“Welcome back roomie,” Shiloh, one of my roommates says as I walk into our apartment in Queens. “How was Coney Island?”

She’s sitting on the couch with a glass of white wine watching TV, with every single light on as usual. I don’t know how she can even see the screen with the glare, but she has this thing about the dark.

“It was relaxing,” I say, maintaining the lie. If I’d told her and Caryn, our other roommate, about staying at the Sexton, it would have opened the door to all sorts of questions I’d rather avoid. Instead, I told them I was staying in a cheap hotel in Coney Island for the weekend. “Don’t you ever get tired of rewatching Sex and the City?”

“Never,” she says with a smirk as she turns her attention back to the screen. “I don’t care what anyone says, Carrie is my fashion idol.”

“No!” I gasp with faux shock, laughing as I fall next to her on the couch. Her amazing shoe collection is a running joke in this apartment. She laughs and pokes me in the side with her elbow.

“So how have things been here in my brief absence?” I ask.

As if to answer the question, the muted soundtrack of our third roommate and her boyfriend Eric having sex in her room fills the air. He lives with his parents so whenever they go at it, it’s always here.

“Oh, you know, the same old, same old,” she says with a roll of her eyes, twirling her hand in the direction of Caryn’s room.

We both listen for a brief moment. I have no idea what Shiloh thinks of it. Although I’ve only seen her go on a handful of dates during the time I’ve been living here with her, I just assume she’s had sex. I assume that about most of the women in this city. Perhaps it’s just the influence of too many second-hand viewings of Sex and the City. Even though Shiloh is from the midwest like me, she’s a million times more sophisticated and glamorous with her amazing style and perfect make-up and gorgeous auburn hair. She also has the benefit of at least having had a normal childhood, at least more normal than mine.

“In other news, as it turns out, I may have to quit my job,” Shiloh says thoughtfully as she watches the foursome on the screen having their prototypical New York brunch.

“What?” I ask with alarm, leaning in towards her as I try to catch her attention.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing. I’m certainly not leaving New York,” she says, with a pooh-pooh wave of the hand. “But hey, someone has a birthday coming up. Any exciting plans?”

I stare at her, still absorbing that first bit of news, which came out of left field. The look on her face tells me to drop it, so I do. She’ll tell me more when she’s ready. I come back around to my own juicy bit of news, debating whether or not to bring it up. “Actually, I have a date Saturday.”

“You’re kidding!” she gasps, actually pausing the TV to focus entirely on me. “Someone you met in Coney Island? How adorable! Like something out of one of those old-timey movies. Tell me all about him.”

I want to laugh. If she only knew how very not “adorable” my introduction to Rhys was. I groan and throw my head back, regretting my decision to say anything.

“Oh come on!” she presses, shaking my arm. “I’m going to find out eventually. You might as well spill the beans now.”

I bring my head back up and smile. “He’s…different from the kind of guy I thought I’d be dating.”

“Different good, or different bad?” she asks with a wrinkle in her brow.

“I don’t know,” I say with a laugh. “But he’s got the most amazing voice. Just wait until you hear it.”

“Where is he taking you?”

“It’s a surprise.”

She raises her eyebrows. “And you’re not worried?”

I pause to consider it. My entire life I’ve been sheltered. Homeschooling. Living in the middle of nowhere in Missouri. No real interaction with the outside world until I was in my teens and even then it was coordinated and sanitized and controlled. Bluett wasn’t much different, with their oppressive rules about dating and curfews and dress codes and internet usage.

Now, I’m doing something daring, maybe even a bit dangerous. “No, I’m not worried.”

Shiloh considers me and I sense something that almost feels like envy radiating from her. A shameful bit of pleasure grows in me. I’ve always felt like a boring wallflower in her company, with her amazing shoes and fanciful nail polish colors and corporate law job in an actual skyscraper (even though she swears there’s nothing fabulous about being a paralegal). What could she possibly envy about me and my life?

“I should get unpacked,” I say, nodding toward my suitcase and rising from the sofa.

“Okay, but I want more info before this date happens,” she warns, un-pausing the TV as I grab my suitcase.

As I head back to my room to drop off my bags, the sound of Caryn and Eric in the next room gets louder. Maybe she should be the one writing romance books. I’m certain her book wouldn’t sound like the “Kidz Bop” version of smut, especially if she were writing from experience like Rhys suggested.

I try to be open-minded about it all, especially since Caryn had this apartment before either Shiloh or me and her name is on the lease. I could always look for another place, but it’s cheap here and apart from the sex and the occasional condescending comment, she at least keeps to herself. I’ve heard horror stories about how much worse it could be.

My room is right next-door to Caryn’s so the sound is a muffled echo when I open the door. I roll my eyes and slam the door closed as obnoxiously loud as possible to give them a not-so-subtle hint. If anything, it seems to make them more enthusiastic in their little tryst. The noise is patently ridiculous at this point.

It’s the sort of thing I would have giggled about with my sister back home. I remember dragging her along to sneak a peek at Marybeth, our other sister, while she and Dean were “courting” on the front porch. They didn’t do much more than hold hands, anything else would have been a scandal. We were grounded for a week, but Hope never held it against me. She always stood by my side.

Here, alone in my room as I listen to my roommate and her boyfriend go at it, I’m not in a giggling mood. I’m just fed up. I frown at the wall, then a grin comes to my face as a wicked idea fills my head. I grab my laptop and fall back onto the bed and pull up YouTube. In a matter of seconds, the sound of Eric telling Caryn what a “dirty, dirty girl” she is, and Caryn begging Eric to “give it to her harder” is drowned out by Taylor Swift letting them know she plans to “shake it off,” at maximum volume.

I smile as a series of groans and utterances of “what the fuck” trail in through the wall. Caryn positively hates Taylor Swift.

It’s bad, but I enjoy it. Being bad can be so much fun.