My Roommate's Girl

by Julianna Keyes

  “Right,” he drawls, smirking as he sinks his first ball. “Because you’re afraid of losing.”

  “Ha.” I scoff as he misses his next shot, then pick up my cue. “I’m doing you a favor. You’ll see.”

  I know these guys well enough to call them my friends, but not well enough to talk to them about the situation with Jerry and Aster, though I have a hard time concentrating on the game when across the room I see that Sin has moved into my chair to be closer to Jerry. She’s got her hand on his bicep and her head tossed back as she laughs at something he said.

  T.J. comes over with another round of shots and I hesitate before taking one. Alcohol only gets me into trouble. Women get me in trouble. I get me in trouble.

  Fuck it. It’s Friday. I’ll sleep through the weekend and be back on the straight and narrow come Monday.

  Three games of pool and another five—or was it eight?—shots later, I can’t even remember what straight and narrow means. We stumble back to the table, mocking Wes’s failed attempts to pick up women and his insistence that he “didn’t want to, anyway,” and find Jerry and Sindy squeezed into a booth together.

  A half-eaten basket of carrot sticks sits in front of them, as well as an empty bottle of white wine and two glasses.

  Oh, Jerry.

  I sigh inwardly, thinking tonight’s game plan might be a little harder to execute than expected, then perk up when I notice that Sindy’s only got one hand visible. The other is hidden beneath the table, doing something that’s making Jerry have a hard time finishing his sentence.

  “How long have they been in there?” I ask T.J. T.J. went from high school straight into prison, and came to Holsom after he got out early for good behavior. Now he’s an art history major who makes a mean focaccia.

  “Too long,” he replies. “He still doesn’t know that what Sindy’s offering ain’t free. At least, it never has been.”

  Sindy’s a business woman at heart, skilled in one of womankind’s oldest trades, and even as I’m thinking how best to insinuate myself into their party for two and convince them to take things into the back, Sindy links her fingers with Jerry’s and tugs him out of the booth toward the beads.

  She parts the shiny curtain and giggles sexily as she pulls on his hand, and at the last second he turns to look at me, the same look I must have had when I stole my first car. The look of someone who knows he’s going to do something bad, maybe even wants to do something bad, even as he understands there will be consequences.

  Then he lets Sindy lure him out of sight.

  “Damn,” Wes mutters. “That guy? Really?”

  “C’mon,” T.J. says. “Look at those khakis! When else is he going to get laid if he doesn’t pay for it?”

  He’s not paying for it, I think.

  I am.

  5

  I wake up with a splitting headache. The weak sunlight slipping past the edge of the curtain feels like daggers piercing my skull, and I groan and cover my face with the pillow.

  Eventually I lift the pillow and check the time on my phone: just after eleven o’clock in the morning. I don’t have any plans for the day beyond shuffling to the kitchen for some aspirin and crawling back into bed. That’s as far as I can make it.

  It takes another ten minutes before I manage to get my feet on the floor. I fell asleep in my jeans and now I pull on a T-shirt as I plod down the hall to the kitchen. Jerry’s already there, looking as shitty as I feel. His dark hair sticks up every which way and his skin has an unhealthy gray tinge. He’s wearing a Holsom hoodie and a pair of boxers, staring morosely into a glass of orange juice.

  “Hey,” I mutter, my voice hoarse. I fill a cup with tap water, fetch three aspirin from the cupboard, and down them with one swallow.

  “Hey,” Jerry replies. He may appear sick, but he just sounds...sad. Especially sad for a guy who got laid last night.

  I know the answer, but still I ask, “You all right?”

  He doesn’t look up from the juice.

  “Want some aspirin?”

  A tiny head shake.

  Okay, I’m starting to feel bad for the guy. Not so bad that I don’t intend to go through with the rest of my plan to have Sindy bump into Aster and Jerry and spill the beans on last night’s encounter, but bad all the same. Bad on top of bad.

  “Did you have a good time at the party?” I ask, joining him at the counter. “In spite of the hangover?”

  He slowly raises his red-rimmed eyes. “No,” he says, his voice surprisingly firm. “I didn’t have a good time. I had a horrible time. It was... I was...horrible.”

  I’ve known Sindy for the three years I’ve been in town, but we’ve never hooked up. Still, no one she’s been with has ever described her as horrible. Quite the opposite.

  “I thought you hit it off with that, uh, waitress.”

  “She didn’t work there. She was hanging out. She was lonely.”

  If only he knew.

  “She was hot.”

  He meets my stare. “That’s not supposed to matter. I’m not supposed to do anything about it.”

  “So you two...?”

  He scrubs his hands over his face. “She...” He gestures to his crotch, and I infer the rest.

  “That’s it?” I press. “Just a blow job?”

  “That’s it?” he exclaim. “That’s it? That’s everything! That’s too much! When Aster finds out that I— That I—” He breaks off sadly. “That’ll be it.”

  Never mind that I plan to make sure she finds out, I still ask, “How would she know about it?”

  He gapes at me. “I have to tell her.”

  Now I gape. “You’re going to tell your girlfriend you let another girl blow you?”

  “She’s going to know something happened!” he exclaims. “She’ll be able to tell right away and I can’t lie to her. I love her. And now she’s going to hate me.”

  I can’t believe Jerry’s going to do the rest of my dirty work for me. Another hint of guilt stirs, but I squash it. On the one hand I’m sympathetic to the guy’s situation, but on the other hand...he got the blow job. I just...helped.

  “Maybe she’ll understand,” I offer lamely. “Maybe she’ll forgive you.”

  Jerry scoffs. “Why? Why would she do that? Have you seen her? Have you met her? Aster is amazing. She’s a million miles out of my league. She has no reason to forgive me.”

  “She loves you.”

  He shrugs and sips his juice. “It won’t be enough. This is going to break her heart. Even if she managed to forgive me, I could never forgive myself.”

  Jerry’s very sincere self-flagellation is starting to make me seriously uncomfortable. I haven’t bothered trying to convince myself that my motives here are anything other than selfish, because they’re motivated by the simple desire to have something that isn’t mine. But Jerry’s feeling bad enough for the both of us, and my conscience is starting to take note.

  “Hey,” I say, reaching over to awkwardly pat his shoulder. “Just give it a day or two. You feel like shit right now, but maybe you’ll think differently on Monday.”

  “Have you ever lied to someone about something this big?” he asks. “Broken their heart?”

  Now it’s my turn to study my beverage. “No,” I lie. “I haven’t.”

  He sighs. “Then you can’t understand.”

  * * *

  On Sunday night I’m watching the final minutes of a crappy football game with Jerry. Everything about this weekend has been crap, particularly because Jerry feels truly awful about what happened and I’ve been too hungover to leave the apartment to escape him.

  “Do you play any sports?” I ask.

  “Nah. I played some growing up—Little League or whatever—but my dad’s a surgeon and one night I got a pitch inside, swung, and hit my hand instead. Broke it. After that my dad said if I wanted to be a doctor I had to take care of myself first, so that was the end of sports.”

  “Do you want to be a doctor?”

  He
nods. “Yep. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. You?”

  “Definitely not a doctor.”

  “What’s your major? You never told me.”

  “Social work.” The degree hits a little too close to home so I’d dodged the question during our roommate interview, but I’m still feeling bad about my last lie, so here we are.

  “That’s a degree?”

  “At some schools. At Holsom.”

  “Is that why you picked this place?”

  “Ah, yeah.” Okay, just one more lie. The judge picked it.

  “That’s cool,” Jerry says. “Any—”

  A quick knock interrupts, followed by the sound of keys jangling and the faint creak of the door. Aster has keys, but she still always knocks before she comes in.

  “Hey,” she calls, peeking in. “Everyone alive?”

  Jerry straightens from his slouched position. “Yeah, we—I—What, um, what are you doing here? Right now?”

  “Calm down,” I mutter from the corner of my mouth.

  He stops talking.

  “You said you were sick,” Aster answers, holding up a brown paper bag. “I brought you chicken soup.”

  Jerry’s mouth opens and closes helplessly, and with every movement I’m convinced he’s going to announce his guilt and, by association, mine.

  “Chicken soup!” I exclaim loudly. “Isn’t that great, Jerry?”

  “Ah...yes?”

  “I brought enough for two,” Aster says, grabbing bowls from the cupboard. “In case you both had this same mysterious illness.” I see her roll her eyes as she ladles soup into the bowls, and in my whole life, no one has ever brought me soup when I was sick. I thought that was a myth promoted by soup companies.

  Jerry’s guilt is almost tangible. I can feel it slithering over me, tightening around my neck, making me feel ill when I’d been feeling pretty close to fine. Or maybe it has nothing to do with Jerry at all and everything to do with the guileless, sweet, gorgeous woman who brought us soup we don’t deserve.

  “What’s wrong?” Aster asks, glancing up when we haven’t moved from the couch after a minute. “I know you can’t be enjoying that football game.”

  Her uncertainty propels me to my feet. I don’t want her to feel as bad as we do, though I’m not sure I have much sway in that regard.

  “I’ll take the soup to my room,” I say, picking up the bowl. “You guys can catch up. Thanks for this.”

  “Of course,” she replies. “Feel better.” Her blue eyes meet mine and there’s something there, something sweet and smart and vaguely mocking.

  I disappear down the hall to my room, closing the door behind me and leaning against it. I don’t know why I feel so wrong. This is what I want. I want Jerry and Aster to break up. I want Aster to be free to fuck someone else, and I want that someone to be me. And I’m pretty sure I’m about to get the first part of my wish. I just didn’t expect it to feel like this. I didn’t expect her to bring me soup while I played a sleazy part in breaking her heart.

  I eat the soup standing up, then, when I don’t hear dishes breaking or raised voices, I grab a textbook and finish my reading for tomorrow’s class. An hour later I hear them talking as they come down the hall, Aster still happy, still oblivious. The voices fade as Jerry’s bedroom door shuts.

  We share a wall and the last thing I want to do is hear them going at it, so I pull on some headphones and try to concentrate on my reading. Problem is, I can’t read and listen to music at the same time, and if I close the book all I do is picture them having sex to my soundtrack.

  I pull off the headphones and slip out of my room. I wash the bowl and spoon, then settle on the couch to find an old sitcom rerun. It’s just after eleven o’clock. Hopefully Jerry and Aster fall asleep soon and I can go back to my room and think about something else.

  The final credits are scrolling down the screen when I hear Aster’s raised voice, Jerry’s desperate one, the sounds muffled by the closed bedroom door. Then the sounds get a lot louder because Jerry’s door is opened and Aster is telling him to shut up. “Stop talking!” she shouts, her voice breaking. “How could you? How could—” She hiccups. “How could you do this? You, Jerry? I don’t—” Another hiccup. “I don’t—I can’t—”

  I try to keep my attention on the television, but I don’t stand a chance. Aster hurries down the hall toward me in jeans and a yellow T-shirt and socks, the picture of innocence as she grabs her coat from the chair and shoves her feet into rain boots. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out her key ring, untangling our apartment key from the bunch and hurling it into the kitchen before she storms out. The door gives a heavy, final slam behind her, and for a long second, the apartment is dead quiet.

  Then I hear it. A tiny sniffle, a tinier sob, then the soft click of Jerry’s bedroom door closing.

  I did it.

  They’re done.

  6

  I don’t see Aster all week. Jerry doesn’t talk about her or the break up, just wisely assumes I figured it out on my own.

  One of the flaws in my genius plan was underestimating the power of my own guilty conscience; another one is forgetting that Aster and I have no reason to cross paths if she’s not coming to my apartment several nights a week. I don’t know her class schedule—hell, I don’t even know her major—and I while I know where she lives, I have no reason to be in or around that residence. So...shit.

  At Frisbee baseball on Thursday I’m lacing up my sneakers when Shamus sits on the bench beside me.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey.”

  He links his fingers together over his knees and peers around the gym, a real-life example of how not to succeed at being casual.

  “Is something wrong?” I ask reluctantly. “Do we have enough players?”

  “Yeah, we have enough.” He manages to make that sound like a bad thing. “I asked your friend Aster to play again, but she said no.”

  I try to ignore the twist in my stomach at the sound of her name. No, at the sound of her name spoken with Shamus’s Irish lilt. My stupid fucking plan has another flaw: Aster would never have cheated on Jerry, but now that she’s single, there’s no reason she can’t hook up with Shamus, using a bit of his Irish luck to mend her broken heart. Especially when he apparently has her phone number and I don’t.

  I am such a fucking idiot.

  “Maybe she’s busy,” I hear myself say.

  He exhales. “I don’t think that’s it. She looked kind of depressed. Still gorgeous, though.”

  This time I can’t ignore the twist in my stomach or the alarm that slices through me. “You saw her? In person?”

  “Yeah. We have a class together. We’d just never spoken until you brought her out to play that time.”

  Oh my God. I opened the door for Shamus to walk through? No. Fuck no. I was going to take some time to figure out how best to reach out to Aster after the break up, but that’s no longer an option if Shamus is planning to make the same move. Shamus, who didn’t pay Sindy to destroy a relationship. Shamus, who may be keen and annoying, but is also not a world-class asshole.

  “I don’t really know her,” I say. “She’s my roommate’s girlfriend and they’re always...going at it.”

  Shamus’s face falls.

  “Like, hardcore,” I add. “Sometimes I have to leave the apartment.”

  “Oh.” He cringes.

  “I wouldn’t mind meeting a girl like that,” I continue. “But a completely different one.”

  “What about Missy?” Shamus asks.

  “What?”

  “What if you went out with Missy? She likes you.”

  What the hell is it with guys I’m trying to sabotage being nice to me? And why the hell does it feel so shocking to have someone be kind?

  “Not her,” I say quickly, just as Missy jogs over and drops her bag at the far end of the bench. She winks at me and I turn back to Shamus. “She’s not my type.”

  He nods. “Sure. Okay. Me either.”
/>   And I know we’re both still thinking about Aster.

  * * *

  I’m still thinking about Aster when the game wraps up two hours later. We lose, and I notice her absence in right field for reasons that have to do with far more than her fielding ability.

  The team goes out for drinks afterward but I bail, blaming an essay I’ve got due tomorrow. It’s an icy, drizzly night, the sidewalks shining with frozen rivulets of water, trees dripping raindrops onto my shoulders with a steady thud.

  Instead of walking home I navigate my way through the dark, quiet campus toward Aster’s building. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I get there—or which floor she lives on—I just let my feet lead me and figure I’ll decide the rest when I arrive.

  The building lights are warm and welcoming as I approach, a couple of students shivering in front as they come out for one last smoke before bed. I’m itching for a cigarette now, but the memory of Aster’s wrinkled nose kills that idea. I’m not even sure I’ll get to see her, but if I do, I don’t want to smell like an ashtray.

  Before I even have time to come up with a plan, I hear my name.

  “Aidan?”

  I turn to see Aster approaching the building, her arm around the waist of a very inebriated girl.

  “Hey,” I say, hurrying toward them and helping to relieve some of the girl’s weight. “Everything okay?”

  Aster grunts. “Obviously not. Help me get her inside, please?”

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  One of the smokers gets the door for us and we squeeze through. Aster jabs the up arrow on the elevator, then looks at me over the girl’s slumped head. I’m expecting her to be angry, like she’s learned of my part in her pain, but instead she shrugs and makes a “What can you do?” face.

  Right. Aster’s a resident advisor. She’s got other people’s problems to deal with in addition to her own.

  We get the girl to her room on the tenth floor, where her roommate promises to keep an eye on her and call Aster with any problems. We step into the hall and Aster runs her hands through her damp hair. Her cheeks are flushed pink from the cold and exertion, and though she’s wearing the yellow jacket again, she doesn’t seem quite as bright as I remember.