Page 4 of Weekends with You

By the time I was ready to call it a night, I was proud of my progress. My clothes hung from a rack, organized by season; stacks of old books were piled up on floating shelves, candles huddled together at the base of a full-length mirror, and pothos leaves tumbled from the windowsill, just inches below the ceiling. It was a start.

I flopped on my bed in all my clothes and texted Raja.

Nearly finished, but totally exhausted. Catch up tomorrow?

Deal. We can do that easily now because we’re flatmates?Buckle up. It’s going to be a ride.

With that, I let my eyes flutter closed. She was right. It was definitely going to be a ride.

September

“If you lot don’t get your arses down here, we’re going to be late!” Finn was shaking the loose banister on the staircase and yelling to the slower roommates upstairs.

“Since when do you care about being late?” Margot asked on her way down the stairs, not looking up from her cuticles.

“Come on, Mar,” Jan said, hopping down the stairs two at a time behind her. “You know how much Finny cares about pub quiz.”

It was Finn’s month, which meant we were doing a pub quiz tonight and a horror movie in the flat tomorrow. As a delivery driver/bike repairman, Finn was tight on cash and liked to keep his weekends budget-friendly, according to Raja. It was surprising he was willing to give up deliveries on Friday and Saturday nights once a month, since surely drunk North Londoners were willing to pay unreasonable amounts to have a grilled cheese or kebab hand-delivered, but I gathered Warehouse Weekend was serious business.

“Aye, we all care about pub quiz,” Finn corrected. “2B or Not 2B has a legacy to uphold at the Bag, Lucy, so we play to win.”

“As opposed to ...?” I teased.

“Told you she was cheeky,” Henry said, joining us in thespace between one of the lounges and the studios, which seemed to serve as a general meeting spot.

I knew Henry would be coming home this weekend, but with all the settling in, I hadn’t given it much thought. This was the first time I’d seen him since last month, and the immediate banter made the hair on my arms stand on end.

“Welcome back,” I said, trying to offer a casual smile.

“Good to be home.” He returned my smile, and for a fraction of a second, the rest of the flat dropped away. But when it came back, I realized all eyes were on us.

Margot had looked up from her cuticles to size us up, and I felt my blush deepen under her scrutiny. “Now that we’ve gotten the pleasantries out of the way, are we ready to crack on?”

“Er, let’s see,” Finn said, counting our heads. “Six, seven, eight. That’s a full house! Let’s get to it, then.”

The Bag was a local watering hole less than two minutes on foot from the flat, and it was becoming increasingly clear that no one in the flat was interested in finding another pub in the area. Though with its proximity, the cheap pints, and the monthly pub quiz, I couldn’t blame them.

As we set out on the walk, Liv slipped her arm through mine, as she was prone to doing now. If Liv liked you, it didn’t matter whether you’d known each other for ten years or ten seconds, you were instantly as familiar to her as family. That level of vulnerability was kind of inspiring, if I allowed myself to think about it; foreign to me, but inspiring nonetheless.

“Are you any good at a pub quiz?” she asked.

“Uh, average, I suppose.”

“She’s lying,” Raja added from a few paces ahead without turning around. “She’s brilliant at a pub quiz.”

“Thank god,” Cal said from the back of the pack. “We needsomeone to replace Alice. And since Liv is rubbish, maybe you’re brilliant enough to replace her, too.”

Liv gasped. “Cal, you like, never speak. And then when you do, it’s just to wind us up. But then you never laugh. I don’t understand you.”

“I don’t understand you, either, Liv,” he replied. “But don’t you think we’re better off that way?”

“I think you’re a grumpy old man, that’s what I think. Especially in that corduroy jacket.”

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Henry said, leaning surprisingly close to my ear. His breath was warm, and he smelled like citrus. For less than a second, I wondered if he tasted the same.

---