Page 62 of My Roommate from Hell
“We have the perfect spy currently possessing our bathroom. I’m sure he’d behave if I promise to let him out in exchange for him watching Leeke for a while.”
“You can’t send a ghoul to spy on her.”
“Okay,” he says, although he starts to grin. “I won’t, I’ll be good. I’m going to use the bathroom for a completely unrelated reason.”
“Zarmenus!”
He slips into the bathroom. A few seconds after that, a strange, pale green light starts seeping under the door. It flashes, and then disappears, and Zarmenus walks out.
I cross my arms. “I can’t believe you let the ghoul out.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. But hey, are you free tonight?”
“If the ghoul doesn’t kill me, then yes.”
“Then we should go on a date. Or, not a date. A hangout.”
I feel my eyebrows shoot up. A date-slash-hangout. Yes. That is the plan. It’s just now that it’s actually happening it’s way different than planning it.
“You did say we have to,” he says, maybe picking up on my hesitation. “And couples don’t spend all of their time in their room.” He tilts his head, considering that. “I mean, not all of their time. If we were really boyfriends we wouldn’t leave this room for anything.”
“Yeah, we should,” I say, hoping he doesn’t notice my blush. “What should we do?”
My timeline included the dates and times of when we should go out, but I didn’t get to the point of filling out the actual activities.
For a split second I wonder what it would be like if we were going on a real date. If you took away all the annoying roommate things, going on a date with someone like Zarmenus would be exciting. He’s annoying, but also incredibly attractive. He can be charming, and funny sometimes. Maybe in an alternate reality we could go on a real date and it would be amazing.
That’s not us, though. We are two liars, with one trying to getan internship and the other trying to get his controlling parents off his back.
“Or we could just post on social media,” he says. “I’m pretty popular on there now, if you don’t count the Golden Sun hate. It’d be easy to get the word out.”
I shake my head. That doesn’t fit my plan.
“It’s too fast, nobody on campus would believe us. We need to go on a few real dates, and then post something. Otherwise people will be suspicious.”
“Fair. What would you like to do?”
“Maybe we can go to the Northside Diner?” I suggest. It’s easy, simple, and, most important, public.
“It’s a date. Sorry, hangout.”
He winks.
Even though it’s fake, a part of me is looking forward to it.
I’ve decided that I’m going to try my hardest to make this seem real.
And that means that I’m treating this hangout as if it’s real in every way I can think of. I’m sure people would read it as false if I went to it in casual clothes with my hair messy.
Zarmenus doesn’t seem to be putting much effort in. He did shower this morning, but he’s still wearing the same clothes as he has all day. He’s spent nearly the entire day playing video games, but he’s kept his headphones on and hasn’t made any mess, so he’s not bothering me.
We decided we’d go on the “hangout” at six thirty, because we figured that’s when the diner would be the most crowded. That’s in ten minutes. I’ve been ready since six. Zarmenus, on the other hand, waited until 6:27 to stop playing his game to spray on some cologne.
I wish knowing it’s fake would give me some sort of confidence, at least enough to bluster my way through it. But I swear I’m as nervous as I would be if this were real. I’m already thinking about everything I’m going to say, how I’m going to act. It’s not helping that my hair is being a giant pain in the ass and isn’t sitting right.
I check the time on my phone. It’s exactly six thirty. Even if my hair doesn’t look how I want it to, I need to go.
I leave the bathroom. Zarmenus is on the floor, his hand placed on the burn mark on the carpet. He’s muttering something incomprehensible under his breath. He has changed shirts, putting on a black button-down I haven’t seen him wear before. It’s a good look for him. He has changed one other thing: he’s swept back his hair. It’s so simple, but it changes his whole look.
