Page 21 of Ellie Hayes and the Himbos
Heather smirks. “I should have known you’d have coordinating luggage.”
To Cole’s credit—not that I’m willing to extend him much—he had been willing to pack up a good portion of my clothing at my request and had braved the wrath of Heather and Mark when they went by for it. Granted, I’d made the packing portion pretty easy for him; my preference for compartmentalization extends beyond the arguably less-than-healthy approach to my inner life. Drawer organizers were removed from the dresser and placed into suitcases, the underbed storage containers for my rarely used winter clothes simply put in the back of Heather’s car, ditto my toiletry and makeup organizers. It’s fitting, really, how easy I make it to extract myself from a partner’s life. My body made the relationship severing simple, and my organizational skills made cleanlines around the bulk of my possessions.
All that’s left are the bigger items and car retrieval. I’d be tempted to make a clean break and send him a bill, but there’s no way I’m parting with my plants, and I like my stuff: the couch I bought with my first big check from a school district in Wisconsin, the bed frame I already had when we moved in together (the masculine urge to sleep at no higher elevation than that of a mattress remains incomprehensible to me), and the dresser I refurbished last summer. The guys have offered to help me move when the time comes, and I am not above exploiting their excitement for non-foldable seating if it means that I get to see Cole’s reaction to my perpetually shirtless roommates.
But before I can overwhelm Cole with their virility, he and I are going to have to divide our combined stuff. Disentangling from a partnership of five years is going to take some time, no matter how well defined my margins were. Determine who gets the food processor (me) and who gets the Vitamix (him). Decide whether to open individual accounts for streaming services or if we can continue splitting them but maintain separate profiles (I’m going to propose the latter, but I reserve the right to secretly fuck with his algorithm; enjoy the content recommendations based on your sudden love for K-dramas, asshole).
Then there’s the emotional fallout, which I suspect will plow into me the moment I sit still long enough for it to catch up. But for now, it’s as though there are too many potentially debilitating elements trying to get me at once, and they’re all bunched up in the doorway to my awareness. The MS prospect, the dissolution of yet another relationship due to my traitorous body, and its offshoot, the suspicion that my ever-growing list of physicalmaladies and personality flaws have rendered me unlovable and doomed to die alone, are scrunched together, waiting for a careless, examining tug from me, and then it’ll be a dogpile.
The backlog of emotions presses against its confines, and I imagine myself turning away. I have better things to do. Like getting strong. And ignoring the occasional sexy flashback of the time I spent in the bathroom with my now boss. I have a job to start tomorrow, a household to establish, and so many lifts and movements and skills to work on in the coming weeks, I won’t have the time to pick at that scab, anyway.
A shriek pierces the air. Alistair has turned the hose on the others, who’d collapsed onto the grass following their crushing session by the rig. He alternates aiming the water at Grant, then Diego, who protests loudly in Spanish, before returning to Grant.
“Dude!” Grant yells. “Not cool.”
Diego charges with a roar, sacking his assailant. With a whoop, Grant joins the tussle, the hose writhing beside them. In seconds, the patch they’re rolling in is a wreck of muddy males.
“Someone should probably stop them?” says Mark, craning to observe from his seat.
“My influence ends at the edge of the porch,” I say. “As long as they clean off before they go in, they’re welcome to mud wrestle.”
Diego emerges from the fray and army crawls toward the hose. He aims it over his shoulder, spraying the other two, who either laugh or shout at the water.
“Well,” Heather says with finality. “The next few months are certainly going to be interesting.”
“For all of us,” Mark mutters, his stare gone thousand-yard.“Jesus.”
9
“GOOD MORNING,” SAYS IAN,as the guys and I stroll into the gym a little before eight on Monday. He peers at the plate I carry. “What’s all this?”
“Ellie made us treats while we cleaned,” Diego tells him.
Yesterday had been busy. Heather and Mark went home once the wrestling match wrapped up, and after the guys had sufficiently de-mudded themselves, we gathered for a chat about expectations for the coming months. They were open to my plan to elevate the household’s baseline for cleanliness, with the understanding that they’d be responsible for upkeep. I got a breakdown of their coaching schedules, Grant’s and Diego’s summer classes, and Alistair’s upcoming modeling gigs, and assigned nights for cooking lessons and meal prep, as well as days for laundry and grocery shopping. We’ll tackle finances next week.
Then, the cleaning began. Any enthusiasm they may have had was smothered by mountains of dirty clothes and the realization thatallthe grout in the shower is supposed to be white, not, as Diego had thought, an orange that fadedupto white. Grant gotWindex in his eye. Something hard struck Alistair in the face while scrubbing the toilet of his and Grant’s bathroom, and he refused to continue without protective eyewear. I had only one recourse: bribery.
In my classroom management course, I’d been dismayed to learn that there was a possibility that my students wouldn’t see the intrinsic value in, say, discussing the ubiquity of human cruelty inA Separate Peace. In such situations, my cohorts and I were advised to provide external motivators to keep students productive and engaged. Rice Krispies Treats were my go-to, and based on everything I’d learned about them in the previous day-plus, I figured that these three would also be receptive to edible incentives. In a moment nothing short of serendipitous, my search of the kitchen provided all three necessary ingredients, though the marshmallow portion came in the form of stale Peeps—remnants of discounted pre-assembled Easter baskets Grant purchased last month.
Morale was restored. Alistair found goggles and tackled the bathroom, scrubbing and sanitizing so thoroughly, I had to ask him to crack a window to release the bleach fumes. The living room, if the hand-me-down recliner and lawn chairs let it be called that, was tidied and mopped, and every inch of baseboard in the four-bed, three-bath bungalow was wiped clean.
I multitasked, cleaning the stalactites from the microwave and wiping down cabinet fronts and work surfaces while devoting one burner to continuously melting Peeps. The guys refueled so often that I ended up wrapping individual squares just to slow them down.
“I don’t know that distributing sugar bombs at a gym is good practice, but we do have plenty.” I hand a blue-tinted square to Ian.He thanks me, and I am gratified as he immediately unwraps the treat and takes a bite. He lets out a groan of pleasure, and the gratification turns to something warmer and more southerly on my person.
“Jesus,” he says around a second mouthful. “Why is this so good?”
“I brown the butter,” I say.
“Whatever that means.Wow.I haven’t had a homemade Rice Krispies Treat since…”
“Mom, probably,” offers Grant.
Ian’s chewing slows, then stops.
Grant had said the same thing yesterday, but it had been mentioned offhand, like it was something their mom had made for them when they were kids and simply didn’t do for them as adults. But as I watch, a shadow crosses Ian’s expression. There’s more to it than that.
He swallows, then rewraps the square, leaving it on the desk, and nods to the computer. “We can start with a breakdown of the desk stuff and then do a tour.”
