. And I laugh.
“Kieran!” Mr. Pratt’s voice barks. “Can I have those revisions? I have plans tonight and you’re just staring at your phone.”
I set it down hastily. I never used to goof off on my phone, because I never had a confidante. “Coming right up,” I say, grabbing the computer mouse to open the file.
I quickly discover that Deacon didn’t save a new file when he gaudied up my Christmas tree, and he didn’t make a new layer either. I’ll have to start over.
Maybe the old Kieran would have sat here fuming, but this one has had it. “Mr. Pratt,” I call, standing up to give him a piece of my mind. Something has got to give. I’m so sick of this.
“Yes, Kieran?”
I’d intended to argue, but instead, I hear myself say, “Would you write me a recommendation? I’m applying for a design program, and there’s scholarship money at stake.”
He blinks in surprise. Maybe we both do. But I have to make a decision about this—my application is due in ten days, and I can’t work here forever.
“Sure, kid,” he says eventually. “Sounds like a good opportunity. If you can get me a damn Christmas tree in the next fifteen minutes... I’ll make you sound as talented as Van Gogh.”
“Yessir.” I hustle back to my desk to redesign a Christmas tree.
Still, I find a few seconds to reply to Roderick, holding the phone surreptitiously underneath a file folder.
Kieran: Let’s eat out. Is eight too late?
Roderick: I’ll be there with bells on.
But not actual bells.
That sounds awkward.
WTF does that mean, anyway?
Smirking, I hide my phone and hurry through the rest of the day’s work. I can’t wait to go out for noodles with the guy who makes all the rest of this bullshit worth it.
Roderick
“This is the best idea I ever had,” I say after slurping another noodle into my mouth.
After he takes a sip of broth, Kieran looks at me with an expression of patience and warmth that I’ve never seen him bestow on anyone else. “We should do this every week, if we think we can afford it.”
“Deal,” I agree immediately. “Although I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
He lifts his bushy eyebrows in surprise, “Why not? I like food. And this place doesn’t break the saving-for-college budget.”
“Well…” I glance around the room, taking in the other diners. At this hour, it’s a mix of young professionals. “Someone might look at us and assume we’re on a date.”
“That doesn’t bother me,” he says evenly. As if he weren’t blowing my mind right now. “I don’t care what strangers think.”
“Really.”
“Nah.”
I plop a lovely piece of fatty pork into my mouth and chew, buying myself a moment to think. I used to drive my ex crazy when I’d ask him questions about coming out. Why not now? Will you ever be ready? And every time he’d put me off, I’d hear the subtext beneath the excuses: It’s you, Roddy. You’re not worth the trouble.
I still have those emotional scars. Kieran baffles me, but in entirely different ways.
