Page 2 of Weekends with You

Silence settled around us, satisfied on Raja’s end and uncomfortable on mine. She was right. I’d been on my own since I moved here from Long Island for undergrad, and I had little going on outside the shop. Plus, I was becoming more insecure about my paycheck by the day, so my back was against the wall. And with this arrangement, I wouldn’t have to stretch that paycheck to make rent anymore. I might even have some spending money for the first time in years, so I really was left without any semblance of a counterargument. For now, anyway.

“Fine,” I conceded after prolonged tense eye contact and an unreasonably large swig of gin. “Let’s do it. But only until I’m back on my feet. Once I find another affordable flat, I’m out. This is just temporary.”

“Deal,” she said, though I wasn’t entirely sure she’d registered anything after “fine.” “Toast to it so I know you mean it?” Her hopeful eyes glistened in the dim lights of the bar.

“Toast to it.”

We signaled the bartender for another round and held our breath while we waited. Ever since college, a toast had been Raja’s and my version of a pinkie swear. Over the years, we’d toasted to travel plans, passing exams, secret sexual partners, stolen cigarettes, long, aimless nights out, and, most often, our friendship.

Raja had moved to the UK from Dubai for college, desperate to put some distance between herself and her parents. She was one of those career students, but as long as she kept her grades up, her family didn’t seem to mind. She sent home photos of her travels and her studies and omitted those of her secret piercings and late nights at clubs. She never said so, but I imagined she loved warehouse living because she missed her big family at home.

The bartender returned with a second cocktail for each of us, and we raised them to each other in unison.

“Cheers to you...”

“Cheers to me...”

“Cheers to the drinks we get for free!” we finished together. It was a silly toast from when we were too poor to buy our own drinks in college, but it had stuck.

We drank, and there was no looking back.

So a few weeks later, I was shoving the last of my belongings into bags and wondering how on earth I was to fit everything in Alice’s old room. I used to think my studio was small, but the bedrooms in the warehouse made my last apartment seem like a villa.

I’d only been to the warehouse a handful of times since Raja had moved in, and never for any significant amount of time. I remembered some of her roommates (who were now my roommates) by name, and I knew Alice’s room was the last one on the end of the mezzanine. There were a few living spaces and maybesome workspaces downstairs, and I remembered running into neighbors outside the building, so there were definitely some other units in the warehouse, but beyond that, I was in the dark.

I pulled out my phone to text Raja before I left my apartment for the last time.

Ready for me?

She replied before I could even get my phone back into my pocket.

I was born ready for this moment. Also, I don’t do anything on Sundays ever, so.

Oh, how nice to be Raja.I laughed to myself and headed out, but not without a dramatic look back at my apartment from the doorway. It was silly to think I could stay in an apartment in North London alone on a florist’s salary. With my keys under the mat, per the landlord’s request, and the rental truck loaded on the street, I was warehouse-bound.

“She’s here!” I heard Raja announce through the intercom seconds after I buzzed the doorbell. The “2B” on the buzzer was faded, well-worn from constant visitors and tons of Deliveroo. “It’s open, Luce.”

I looked from the open bay of the truck to the doorway and back again. “Mind coming down and giving me a hand?”

“We’ll be right down!”

I was unloading luggage onto the sidewalk when Raja bounded out the door with two men in tow. “Welcome home,” she said, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing tight.

“Flatmates again at last,” I said. I could at least indulge her, despite my rising anxiety.

“This is Jan,” she said, indicating the edgy guy on the left with a pale pink buzz cut and a pair of black shiny earrings. He saluted me and said nothing, but his lopsided smile was kind.

“And Henry,” she said, gesturing to the man on the right. About a head taller and significantly more muscular than Jan, Henry looked like he’d be of more assistance in this task.

“Pleasure,” he said, extending a large hand, his voice low. He wore a boyish grin and a battered Henley unbuttoned at the top, both of which made my cheeks warm.

“This is, like, the only time you’ll see Henry before he’s off again to another country for work or whatever, but Jan is quite the opposite,” Raja said. “You’ll be sick of him before you know it.”

“Piss off, Raj,” Jan laughed.

“Leave the flat once in a while, then,” she said. Henry rolled his eyes at their banter. I found myself wishing she had them mixed up, and it was Henry who was always home.

Then I found myself mortified that I was behaving like a teenager. I was an adult woman, despite how it felt to be moving into the warehouse, so I couldn’t afford to turn to jelly just because my roommate was hot. Even if his cheeks were dotted with freckles that spread across his nose and his voice rumbled like he’d just woken up. I had to get a grip.

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