CHAPTER TWO
“Honey, I’m home.” The front door of our large blue Victorian house closes with a loud bang.
My job as the youth center’s director may not pay much money, but my ability to live in this house makes it worth it. Sure, we don’t own the place, but with three other roommates the rent is totally affordable. Living in a San Francisco Victorian period home is a dream come true. All those nights spent watching Full House in Mrs. Haverbush’s living room where I dreamt about having Danny Tanner for a dad and their awesome house. My foster mom is a wonderful woman, but her house in Oakland felt worlds away from the life Stephanie Tanner was living. I never got the dad, but the house makes up for it.
“So did you sleep with him?” Drew steps out of the kitchen, a small container of Ben and Jerry’s in his hand.
“No. Of course not. It’s 5 p.m. on Saturday night. Who do you think I am?” I yank the delicious frozen pint from his hand. “For that I’m stealing your ice cream.”
“Grant is a good-looking guy.” Drew rubs a hand through his dark brown hair and goes back to unloading the groceries in the kitchen.
I pull a chair out from our small dining room table and talk to him through the opening to the kitchen. “Number one, that’s weird.”
He shrugs sliding a gallon of milk into the refrigerator. “I’m comfortable in my masculinity. I’d tell you if he was a horse face.”
How the male species has survived this long I’ll never understand. “Number two, I’m in control of my vagina. She doesn’t get to sleep with random people without my permission.” I take a deep breath and carry on so I can get my third point out before he makes a comment about the word vagina. “And number three, Grant is like a hemorrhoid. You think you’ve taken care of the problem, but then it flares up again. The last thing I’m going to do is sleep with him. That would aggravate the situation.”
“But he’s a hot and rich hemorrhoid. And what do you know about hemorrhoids, anyway?” Drew leans on his elbows over the wall divide between us. With his light blue eyes and long thick dark eyelashes, he should’ve been born a girl. I told him that once…it didn’t go over well. He must not have been comfortable in his masculinity at age sixteen.
“I read things on the Internet.” I shrug and open the carton of ice cream. “Pass me a spoon, would ya?”
He rolls his eyes before I lose sight of him in the kitchen. “You don’t even like Chunky Monkey.”
Hmm. He’s right. I’m not a fan of the banana flavor. “It’s more about punishing you for thinking badly of my vagina.”
He groans from the other room and then tosses a spoon at my head. “Can we not discuss your girly bits, please?”
I catch it just in time. “Dork.”
“Seriously, in my mind you have a penis. Best brother I’ve ever had. Don’t ruin it for me.”
“You brought it up first.”
Drew walks around the kitchen wall and stops next to me at the table. “Grow up, Clare,” he says snatching the carton of ice cream away.
I give up on the ice cream — Yup, still hate this banana crap — and follow him to the living room. “What’s on the agenda for tonight?”
“Murder, mayhem, all the usual.” He props up one of the couch pillows and then sits down leaning against it.
“So basically what you’re saying is there’s a game on and you plan to spend tonight on the couch watching?”
He nods his head. His lips pucker like there’s nothing wrong. “Yeah. Want to join me?”
“Sure.” I sit on the opposite side of the couch. It’s not like I have anything else going on for me tonight.
Believe it or not we were a much more adventurous crew at one point in our lives. But I’ve spent the last two months in hiding from Grant, and Drew was dumped by his long-term girlfriend, Cassie, two weeks ago. Well long-term for him being shy of six months. He’ll never admit it bothers him more than he lets on. Life for him has been nothing but sweat pants and ESPN since she packed her bags and moved out.
“Isn’t it early for football?” A replay of a jersey-clad player kicking a football through the goal posts lights up our television. “I thought we were in baseball season?”
Drew gives me the side-eye. “It is baseball season. That’s a replay of the big game-winning play from this year’s Super Bowl.”
“Oh. Can I use your laptop while we watch since we know the score of this exciting match?”
He smirks, kicking his feet up on our rectangular coffee table. “Sure, if you tell me why you need it.”
“I have important things to do.” Heavy emphasis on things.
“I’m sure you do. Lots of crap to move around in your inventory in Dragons Reborn?”
“It’s not as easy to do from my phone.” I’ve been playing Dragons Reborn for the last two years, but Drew never caught the hype. Since it’s possible my personal laptop is older than I am, he lets me borrow his to play from time to time.
Drew and I have been BFFs since we met ten years ago. I attached myself to his side after he punched Brad Metzer — another foster kid — when he tried to steal my winter coat. Being friends with and protected by Drew is half the reason I made it out of foster care mostly unscathed. I haven’t regretted having him for a best friend once.
“So you’ll play his video game but won’t suck his dick?”
Okay, I’ve regretted it a few times.
“Oh my God.” I reach across the space and hit him in the arm. “It’s not his game and you’re so crass.”
“I might be crass,” he repeats the word in this fake “Clare” voice he likes to mimic me with on occasion, “but you’re being daft. You won’t fuck Grant because you’re worried you’ll turn out like your mother, but you, Clare Cunningham, are too smart for that.”
“Don’t say fuck.” I mumble unintelligibly about my mother being smart as well and let the subject drop. Drew and I both have our reasons for ending up in foster care. His involved an alcoholic father with a mean left hook and mine a mother with a long prison term for drug distribution.
My prison visits with my mother contain some of our best memories. Mainly because she’s sober. Theresa wasn’t a terrible mom and there were times she tried, but the heartache of my father leaving her when I was a baby became too much. It wasn’t always drugs, but one thing has a way of leading to another and none of it leads uphill.
Drew is right though, I’m smarter than my mom because I will never allow a man to break my heart.
The big game goes to a commercial and Drew’s attention returns to me. “Fine. Ignore your Grant problem, but eventually we will need to deal with the roommate situation.”
My nose crinkles at the thought of what is to come. Searching for a roommate sucks donkey ass. Drew’s girlfriend was our fourth roommate, and while she paid rent a month in advance, we need to fill her space quickly or we’ll be screwed.
“Yuck.” I cringe at the thought. “Did you put a new ad on Craigslist?”
Cassie’s departure is the second time we’ve had to find a replacement because Drew slept with a housemate.
“And remember it must be a guy this time because you are not allowed to date the roommates anymore.”
“I posted the ad, but you need to focus on being less picky this time if you want to find someone suitable. It will be hard to find one that can meet your ridiculous demands.”
“My demands are not ridiculous.” I don’t want to live with a creeper. It’s not too much to ask, is it?
“Clare,” he pauses long enough to give me a drawn-out expression. “You wouldn’t let Cassie cook fish.”
“And…” I stand by the decision. The whole house smelled of ocean for a week.
“We are never going to find another roommate like Blake, so you need to stop looking.”
Blake. I sigh and tilt my head at the ceiling pretending I can see him on the third floor.
Blake is the best roommate ever. He lives on the top floor of the house with a private entrance and never uses the house besides his room and the private third floor bathroom. He has a mini fridge up there so we don’t have to share fridge shelf space. We’ve seen him less than five times in the last three years. Each sighting was unexpected, causing us to react like he’s Bigfoot. His rent checks mysteriously appear on the kitchen counter every month and we don’t ask questions. It’s a perfect arrangement.
The other three bedrooms are on the second floor with one shared bath. They require much more interaction between us. That’s why picking a new roommate for the second floor is such a delicate balance. We have to get it exactly right.
“You should let me pick the roommate on my own this time.” Drew suggests as if it’s the best idea ever.
“What? I don’t think so. Are you on drugs?” Drew would find someone to sit around and watch football with all day and then I’d be surrounded by men.
“I’ll let you use the laptop whenever you want without making fun or calling you a nerd.”
I roll my eyes at his offer. We both know that’s a promise he could never keep.
“You’re so busy, Clare. At least let me do the grunt work of whittling our choices.”
“Fine.” Last time we had hundreds of people email expressing their interest. “But I at least get to meet them before you say yes and someone starts moving their shit in here.”