Page 60 of Roommate
I tap the screen and see that he hasn’t stopped, either. You stupid little fuck. You’ll come crawling back. This is so manipulative. You wanted me to come chasing after you, don’t you? Just gonna string me along now?
That’s not even a little bit fair. I’ve always been honest with him. More honest than I was with myself. The point of leaving was leaving, I type. Then I erase it and sigh. I know better than to prolong the conversation. You can’t negotiate with terrorists.
I hand the phone to Kieran. “Look. It’s embarrassing to me that I put up with this man for so long.”
Kieran wipes his hand on a napkin and then scrolls up, reading Brian’s vitriol. “What a turd,” he says gruffly, and his choice of words makes me laugh. He doesn’t think it’s funny at all, and says, “This is abusive. Was he always like this?”
“No.” I shake my head quickly, so that Kieran doesn’t think I’ve always been a doormat. “He can be the most charming man in the world. People love him. Sometimes when we fought, he would get this way. But the next day he would always go crazy trying to make it up to me. And I know that’s how abusers operate. But I swear we had a whole year before he started acting this way. I just kept hoping it would get better.”
When his last album didn’t do very well, his mood tanked for good, and I finally realized that things weren’t ever going to get better. And I still hung around too long, because it seemed so mean to desert a guy whose career was in a downward spiral.
“Do you think he might do something crazy?” Kieran asks suddenly.
“What do you mean? Like what?”
He gazes at me with those big brown eyes that I like so much. “Would he try to hurt you physically?”
“No,” I say quickly. “In the first place, he doesn’t know where I am, and he’s not likely to come to Vermont. Also, violence really isn’t his style. He’d rather bruise my self-esteem than my face.”
Kieran winces. “Why don’t you block him? Serious question.”
“I guess…” The truth is embarrassing. “I was hoping to get my guitar back after he calmed down. But if I’m honest, what I really wanted was an apology. It’s never coming, though. I guess that’s what adulting really is—living your best life in spite of all the apologies we never hear.”
Kieran’s warm eyes take me in for a long moment. Then he puts down a chicken bone and gives me a shy smile. “Not bad, Roddy. I think that idea is ready for the big time.”
“Oh.” For a second, I don’t understand. But then I do. “You mean I should chalk it up on a beam at the Busy Bean?”
“Yup.” He digs into more chicken and smiles at me.
I take a bite of crispy-skinned chicken and let out a noise of pleasure. The seasoning is terrific, and he roasted it to a deep brown. “This is so good. My compliments to the chef.”
“Thanks.” When I glance at him, his face is slightly flushed. “Maybe you shouldn’t moan while you’re eating it, though. Just as a favor to me.”
“Sorry.” I glance at him, and he actually winks. Winks! Kieran Shipley is flirting with me. What are the odds?
But of course I can’t flirt back, because that would send mixed signals. So I’m silent while we devour crispy chicken and rice.
“Hey,” he says eventually. “I’ve been watching Silicon Valley on Hulu. You want to—”
“Great show,” I say quickly. A comedy is exactly what we need to dissolve the sexual tension in here. “Turn it on.”
“Cool.” Kieran wipes his hands and reaches for his laptop on the coffee table. He flips it open and pecks at the keyboard until we’re watching Richard Hendricks stumble around trying to extract himself from another fiasco.
Maybe that’s why I like this show. Richard and I have a few things in common.
Kieran chuckles quietly on the sofa beside me, and I lean back and relax. It’s nice in this room, where the lamplight burnishes the floorboards, and there’s a hot farm boy who makes me feel appreciated.
It’s cozy. Almost domestic. If I weren’t so good at torpedoing my own life, I could almost imagine a future that looked like this.
Almost.
Kieran
“Whoops, no. The lunch special is a spinach and feta turnover,” Roderick says from several feet below me.
“Wait, really?” I’m standing on a stool, chalk in hand, trying to write the daily specials on the board. “I thought you were doing ham and cheese croissants?”
“Last-minute change,” he says. “Audrey brought in a whole lot of spinach, and I wanted to use that first.”
