He walked over to the other side of the kitchen, picked up a banana out of a pile of about twenty, peeled it and ate the entire first half in one bite whilst looking right at me, grinning.
Ryan laughed. “I forgot to mention, that’s Jake’s bushel of bananas over there. We think he is part human, part monkey.”
I looked at Jake. “You like bananas, huh?”
Still chewing, Jake said, “Damn straight, I do. I fuckin’ love ‘em. Mmm.” He took the other half of the banana and stuffed the whole thing into his mouth, gesturing to me with the peel, his mouth full. “Wa-wan?”
“Huh?”
“Want one?” he said more clearly.
I held my hand out. “No, thanks. I’m good.”
Still chewing, he continued looking at me, and my heart fluttered.
Ryan broke the uncomfortable silence. “I told you Jake was interesting.”
I watched as Jake slowly licked his lips after finishing the banana. He is interesting alright.
The front door then opened, and in walked a cute girl with short black hair in a pixie cut.
Reality Show Scene Four, enter stage right: instant best friend.
She was wearing an adorable blue shift dress and immediately dropped her purse that was practically larger than she was, walked over to Ryan and planted a kiss on his lips.
“Hey, babe,” Ryan said and then turned to me. “This is Nina. Nina meet Tarah.”
She startled me when she immediately pulled me into a hug. “I have heard so much about you, Nina. I have been waiting for you! I am outnumbered here. You didn’t tell me how pretty she was, Ryan.”
“Aw, thanks…likewise,” I said. “It’s really nice to know I won’t be the only female in the house.”
Tarah had almond-shaped light brown eyes, defined, thick eyebrows and full lips. She was petite with smooth olive skin, and I could totally see what Ryan saw in her. I was curious about her nationality, so I asked her.
“Can I ask…are you Italian…Spanish?”
“No, actually, I’m Persian. My family is from Iran.”
“Ah, I knew it was something like that. You have a very exotic look.”
Tarah smiled and Ryan said. “Yeah, where Nina and I come from, there are two ethnicities: white and pasty white.”
We all laughed, and then I noticed Jake walking back down the hall to his room. I was oddly disappointed by his sudden retreat.
Tarah immediately started playing with my hair.
“Who does your highlights?”
“No one. This is my natural color.”
“Seriously? You are so lucky, girl. Do you know how much money people have to pay me to get highlights that look like this?”
“Well, it’s a good thing I don’t have to pay for it. I’m gonna be pretty broke this year since I am going to try to not work and just focus on school full-time.”
“Nursing, right? That’s probably a pretty tough curriculum.”
“It is. So, the more focus on school the better. I have enough money saved to just about pay my rent and food for the year.”
“Well, if you ever need anything, you let me know, okay?” Tarah said.
“That’s really sweet of you. Thanks.”
She had kind eyes, and I could tell we were going to be good friends.
Ryan nudged Tarah, kissed her forehead and looked at me. “I told you she was awesome.”
It was obvious that Ryan had it bad. Feeling like a third wheel all of a sudden, I excused myself to go finish unpacking, even though I had already put most of my stuff away earlier.
“I’ll come say goodnight later,” Tarah said as I waved to her.
When I got to my room, I turned on the only light, a small lamp, and lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling. It had been a long day, and even though I should have been resting, my mind kept racing.
I decided to take a shower. Gathering all of my toiletries and placing them in a caddy, I grabbed my robe and walked down the hall to the bathroom.
The sound of some kind of alternative music was coming from Jake’s room, but the door was closed. It occurred to me that from now on, every time I used the bathroom or showered, I’d have to do it next door to Jake, since his room was right outside of the bathroom.
As the hot water poured down on me, I tried to relax. I had a lot on my mind, from anxiety about classes starting Monday to my unwanted attraction to my tattooed, pierced, smoking hot roommate, who based on first impressions, was quite likely a man-whore.
I wrapped my wet hair in a towel, securely tightened my robe and grabbed my dirty clothes off the floor. Cautiously peeking out into the hallway before I escaped the safety of the steamy bathroom, I tiptoed back to my room and closed the door.
After I brushed the tangles out of my wet hair, I slipped into a pink camisole and shorts and grabbed my Kindle to do some light reading before bed.
About twenty minutes into the book, there was a knock at the door. Assuming it was Tarah, I didn’t think twice before opening it with no bra.
The sight of Jake standing there completely shirtless and fresh out of the shower with his hair wet nearly knocked the wind out of me. He smelled like the men’s body wash that I had sniffed in the bathroom. The one I would be bathing in from now on.
Trickles of water dripped down his defined chest onto his six-pack. His chest had no tattoos, but I now saw that he had tribal ink on his side torso and upper arms. I knew he was attractive, but it truly stunned me how beautiful he was bare.
I swallowed, hardly getting the words out. “Ha…hi…what’s up?”
Jake’s heated stare burned through me as he quickly glanced down to my braless chest and back up to my eyes. He licked his lips, and I swear, I felt it. I could describe it as electric, but it was more like a dragon breathing fire down my throat, igniting a wet explosion at the site of my vagina.
Then, he reached into his pocket and handed me…a pair of underwear. “I found these on the bathroom floor…thought you might want them.”
I reached for them, mortified. They were the dirty underwear I had been wearing all day and must have fallen out of the clothes pile I carried out of the bathroom.
Covering my chest with my arms, I clutched the panties and was pretty much speechless as he stood there in my doorway. “Thanks.”
He stared at me for a few seconds, grinned impishly but said nothing else as he turned around. I watched him walk away and noticed that his back was just as defined as the front as he sauntered down the hall, his black pants hanging low on his waist, almost but not quite low enough to display the top of his tight, round ass.
Shaking my head, I took a deep breath and slowly closed my door.
This wasn’t the type of guy you lived with every day. This was the type of guy who came out to play only at night in your deepest, darkest fantasies.
Stay. Away. Nina.
I was sweating, even though I had just showered. After a few minutes, when my hormones finally stopped doing the Macarena, I went back to bed and tried to focus on something other than my new roommate. Just when I had finally gotten my mind off of him, I looked over to my right and noticed something on my nightstand that I must have missed earlier.
Oh my God.
Someone must have put it there when I was in the shower.
Someone. I knew exactly who it was.
It was an origami bird made out of black construction paper, just like the ones Stuart used to make. But wait…it wasn’t a bird.
It was a bat.
I held it in my hand and covered my mouth to contain the stupefied laughter. I looked around as if someone was in the room watching me, but of course, I was alone.
I unfolded the bat and noticed a message written underneath the left wing in silver gel ink.
Welcome to the “House.” --Jake
How’s Uncle Jesse?
CHAPTER 3
It was Saturday morning and Jake was already gone before I could thank him for my little gift. Like Ryan explained, he took off for Boston every weekend and generally came back on Sunday nights in time to work on Monday.
The first thing on my mind when I woke up was the bat, how intricate it was and how Jake had now joined the bandwagon of people teasing me about my resemblance to the Olsen twins. At least I thought they were pretty and took it as a compliment.
Ryan and Tarah were in the kitchen eating pancakes when I walked in.
“Sit down and join us, Troll,” Ryan said.
Tarah looked at me excitedly. “Nina, you and I should go shopping today. I took the day off.”
“Really? Cool…I need to dress up my room badly.”
She clapped giddily. “Perfect. We’ll have so much fun.” She handed me the syrup. “So, are you nervous about starting school?”
“I am…mostly about the math requirement. I have never done well in math. I failed it in high school, actually.”
Ryan pointed his fork at me. “You should get Jake to help you. He is a whiz when it comes to stuff like math and science.
“I’ll pass. Jake seems a little busy for tutoring.”
Tarah placed a steaming cup of coffee in front of me and said, “Seriously. You should ask him if you’re stuck.”
“Okay,” I said, mostly to shut them up. I knew full well I would never ask Jake for help.
***
That afternoon, Tarah and I went shopping at King’s Plaza. She helped me pick out a pink and gray comforter, a couple of canvas floral wall prints, a gray shag rug, and a pink accent lamp. My father had given me permission to use his credit card for some apartment items, but I knew this spending spree would be the last hurrah for a while.
We stopped for frozen yogurt on the way home, and Tarah insisted on paying for me. We sat down at one of the tables to talk.
“So, you and Ryan. How did that come about?” I asked.
She closed her eyes briefly and sighed. “He is such a sweetie, isn’t he? We were friends for a while first, you know. We had been roommates for like three months before anything ever happened. One night, we had the house to ourselves and just stayed up ‘til all hours talking about anything and everything. All of a sudden, I looked at him and thought…huh.”
“Huh,” I imitated her, laughing.
Tarah took a spoonful of yogurt and continued talking with her mouth full. “I had always thought he was cute, but it was a gradual thing seeing him as something more.”
Then, I stopped beating around the bush and asked the question I really wanted the answer to.
I wiped my mouth and asked, “What do you make of Jake?”
She rolled her eyes. “Jake. Hmmm. Where do I start?”
I started eating my yogurt unusually fast. “What’s his deal?” I asked with my mouth full.
Tarah picked a raspberry out of her cup, ate it and said, “Well, first of all, the obvious…he’s friggin’ smokin’ hot, right?”
I was a little taken aback at her blunt comment and felt a twinge of jealousy but reminded myself that she was with Ryan and would have to be blind not to think Jake was extremely good looking.
“He’s alright,” I said nonchalantly.
“Jake is…cool. I mean, he likes to bust balls. We don’t spend a lot of time with him. He’s obviously got his own stuff going on, traveling back and forth to Boston on weekends and what not. He keeps to himself for the most part when he is home.”
“Do you think he has a girlfriend in Boston?”
“He hasn’t mentioned one, and I have never asked him point blank, but there is definitely something going on there. He has mentioned a sister and nieces that he’s really close to, but he goes back every single weekend, so it can’t just be for them. Jake doesn’t really open up, but that’s okay. He’s respectful, and we all get along. And boy, that dude can fix anything that breaks in the house. It’s amazing how smart he is. He’s got a rough exterior, but there is definitely somebody home upstairs,” she said pointing to her skull.
“Yeah, he seems cool enough.” I decided not to tell her about the bat. I kind of liked keeping that to myself.
Tarah leaned in. “Why were you wondering if he had a girlfriend? She paused and let out a huge smile. “You like him!”
Was it just me or was it getting in hot in here?
I laughed it off. “No, of course not! I mean, not in that way.”
“Then, why did your face just turn as red as this raspberry?”
***
The weekend came and went as I busied myself stocking the refrigerator with my favorite foods and setting up my room. Tarah and I spent Sunday night hanging out in my newly decorated space, waxing our eyebrows and painting our nails.
That night, I tossed and turned, stressed about starting classes the next day.
It was about midnight when I heard the front door open, followed by footsteps passing my room and heading down the hall. I knew it was Jake returning from Boston. Immediately, the butterflies that lay dormant all weekend in my stomach came to life and kept me up most of the night.
CHAPTER 4
It was a rainy early September day in Brooklyn, but the five block walk from the apartment to the main university building on the corner of Flatbush and DeKalb was a breeze.
This semester I would be taking Psychology, Anatomy and Physiology, English Composition and Finite Math. I was fairly certain I would be able to handle the material in all of the courses with little difficulty, except for math, which had always been a nearly impossible subject for me. Unfortunately, the math class was a requirement for the nursing program, and if I didn’t get at least a C average, I was screwed.
Math was the final class of the day, and I wanted to cry when I saw the syllabus and skimmed through the textbook. Professor Hernandez seemed like a jerk on top of that. Listening to him lecture as he wrote out problems on the dry-erase board, I started to sweat. Select a number “n” multiply it by 4, add 10 to the product, divide the sum by 2, and subtract 5 from the quotient. Heh?