Everything was worse.
That was what I woke up to the next morning. Soren was one of those heavy-breather types when he slept, which I probably wouldn’t have even noticed if we had actual walls instead of flimsy, bamboo dividers.
I woke up when my alarm first went off, wondering why I still felt tired after getting ten full hours of sleep. My feet looked worse than they had last night, but I was hoping a warm shower and some movement would help with that.
Sliding out of my sleeping bag, I gathered my outfit for the day before moving toward the bathroom. Soren must have been working last night, because I hadn’t heard him get back. It was kind of creepy to realize I hadn’t stirred when some guy I barely knew crawled into a bed no farther than fifteen feet away from my own.
The apartment was dark, but a hint of morning light cast through the windows, revealing an apartment that had gone from messy to warzone. What in the hell? My feet rolled to a stop when I saw the table covered in books, to-go boxes, soda cans, and an assortment of baseball paraphernalia. Something hanging from the blades of the ceiling fan caught my eye.
My face pinched up at the same time I covered my eyes. Jockstraps. He was hang-drying his jockstraps from our ceiling fan. Trying to erase the image of Soren’s unmentionables dangling from a ceiling fan from my mind, I darted for the bathroom before I could take in anything else that would cause permanent mental scarring.
I’d barely made it three steps before I tripped over something right in the middle of the hall. My hand managed to brace against the wall to keep me from falling, but the incident had my blood pumping and my anger stirring. What was his giant duffel bag of baseball crap doing in the middle of the hallway? Probably the same spot he’d let it fall off his shoulder, then decided that was as good a spot as any to store one’s personal objects.
As I took my shower, I reminded myself what he’d done for me so far. He might have taken messy to a new level, but he was a decent human being. That didn’t do much to make me feel better. I was living with this messy, decent person. In a confined space. For at least the next six months.
Given I trended toward the neat-freak end of the spectrum, I found myself entertaining the knowledge I’d rather be sharing an apartment with a tidy, not-so-decent individual.
My shower went extra long, thanks to yesterday’s lack of one and today’s necessity of working out some irritation by loofahing the heck out of my skin. I came out looking pink from all the scrubbing.
Once I’d dressed and gone through my standard morning ritual, I left the bathroom. Soren was still asleep, which was probably for the best since I likely would have greeted him in an unpleasant way to start a new day. Especially when I noticed the carton of milk left out on the counter. From back here, it looked like it was already growing mold.
As I packed up what I needed for the day, I made as little noise as possible, then I tiptoed toward the door. From a few steps back, I noticed something taped to the door. It was a twenty-dollar bill. A yellow sticky note was attached to it. Just in case. You can pay me back by introducing me to your future supermodel friends. That was followed by a smiley face with its tongue sticking out.
I didn’t want to take the money. I hated owing a person something, and I felt guilty taking it after all the things I’d grumbled about him in the shower. I didn’t want to take it—borrow it—but I needed it. If having to accept some favors from my roommate was what it took to get me on the right track, that was worth swallowing my pride.
I took the twenty down, grabbed the pen from my purse, and scratched my own note onto the yellow sticky. Now I owe you twenty dollars and a subway ticket. After adding my own smiley face with its tongue hanging out, I slipped out of the apartment.
Today was the same as yesterday. Subway. Agency. Go-sees. A pattern seemed to be emerging, and with each client I met, I became more comfortable with the process. I got a better overall response from today’s meetings than from yesterday’s, so by the end of the day, I was feeling pretty amazing when I returned to the apartment building. Having sneakers for my commute made a big difference too, not to mention having a couple dollars in my wallet when my stomach staged a protest and would not let me pass the next food cart without getting a soft pretzel with cheese sauce.
My stomach started its protest again when I reached the fifth floor and the smell of something fantastic became present. It got stronger the closer I got to the apartment. The sound of pans clamoring was echoing in the hall as I unlocked the door.
“Hayden?” Soren’s voice chimed from the kitchen.
“What are you making? It smells amazing.” I paused beside the entrance of the kitchen, checking him out as much as I did what was on the stove. He was in a pair of light grey sweats that barely clung to his hips. The shirt and shoes were missing, but the ball cap was in place, backward and resting low.
“Chicken marsala. It’s my mom’s recipe. You like Italian?”
“I like Italian,” I said, having to force my eyes to look away from him. And I liked whatever nationality the person cooking Italian tonight was.
When I realized I was having marginally dirty thoughts about my roommate, I gave myself a mental thrashing. Crushes, fantasies, and dirty thoughts would not be entertained where my roommate was concerned.
“Do you usually cook like that?” I asked after dropping my bag off at my bed space.
He glanced down at himself. “How do you cook?”
“Usually it involves more clothing.”
“This way, I don’t have to worry about staining my shirt.” Right then, a bubble of sauce popped in the pan, sending a splatter onto his abs, causing him to flinch. I was so not staring at their muscle definition or the web of veins trailing into the waistband of his sweats. After running his fingers across his stomach, he licked off the sauce. “Easy cleanup.”
I’d been so distracted by him licking sauce off his abs, it took me a minute to realize the state of the apartment. Nothing had been cleaned up from earlier. But more mess had been added to the mix.
“We need to talk.” I slid into the kitchen doorway, figuring it would be better to address some apartment rules sooner rather than later.
“Don’t mention it. Really.”
“Don’t mention what?”
His shoulder lifted as he reached for the last two clean plates in the cabinet. “The twenty I spotted you.”
“Thankful as I am for that, it’s actually something else I want to talk about.”
He started plating the chicken. “Shoot.”
“The apartment . . .”
“What about it?” He licked more sauce off his thumb as he moved on to scooping mashed potatoes onto the plates.
“It’s a disaster.” So much for trying to be delicate about it.
He kept working. “If you think this is a disaster, you should have seen the place when it was me and my old roommate.”
That thought made me shudder. “The apartment was clean when I moved in.”
“Yeah?”
“Why was it so clean then and not even close two days later?”
“Because I was trying to make a good impression.” Grabbing the two plates, he moved past me toward the table.
“So you were trying to trick me into moving in with you? Making me think you cleaned up after yourself instead of . . .?” I kicked at his duffel, which was right back to blocking the center of the hallway.
“Instead of what?” He looked up as he set down the plates.
Half of my face pulled up as I debated how to word it without causing offense. “Instead of you not cleaning up after yourself.”
“Are you calling me a slob?” He flattened his hands on the table and stared across the room at me.
This was blowing up in my face, and now I was questioning myself for bringing it up. I’d never had a roommate before—that I wasn’t related to, anyway—and wasn’t sure how to make it a successful partnership. Was it better to be a laid-back type or was it better to bring stuff up before it drove me insane and I exploded on him? “No. I’m not calling you anything. I’m just saying you seem to have a tough time cleaning up after yourself.”
“Translation—I’m a slob.” He settled into his chair and motioned at the one he’d set the other plate in front of.
“You’ve got your jockstraps hanging from the ceiling fan. That’s above the dining room table.” I pointed at the fan as I moved closer.
“I hang them there to dry.” He motioned at the fan too. “If I’m such a slob, you should be grateful I’m at least cleaning them.”
“I’m not calling you a slob. I’m trying to address this in a mature, respectful way.”
He was cutting into his chicken like he had some sort of vendetta against it. “I go to school, play ball, and work. I even try to do my homework on occasion.” He circled his fork at where his backpack looked like it had vomited its contents on the couch. “I’m busy. I don’t have a lot of free time, and what I do have I’m not inclined to spend it cleaning.” He stuffed a bite into his mouth, continuing on as he chewed. “If you had some sort of expectation that your roommate be a neat-freak, you should have mentioned that before you decided to move in.”
“I didn’t have neat-freak expectations, but you did make sure the apartment was clean and organized when I first saw the place.” As I sat down in front of the second plate, my stomach growled. I was hungry, but something felt wrong about eating a meal he’d prepared for me while we were arguing.
“What? Are you accusing me of tricking you now? Taking advantage of you because I wanted the place to look nice when you arrived?” He snorted as he cut off another bite. “It’s called wanting to make a good first impression. That’s what I was trying to do, but next time the inclination to do that hits me, I’ll make sure to save myself the time and energy. Since you’re probably going to find some way to turn it around on me.”
Rolling my neck, I inhaled to give myself a moment to think before I snapped back. “Okay, I’m sorry I accused you of trying to trick me.” Another pause to give myself a chance to word it right. “But do you think you could at least try to clean up some of your stuff? Some of the time?”
He stopped chewing mid-bite, giving me a look. “Sure. I’ll go ahead and hire a housekeeper to come in every day to make my roommate happy since she’s one of those people who have a fetish for everything being clean.”
My eyes narrowed. “I don’t have a fetish for cleanliness.”
“You obviously do because this”—he circled his arm around the room—“is not that bad.”
My gaze circled the same room. “This”—my nose wrinkled when I noticed the same milk jug on the counter—“is a few spores of mold and grime away from becoming condemned.”
Soren’s silverware clattered onto his plate. Then he shoved back from the table and stood. “I lost my appetite,” he announced before stepping onto the chair to pull his undergarments from the fan blades.
A sigh rose from inside me. So much for trying to have an adult discussion about this. “Soren . . .”
He didn’t answer. He just kept moving around the apartment, picking up one item of his at a time.
“Soren, come on, stop.”
His neck was rigid, his jaw set, and he only seemed to get more upset with each thing he picked up. Once he had a heap in his arms, he stormed over to his bed area and dropped it all in there. Then he came back for more.
“Soren, I mean it, stop.”
“Sorry, can’t stop. Need to get my stuff cleaned up. My roommate is throwing a fit.”
“I’m not throwing a fit. You’re the one acting like a child right now.”
He yanked the duffel off the floor. “Oh, nice. Now you’re accusing me of being a slob and a child?”
“I’m not accusing you of being anything. All I did was address the state of the apartment and request you make a bit of an effort to clean up after yourself.” I twisted in my seat as he moved around the room.
He was acting so immature. How could he go from cooking chicken marsala one minute to behaving like a five-year-old the next? God, and that line of hair he kept tucked out around the sides of his head so it curled beneath the brim of his cap. Couldn’t he tuck those chunks in with the rest of his hair? It looked ridiculous.
And could he pull up those sweats already? Any lower, and I was going to get to know him on a whole new level.
And why was I nit-picking the way the end of his hair curled under his hat? Or his low-hanging sweats? Crap. Maybe I was being petty. Or maybe it was something else—something I didn’t want to assign a name to.
“And look at me now? Making an effort to clean up my shit.” He showed me the contents in his arms this round before making another dump behind his room partition. “Happy now?”
“Please just come and finish eating.” I stared at his half-eaten meal.
“I don’t think so. You’d probably criticize me for the way I eat or something stupid like that.”
A long groan rolled out of me. This had gone so entirely wrong. “I’m not going to criticize the way you eat.”
“Maybe. But for your information, having manners around a table growing up with three older brothers made you a target.” He marched back out, scanning the apartment for anything else of his. “By the time my mom got around to me, she was so worn out, the only manner she was still preaching was respecting women.”
My head was starting to pound and my stomach was still growling. I wasn’t sure if I was wrong for bringing this up the way I had, or if he was just taking it wrong, or if it was some mixture of both. I just knew having a roommate was hard. Especially when Soren and I had been mere strangers a few days ago.
“Please come eat. I’m sorry.”
“No, no. I’m going to finish cleaning up after myself so I can sit down and eat a meal in peace without being nagged at.” He moved into the bathroom next. “We’re not even married and I already feel like I can’t do anything right.”
“Okay, now you are being immature.” I cut into my chicken and took a bite. If this was how he was going to deal with every issue we needed to resolve, I wasn’t going to waste too much time feeling guilty.
“Excuse me for thinking that someone like you wouldn’t have all of these crazy expectations when it comes to a roommate.”
I froze in the middle of cutting my next bite. “Someone like me?” Then I twisted in my chair, my eyes narrowing in the direction of the bathroom. “Someone like me? A girl who grew up poor in a poor town? That automatically means I have low-to-no expectations in life? That I don’t have any standards?”
His head appeared in the doorway. “Putting words into my mouth now too?” His eyebrows carved into his forehead. “Someone like you as in someone who gets it. Someone who’s down to earth and knows what’s important in life. That someone like you.” He held my stare a moment longer before disappearing in the bathroom again.
I turned back around in my seat and rubbed my temples. What was wrong with me? Assuming the worst? Jumping to conclusions?
Since he was still making a racket in the bathroom, I worked on my dinner to give myself a chance for some self-reflection. Dinner was good. Really good. He knew what he was doing, and the longer I sat there eating, the worse I felt for bringing up the whole messy state of the apartment in the first place.
“The bathroom’s cleaned. My junk is picked up.” He emerged out of the bathroom smelling like Windex. He wouldn’t look at me as he took his seat behind his dinner again. “The kitchen’s all yours.”
My fork froze midair. “The kitchen’s all mine?” I repeated, just to make sure I’d heard him right.
“Shared space. I tackled the bathroom. It’s only fair you get the kitchen.”
I blinked at him. He was serious. “I haven’t stepped foot in the kitchen since I moved in.”
One of his shoulders lifted like that was beside the point.
“I haven’t used one dish.”
“You’re using dishes right now.” He motioned at the plate and fork in front of me.
Wherever the boil button was installed inside me, he’d just hit it. “I’m not cleaning up after you. Nice try.” I glanced toward the kitchen, cringing when I thought of how much time and sweat it would take to get all of those crusty plates and pans cleaned.
“I just cleaned up after you.” His arm thrust toward the bathroom. “You had a bunch of long hairs stuck on the shower walls, already clogging up the drain.” Before I could say anything, he kept going. “And come on, I cooked dinner for you and gave you carte blanche to raid my snack stores.”
My fork dropped to my plate. “So what? I’m indebted to you now? I owe you?”
“Most people don’t expect everything and give nothing in return. Most people would realize if I cook, you clean.” Soren was talking and chewing at the same time. He really did have the manners of a caveman. “It’s called a partnership. Not a dictatorship.”
Every word that came from him made me madder and madder until I couldn’t stay in my seat another moment. Bursting out of my seat, my fists curled at my sides. “No, this is a misogynist regime. I know why you really wanted a woman as a roommate. So you could have her clean up after you. So she’d be happy to scrub your crusty dishes and nasty pans because you threw a meal together and shared some of the extras with her.” I found myself glaring at what was left on my plate, wishing I hadn’t taken a single bite. “You’re two centuries behind. Time to catch up and clean up your own damn mess.”
For as upset as I was getting, Soren stayed totally chill. Eating his dinner, his expression indicated he was having a normal conversation. “If I was two centuries behind, I’d expect you to do the cooking and the cleaning. Instead, I’m asking if you’d consider doing the cleaning since I did the cooking.” His eyes moved from his dinner to mine. “Any questions?”
One by one, my arms folded over my stomach. “I’m not cleaning the kitchen.”
He made a face that indicated he didn’t care. “Fine. Then I guess that’s the way it’s going to remain until somebody does because after I finish demoing my dinner, I have to finish a lab and study for a test.”
My shoulders lifted. “Fine by me.”
Soren’s head tipped. “Then why did you bring up the messy state of the apartment in the first place if it’s ‘fine by you’ that the kitchen stays looking like a crime scene?”
When he smiled in gloaty victory, I let out a frustrated groan I hadn’t wanted him to hear. I didn’t want him to know he was getting to me or irritating me or making me want to create my own crime scene.
“I take it back. You are a child.”
As I marched toward my partition, he chuckled. “And who’s the one marching away after throwing a tantrum?”
My teeth ground together to keep the next scream of frustration to myself. The moment I got behind my partition, I adjusted it so it concealed more of my area than before. It wasn’t even eight yet, but I didn’t know what else to do besides go to bed. I didn’t want to hang around where I could see him or he could see me. I sure as hell didn’t want to clean the kitchen. What I wanted was a real door I could slam and lock, a room of my own I could escape to when I needed to cry it all out. What I wanted was a different apartment and a different roommate. One that didn’t make me jealous of a splatter of sauce that had touched his abs one minute, and emotionally unstable the next. I was used to being the low-key, even-tempered one, but Soren had a way of bringing out emotions I hadn’t known I was capable of expressing.
I had to make it big. I had to make it happen soon. The sooner I could get away from Soren Decker, the better off I’d be.