Just Down the Hall

by Alessandra Thomas

  Had sex and then clung to each other all night long like we were desperately in love.

  “I don’t see why we can’t enjoy this, do you? It’s almost better that we’re roommates. I mean, since I’m dating whoever Philadelphia wants me to date for the future…”

  “Yeah, I guess you couldn’t really have a boyfriend, huh?”

  My gaze flashed to his.

  “Not that I’m saying that’s what I want. I mean, not that I don’t want that, but I don’t want to, like, claim you or anything…not that boyfriends own their girlfriends…” He looked up at me with widening eyes full of panic.. “Help,” he begged.

  I stifled a giggle. He was adorable, all rumpled and searching for the right words.

  “Well, since you couldn’t be my boyfriend, even if you wanted to, or even if I wanted to be your girlfriend, which neither of us is saying we want,” I supplied, checking his expression for confirmation.

  He nodded.

  “And since we want to continue the…you know…this,” I said, motioning between us again.

  He nodded enthusiastically, eyes wide, which made me laugh again. God, I loved—and hated—how easy everything seemed between us.

  “Under those circumstances, then, everything stays in these four walls,” I said. “Our apartment can be like another world where we get to have really mind-blowing sex, and we still have our own bedrooms.”

  “Even if we don’t use them,” he rushed in. I couldn’t identify his tone—was it disappointed? Hopeful? I may have known Jordan a long time, but I wasn’t used to his face being this mesmerizing, let alone caring what his expressions meant. “Like, I don’t want you to think you have to go to another bed or anything,” he finished. This time it was Jordan - JJ - who played nervously with the blanket.

  He looked back up at me steadily. “So this is friends with benefits?”

  “Old friends with benefits. Roommates with benefits. Roommates who are perfectly free to date other people,” I said.

  “Even if by ‘free’ you mean ‘contractually obligated to,’” he said.

  I sighed. “It’s not that. I did agree to it. And we’re not—I mean, this isn’t… this is good, but… yeah.” I waved my hand helplessly and tried to sound like I knew what I meant.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Good.” I couldn’t help but think his voice was a little softer than usual. Disappointed, maybe. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

  “You wanna shake on that, too?” I said, standing up and circling around to him. God, he looked good enough to eat. I seriously could have spent an hour just licking his smooth, taut, caramel skin. Every freaking inch of it.

  I sighed when I reached his side of the bed. Maybe later.

  “Why not?” he said with a tight smile, sticking his hand out one more time. “Old friend roommates with benefits?”

  “Yeah,” I said, clasping my palm against his. “That.”

  Then I ducked in the bathroom to get ready for the day. When I breezed out into the living room, dressed in my go-to pencil-skirt-and-blouse getup, Jordan—JJ, I harshly reminded myself—handed me a travel mug of coffee. I couldn’t help flashing him my biggest grin. “Thanks.”

  “You got it, friend.” He grinned back. “Good luck today. And, you know. Tonight.”

  “Thanks,” I said, trying to ignore the pang in my chest. “Friend,” I echoed before ducking out.

  Five minutes later, I slumped against the wall at the train station and sighed. I sipped the coffee and pulled a face. It was way too sweet and creamy.

  The fact that JJ didn’t know how I took my coffee only made me feel a little better about being his friend. His old friend. Old friend turned roommate. With benefits. Nothing more.

  The train pulled up and I growled, frustrated at everything and nothing all at once. On the way to the boarding platform, I dumped my coffee in the trash.

  Chapter 11

  Jordan

  When the door shut behind Liz, I immediately let out a long breath. I felt my chest deflate and my shoulders slump.

  What a difference twelve hours could make.

  It was easy enough to dismiss that first night as a fluke. I’d just moved, and maybe I was feeling a little unmoored, and there Liz was. Someone from home, now so attractive I could hardly stand it, welcoming me to Philadelphia and looking at me with those kaleidoscope hazel eyes. How could I have resisted?

  Yeah, the sex was incredible, but we’d been drinking. Maybe that had clouded up the memory a little.

  But that second time? She’d been a mess. Exhausted from work, mouth flaming from the jalapeno. I was a disaster too - My fingers were sticky from the ice cream I’d shoved in her mouth, and I’d been sweating all day while I walked around campus. It would have made more sense for to get her a wet paper towel and help her clean up, than to seductively feed her ice cream and excuse myself for a shower. Alone.

  If we were really just friends, who wanted nothing more from each other than sex, kissing her senseless would not be the most logical thing for me to do in that moment.

  But it had been the only thing I’d wanted to do. In fact, it was the only thing I’d been able to think about that day as I wandered around UPenn’s campus, familiarizing myself with the buildings that would hold my classes, dropping a few things in my cubicle in the Engineering offices, picking up the last few papers I needed to fill out to officially start classes next week. I’d found myself wandering around dreamily, wondering what Liz would have to tell me about this campus that had been her home for the last four years.

  Sex between two friends didn’t “just happen” unless there was something more there. I knew that. At least I thought I did. She hadn’t seemed very torn up at all over the idea this morning—in fact, it seemed like she had been ready with the solution. She’d handed it to me on a platter and offered it up like it had a foregone conclusion, to her. Like the only missing part of the agreement was me actually being awake so I could nod dumbly while trying to blink the sleep out of my eyes.

  By the time she’d finished her, “Let’s be friends with benefits. We can still be roommates without it being awkward at all, I promise!” diatribe, I knew that the only way I’d have a chance of spending any more time doing what we’d done the night before would be to agree.

  Even though she was going out with someone else tonight.

  Even though I didn’t have to give it a single second more thought to know that, from Liz, I wanted more than that.

  I sighed and slid into one of the chairs at the tiny four-person dining table I’d found at a secondhand shop and managed to situate comfortably right inside the entrance. I’d spent half of yesterday setting up the UPenn-issued laptop that every Engineering grad student got, and now I was glad I did. I had to focus on polishing up my thesis proposal before I did anything else. I’d managed to narrow it down to “The Development of Multi-Functional Structures for Small Satellites,” which reminded me of fancy James Bond tech, and “Development and validation of 3-D cloud fields using data fusion and machine learning techniques,” which would help me learn a skill that might make me indispensable on actual missions.

  After doing a few more things to get ready for summer term to start on Monday, I fixed myself a sandwich and salad and finally gave myself over to what I hadn’t been able to truly keep off my mind all morning – Liz, and who she’d be going out with today.

  I navigated to Philly Illustrated’s main page and raised my eyebrows at what I saw there.

  Liz had made this “Liz dates Philly” feature sound like kind of a small deal, but it was right there on the opening screen, dominating the right column with title letters in a marquee font you just couldn’t miss. There was a photo of her looking absolutely fucking adorable, standing on one of the busy downtown streets, the city buzzing behind her like it was just waiting for her to explore it.

  She wore a bright green sleeveless dress that flared out at the waist and ended just above her knees, and hot pink heels that accentu
ated every contour of her gorgeous legs, which looked particularly fetching when she stood on one tiptoe with one heel kicked up behind her. She clutched the strap of a little pink handbag with both hands, which squeezed her chest together just enough to show a little line of cleavage.

  I knew what the rest of that cleavage looked like. I’d seen it a precious few times, but I already felt like every detail of her body was burned on my brain. A strange caveman possessive urge came over me. This was the girl I’d practically grown up with, then had the privilege of stripping down and licking every inch of, on the front page of the Philly Illustrated website, asking its readers to vote on her date for tonight.

  I was just about to click on the first undeniably handsome asshole’s profile when my phone vibrated, skittering against the table and scaring the shit out of me. Who in the hell could be calling me now? I glanced over to hit the ‘decline call’ button when my sister’s bright white grin and wild curly hair filled the screen.

  I let out a short laugh and clicked ‘accept,’ propping up the phone on a salt shaker right next to my computer.

  “Why didn’t you just text?” I asked, shoving my fingertips into my hair when I wondered if mine looked as crazy as hers did. Probably.

  “I missed your face, brother,” she said. “You were home for like two weeks and I talked to you every damn day, and then you’re in Philly for one week and I barely hear a word from you! What gives?”

  Oh. She had a point there. Between getting settled with school and… getting settled with Liz, I’d been kind of pre-occupied.

  “Just school stuff. It’s a little crazy here.”

  “But classes don’t start ‘til Monday, right?” She leaned in even closer, her one visible eye squinting into the camera, like she could pull information out of me with some magic little-sister glare from all the way across the state.

  “Right, but I have a thesis topic meeting this afternoon already. Syllabus to go through and then the rest is getting my IDs and stuff. Registration. Moving into my office.”

  She continued to stare at me with her eyebrows raised.

  I sighed. “I don’t know, Kiera. What do you really want to know?”

  “I want to know how you and Liz are getting along.”

  I twisted my lips. I should have known. Even with her own brother and best friend, Kiera was meddling in love lives. It’s what she did best. In her head, all of life played out like a romantic comedy movie, one couple at a time - all you had to do was watch long enough.

  KiKi been hoping I’d be the star of one of one of her little fantasy rom-coms at some point, so she could watch up close. But any girl I’d even come close to bringing home just hadn’t stuck around long enough. Or maybe I’d made sure that they weren’t around whenever I got ready to take one of those trips home in the first place.

  I was picky about which girls I brought home, but with good reason. When Kiera got attached to a girlfriend of mine, I wanted to feel attached to her as well. I loved my sister, and I wanted to make her happy. I wanted to be able to see a future with whoever I let past my Stanford firewall and into my family.

  “She’s great,” I said. “Very sweet. Very driven. She’s grown up a lot.” As soon as I said the last thing, I winced internally. I knew Kiera would be ready to pounce on that one, for sure.

  “She sure has grown up, hasn’t she? Absolutely gorgeous, right? Stunning. Like, you know all my friends are pretty, but Liz is…”

  I waved my hand in front of the camera. “Okay, okay. Whoa there. I know what you’re trying to do.”

  Kiera sat up with wide eyes and swiveling neck, like a mama meerkat on high alert. “Me? Trying to do something? I can’t imagine what you mean!”

  “And I can’t believe you don’t realize you only sound exactly like Scarlett O’Hara when you’re meddling.” I took a deep breath, hoping the exhale would push the sound of deception out my next words. “Liz is very nice. Nowhere near as annoying as she was as a kid. A great roommate so far. The end.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Kiera crossed her arms and finally sat back in her chair, letting up on her assault. I tried to subtly let out a relieved breath.

  Instinct told me to add something about how I wasn’t even attracted to her, but my gut feeling rebelled against it. Finally I realized there was something true I could tell Kiera that would absolve me. “She’s dating someone else,” I blurted out, feeling an unexpected sadness settle in my chest at the words. “So, you know. It’s not a thing. And it’s not gonna be, because we’re roommates.”

  Kiera sat back and that unmistakably pissed-off glint flared in her eyes. “She didn’t tell me she was dating someone.”

  Dammit.

  “Well…it’s complicated. You know what, KiKi? I gotta go. A bunch of the STEM guys are getting together for drinks tonight and I have some stuff to finish up before we do.” It was true. I’d seen it in one of the dozens of Engineering department emails that had already gone out since I arrived. I hadn’t planned on going, exactly, but the more I thought about it, I could use a social distraction. “Call if you need anything, okay?”

  “What I need, Jordan, is for you to tell me what the hell is going on with—”

  “Love you sis! Bye!”

  I let my forehead thunk on the table. What the hell had I been thinking, letting her suck me into talking about Liz at all? I should have known Kiera would figure out that I had a thing for her in a split second. More importantly, I should have thought about the fact that maybe Liz didn’t want her friends to know about her highly unorthodox, sort of ridiculous dating journalism adventure. Then again, in the internet age, Kiera would have found out about it anyway…

  The link to Liz’s dating poll was easy enough to find. I copied it, then pulled open the text window and typed a quick message. Sorry. Had to run. This is what I was talking about.

  The three little reply dots popped up, then disappeared, then popped up again. I chuckled. I could just imagine Kiera reading the intro article to “Liz dates Philly,” her mouth dropping open a little farther with each line. I clicked on the link myself, remembering how hard I’d laughed at what Liz had written about it. “And to think I thought online dating was the laziest way to find that special someone. Leave it to a slacker like me to find an even lazier way to find the most eligible bachelors in Philly!” when I’d first read it. Poring over her words almost felt like talking to her. I couldn’t tell if that made me feel better or worse—closer to her or even farther away.

  Dammit. I was pining, wasn’t I? How did this girl who meant next to nothing to me two weeks ago now consume this space in my head that I didn’t even know was empty?

  Finally, Kiera replied: Daaaaaamn. #2

  I sighed and clicked on the link, still unsure if I even gave a damn that Liz had managed to turn me into a pathetic mess. Kiera was right.

  I shoved my hand back through my curls, wincing when my fingers snagged in the tangled mess. The short flash of pain snapped me back into focus.

  Each choice of guy on the “Liz Dates Philly” poll had a little paragraph description, complete with cheesy personal-ad style headlines. “Dance the night away?” “Hear me roar?” What the hell? I groaned and covered my face with my hands, pulling my fingers apart to keep reading through them. The three pictures, all in a row right above the poll made matters ten times worse. They were all decent looking guys, even if #2 was balding and wearing a suit that didn’t fit him too well, #3 was trying way to hard to flex each one of his naked muscles (oh, yeah, he was only wearing underwear, for fuck’s sake) and #1 looked like a goddamn lumberjack.

  Not that there was anything wrong with lumberjacks.

  Maybe Liz liked lumberjacks. How would I know? I barely knew her. Our lips had been smashed together for more total minutes than they’d been talking to each other.

  Maybe a slender engineer with crazy hair and bordering-on-hipster glasses wasn’t her type. Maybe even though she thought I was good in bed (and I knew she did, no girl could
fake an orgasm like the ones she’d had) that was all she wanted me for.

  Maybe I could use this whole “Liz dates Philly” thing to find out.

  Each of these guys had a very distinctive type. Business man, flamboyant egomaniac, burly mountain man. I swore when I checked the voting count so far - of course the guy in the underwear ad was up four to one. With one easy tap of my thumb, I voted for Liz to go on a date with Baldy. Then, just for good measure, I did the same on my laptop. And opened up a second browser and voted for him there. Wasn’t a bad time to see if I could raise Internet Explorer from the dead, so I voted there, too.

  Four votes toward steering Liz away from Mr. Tighty-Whities. I sat back in my chair and felt my lips twist. Four votes were nothing against the hundreds that were only multiplying by the hour.

  I sighed and sent another text to Kiera.

  * * *

  Me: Vote for #3.

  Kiera: Already done x20. There’s no way Liz is psyched about going out with any of these dudes so I decided to vote for the one who would be funniest.

  Me: You’re so smart. Does she know?

  Kiera: I don’t think she’d be pissed. It’s not like she’s looking for her soul mate.

  Me: Did she say that?

  Kiera: No. But I know her well enough to know she’s not relying on a magazine gimmick to find Mr. Right.

  * * *

  My thumb hovered over the keypad. Just because Liz wasn’t trying to find the right guy through these stupid dates didn’t mean that she wouldn’t. God, if that happened I’d just be the pathetic pining roommate. I’d rather be the roommate she was fucking thrilled to come home to after a string of horrible dates. Wouldn’t I?

  Then something occurred to me. I scrolled back up to re-read Kiera’s texts.

  * * *

  Me: Wait. It let you vote for him 20 times?

  Kiera: Yep. Well, 25 now.

  Me: What do you have to gain by making her go out with this middle-aged guy?