Page 17 of Friends with Benefits

Yes.

At home, he unloads the groceries to find not one buttwovarieties of goat cheese: honey and jalapeño.

He sniffs them.

Ugh.

Theo stickers each cheese with a yellow dot—the visual signal to his roommates that this is cheese for all, please eat it!—and sticks it in the deli drawer. He labels his food, then retreats to his room to grade math quizzes. Once finished, Theo removeshimself from his desk and the grading to find Micah and Pranav playingSuper Smash Bros.in the living room, Puck asleep on Pranav’s lap, unfazed as Pranav-as-Young-Link spin attacks Micah-as-Pikachu off the stage. Despite having playedSuper Smash Bros.countless times with the guys, Theo has no idea how that just happened. Pranav curses under his breath, then sets the parameters for the next round, his eyes fixated on the screen.

“Hey.”

Micah looks at Theo. “Want in?”

“Sure.”

He picks up a controller, selects Kirby, sinks into a beanbag chair, and tries to relax into the game. He cannot.Super Smash Bros.stresses him out. It’s too overstimulating—he never knows where to focus on the screen or which buttons to press in the most strategic order. He attempts a sneak attack on Micah that results in him launching Kirby off a cliff. Theo’s personal gaming preferences tend to be of theAnimal CrossingandSimsvariety—soothing and single-player.

“Have you had a chance to look over the lease renewal?” Theo asks as Kirby resurrects themself on the screen.

Pranav pauses the game. “About that…”

Instead of finishing his sentence, Pranav opts for a long sip from a can of LaCroix. Theo’s eyes shift from one roommate to the other. Micah’s left eyebrow is twitching. Both are avoiding eye contact with Theo—but also with each other.Shit. Did Pranav and Micah break up? Again?Pranav and Micah are codependent and chaotic and have an annual “we’re too young to be Domestic Gays” panic. But the breakup never lasts longer than a week, because despite their drama, theylovebeing Domestic Gays.

Micah runs a hand through longer-on-the-top ginger hair, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “The thing is—”

“We fell in love with a condo in WeHo,” Pranav confesses.

Theo blinks. “What?”

“It all happened so fast,” Micah says.

Theo doesn’t understand how it’s happening at all. Pranav works in program strategy at Netflix. Micah is a PhD student at Caltech. These are people he commiserated with about inflation and the housing market and how screwed up it is that they can only afford to live here because of one another. How the fuck are they buying a condo in West Hollywood?

“It’s time to fully embrace our domestic truth,” Micah adds.

“And have a ten-minute commute. But we didn’t mean to blindside you,” Pranav says, as if that even matters. “Our first two offers fell through, so—”

Whatever the end of that sentence is, Theo doesn’t hear it. Offers? Plural? He short-circuits. Currently, Theo has enough money in his checking account to cover rent, groceries, and the luxury that is his Peloton membership… amassing the savings to be in a position to be able to makeanoffer on any property in LA County is unfathomable. Being a renter for the foreseeable future is his reality. And that’s fine. Theo likes his job. He’s content. Or he was, before learning that he’s hemorrhaging roommates and… he needs to think. Retreat to his spreadsheets. Crunch numbers. This unit is rent-controlled and it would suck to lose it and—

Theo is spiraling.

He resumes the game.

Detaches.

“Cool.”

“Cool,” Micah repeats.

“You’re pissed,” Pranav says.

“Truth bomb?” Micah asks. Theo’s nod is terse, but it’s enough permission for Micah to continue. “Since Imogenmoved out of the bungalow, we sort of assumed it was only a matter of time until you moved in with Evie?”

“Why the fuck would you assume that?”

Pranav’s laughter scrapes against Theo’s skull. “Seriously?”

“You’re never here,” Micah says.

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