Wicked Jealous: A Love Story (14 page)

“Omigod—I keep telling her the same exact thing!” cried Nicola. “I had no idea we had so much in common!”

I cringed. I didn’t know who I was more embarrassed for—myself or Nicola.

Max looked out at the group. “Guys, is my sister not beautiful?”

Okay, question answered. I was definitely more embarrassed for myself. As my shoulders scrunched up to my ears, I wondered if Blush would mind if I borrowed his blanket.

“Hold on—is that totally wrong for me to say because I’m her brother?” he asked. “I don’t want to come off as all creepy—”

“No, man, it’s cool,” Thor said. “You’re expressing yourself. That’s key. Our government might not like it, but—”

“I think your sister is totally hot,” Noob said. “She could totally be an avatar.”

Narc nodded. “For sure.” He turned to me. “Just so you know, that’s like the highest compliment he could ever give you.” Then he yawned.

How did girls who were actually pretty deal with this? Maybe that’s why supermodels always looked so pissed off, because they found the compliments so embarrassing. That, or because they were hungry.

“I think you guys need to stop,” came Blush’s soft voice. “You’re embarrassing her.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

“Okay. Well, anyway, like I said, just be cool with her, okay?” Max said. “Just make her feel at home.” He turned to me. “I think this is going really well so far, don’t you?”

Sure. If you were comparing it to getting a cavity filled without Novocaine.

Originally, I was going to sleep on the couch (“We didn’t get it off the street or anything, so it’s clean,” Max explained. “Wheezer’s mom lent it to us after she saw the first one we had. Which we
had
gotten off the street.”). But because Max said that as cool as his roommates were, he had woken up that day realizing he couldn’t bear the idea of walking out some morning to discover one of them staring at me while I was sleeping, he decided I should sleep in the attic.

Which, if it were all done up or something—like you see on those design shows on HGTV or something—would’ve been cool. But this was like an
attic
attic. Complete with dusty bikes and cardboard boxes full of old clothes and board games missing either boards or pieces or—in the case of Life—both.

“It’s got a lot of potential, don’t you think?” Max asked later that night as we positioned the air mattress in the area with the most amount of light.

Before I could answer, a rake fell down from a hook above me, missing me by
thismuch
. “Whoops,” he said, quickly picking it up and shoving it to the side. “I guess we should take down anything on the walls that could fall down in the middle of the night and possibly kill you.” He started inspecting the corners of the room.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Just checking for mouse droppings.”

I paled.

“And I don’t see any, which is a great thing,” he said. “So I guess I’ll leave you to get settled.”

“Okay,” I said.

“See you in the morning,” he said, giving me a hug.

“Okay.”

After he left, I plopped down on the air mattress, cringing at the fart sound it made. I could tell from the way I was fantasizing about how great a sheet cake from Ralph’s would taste that going from spending so much time alone to all this . . .
boyness
 . . . was really screwing with my system. Kind of like being thrown into AP English when you had just emigrated from Cuba or somewhere and only gotten a C plus in your English as a Second Language course.

Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe I should
have gone with my dad and Hillary and sat in the shade all day as I listened to Hillary talk about herself. And then talk about herself some more. And some more. As I thought about whether it would hurt Max’s feelings if I told him that I had changed my mind and was going to go stay at Nicola’s, I heard footsteps.

“You decent?” Max’s voice called out. “’Cause I wouldn’t want to walk in on you if you weren’t. We’re all about respecting boundaries here.”

“I’m decent.”

He poked his head in. “Okay, good. Listen—I just wanted to tell you one more thing.”

“Try not to breathe too much up here because there’s asbestos in the wall?”

“No. I just wanted to tell you I’m really looking forward to this next month,” he said. “Getting to hang with you again. And so are the guys. They really like you. Usually, there’s no talking when
Sorority Girls Slashers Part Two
is on, but they’re all down there talking about how awesome and chill you are. Not, you know, like most girls.”

I smiled. “Thanks. That’s really sweet,” I replied. “It means a lot to me.”

“Well, good night.”

“Good night.”

I guessed I was staying.

For the most part I liked to think of myself as pretty laid back. Which is why, after I almost fell into the toilet the first time I went to pee because I didn’t check to see if the seat was up, I didn’t freak out. I just made a mental note to look before I sat down, which was a good thing because every time, no matter which of the two bathrooms I went to, it was up. And when I came out of one of them and smacked straight into Thor—who was wearing nothing but a towel—I kept cool and listened to him give me his take on how the world would be a much better place if people would get over their hang-ups about nudity, while praying silently that his towel didn’t fall down. And when I discovered that their idea of “leftovers” included hamburgers that had turned green and fruit with mold on it, I only gagged rather than actually threw up.

However, when I came downstairs the first morning for breakfast and came face-to-face with a mouse gnawing at a three-times-removed-from-fresh slice of pizza, I lost it. As much as I knew I’d probably get grief for it, I couldn’t stop the high-pitched girly-girl scream that flew out of my mouth. Possibly falling into a toilet was one thing, but rodents as roommates? No way.

“What’s the matter?!” Narc asked after he, Noob, and Doc came rushing into the kitchen.

“I . . . it . . .
ewwww
!!” I cried from my perch on the counter (I had had no idea that I possessed the coordination to leap into the air and scramble onto a countertop in one fluid motion until that moment) as I watched the mouse chomp away. Although, I had to say, from the disappointed expression on the mouse’s face, he looked pretty underwhelmed by the taste.

“Oh man. Tell me I didn’t forget . . .” Noob said as he looked down at his sweats. “Phew,” he said, relieved. “For a second I thought I had forgotten to put pants on this morning.”

I cringed. The idea of Noob walking around without pants was almost as disturbing as the mouse. “Does that . . . happen a lot?” I asked.

“Not, you know,
a lot
a lot,” he replied. “Just like, I don’t know . . . every other day?”

The mouse stopped eating. As it made its way closer to the counter, I screamed again. Having never been in the same room as a mouse, I had had no idea I was such a wimp.

“Awww . . . look at that,” Noob said. “He wants to be friends with you!”

As the mouse began to chortle, Noob leaned his head in. “What do you think he’s trying to say?”

“I think he’s saying that he finds it really annoying when humans try to give animals all these humanlike qualities,” Narc said. He yawned. “I’m going back to bed. Right after I have some cereal.” He walked to the freezer and took out a box of Corn Pops.

“Why do you keep the cereal in the freezer?” I asked. Out of the corner of my eye I kept glancing at the mouse, in case he got any big ideas and decided to try and join me on the counter.

He shrugged. “Why not?” he replied with his mouth full. “It’s as good of a place as any, right?” He yawned again. “Well, good night,” he said as he padded back to his room.

I shook my head and sighed. Being laid back was one thing. Living in complete and utter chaos and filth was something else. “Not to be one of those people who gets all up in people’s business, but I really think you guys need—”

“Some order? Organization? A to-do list that’s updated twice weekly and a whiteboard with a chart of everyone’s responsibilities?!” Doc cried.

I shrank back. Whoa. Someone was a bit on the Type A side. “Well, maybe not all of that, but something—”

“Finally! A voice of sanity in this place!” he said. “I’ll be right back,” he said, before he ran out of the room.

“Wait! What about the mouse?” I called after him.

Without missing a beat, Noob walked up to him and scooped him up in his palm. “Hey, little guy. How ya doing? We may be a lot bigger than you, but we come in peace.”

Noob may have been lacking in the brain cells department, but apparently he was a mouse whisperer, because the thing didn’t squirm or squeak or do any other sort of frightened mouse–like things. Instead, he scurried up Noob’s arm onto his shoulder. “Want to say hi?” he asked me as he walked over and turned his shoulder toward me.

In what was probably not the most friendly gesture, I screamed again. Which made the mouse attempt to hide under Noob’s armpit.

“He’s not going to hurt you,” Noob said. “He just wants to be friends,” he said as he moved closer to me.

I moved farther away. “I don’t have a lot of rodent friends,” I said. “In fact, I don’t have any.”

He shook his head sadly. “You know, I totally get that we still have a long ways to go before we’re a color-blind nation. And I think the fact that women aren’t paid as much as men for the same work or the fact that we only allow gay people to get married in some states but not all of them is total BS. But it really hurts my heart when I think about how little respect we give to our four-legged brothers and sisters. It’s like the Native American issue all over again.”

I sat there, speechless.

Doc walked back in the room holding a pad of paper and a pen. “Noob, take the mouse outside, please,” he said. “Simone and I are going to have a meeting.”

We were?

“Fine. I don’t do meetings anyway,” Noob sniffed. “Too much pressure.” He looked down at his armpit. “Come on,
hermano
.”

After they were gone, I jumped off the counter, barely missing a dented pizza box on the floor.

“Okay, so this is what I was thinking,” Doc said, flipping to a page filled with a very long list written in very neat handwriting. He handed it to me. “I’d love to hear your thoughts.”

“Okay, but I need to get my glasses.”

He whipped his off and handed them to me. “Here. Try mine. I’m working on trying to overcome my poor eyesight.”

I put them on and blinked. “Hey! We have an almost identical prescription!”

He smiled. “Really? Wow. I
knew
there was a reason I liked you right off the bat!”

I smiled. So far, out of all of the guys, Doc seemed to have the most brain cells.

“Okay. Let’s see . . . ’
Oh seven hundred hours—morning meeting to go over each housemate’s tasks and responsibilities for the day. Said meeting will occur at oh eight hundred on Sundays, in order to give everyone an extra hour’s sleep,
” I read aloud. “
Twenty-two hundred hours—evening meeting to go over aforementioned tasks and make sure all have been completed. For those who are unable to attend meeting at that time due to prior commitment such as job/surfing/etc., there will be an alternative one at nineteen hundred hours. For those unable to attend that one, please e-mail Doc with the subject line reading—”
I looked up from the notebook and pushed the glasses up the bridge of my nose. While our prescriptions were the same, the size of our heads definitely was not. “Um, Doc, I totally get the fact that this place would really benefit from a little more organization—”

“I know you do,” he said. “That’s why I knew you’d be the right person to ask for help—”

“But I think that all this”—I flipped through the pages that were covered with writing—“might be a little too much.”

“You do?” he asked, disappointed.

I nodded.

“Even the part where we hire a shrink for a day to oversee a group therapy session in an attempt to facilitate better communication between group members?”

“Especially that part.”

“Oh.” His face turned red as he looked down at the ground. “Yeah. I guess when you think about it, it’s kind of a dumb idea.” He sighed as he reached out for the notebook. Which, because he wasn’t wearing his glasses, he missed completely.