Oh My God, They Were Roommates

23 | Walking Disaster

By Wednesday, Sora grew more and more suspicious of de Lucía and Charlie. It was to the point where Sora wanted to know what, specifically, Charlie did on his phone. Was the guy still on Tinder? Was he talking to other guys aside from de Lucía? He wondered if de Lucía knew. What if de Lucía thought they were exclusive while Charlie was out fucking around?

The bottom line was this: that Charlie couldn't be trusted.

Meanwhile, on the rare occasion that Sora didn't work, he came home early and found de Lucía in the living room practicing his guitar. He could hear it faintly out in the hall, and when he entered, the music paused for a moment as Ray tipped back and into view of the foyer hallway.

"Welcome home!" Ray called out as Sora was slipping off his sneakers.

He wandered up the hallway and, lingering at the foyer archway, studied the state of the kotatsu. Ray had his laptop out with music sheets on it, and his tuner was left among the entrails of his backpack on the ground.

"I can take this to my room if you want," Ray said, about to close his laptop.

"No," Sora said, waving a dismissive hand. "It's fine. Keep playing."

Sora went to his room to put away his things and, after he disappeared behind his door, Ray picked up his guitar again and began with a flurry of bright notes that cascaded into broad, rich chords. Sora paused just inside of his room, his backpack strap in hand, and his attention still consumed by Ray's perfectly accented vibratos peppered among quick finger-plucking and the sensual taps of his nails against the pickguard.

The guy's a whole one-man band, Sora thought, silently impressed by the makeshift percussion sprinkled throughout Ray's acoustic cover. Or was it a cover? He had never heard the tune, the closer he listened to it, and it didn't occur to him until he was in the kitchen making a protein shake that Ray might have actually composed this song all on his own.

He thought about the lyrics from the studio in the lecture hall basement and wondered if Ray was a lyricist, too.

With nothing but his hand on the neck of the guitar, Ray plucked the keys while coordinating the heel of his other palm against the wooden body of his guitar. He drummed his fingers against the underside of the body while his other hand remained nimble and free against the fretboard.

Sora lowered himself silently across the kotatsu from Ray, his smoothie all but abandoned in his hand as he watched and wondered why the hell Ray was in music theory school when he could have started his own career by now. He could already picture Ray with an electric guitar engaging in solo battles on a rock concert stage against a fellow bassist.

I wonder if Charlie's heard this, Sora wondered, taking a sip of his smoothie.

Ray paused to jot something down on the note sheet on his computer, and only then did he realize that Sora was sitting there watching the entire goddamn show.

Sora had never seen Ray's cheeks turn so red so fast.

"I-I didn't realize you were listening," Ray stammered as his fingers resumed their positions.

Sora looked away pointedly, took a sip of his smoothie and, after smacking his lips, said, "I'm not."

Ray frowned at him, and Sora caught it in the corner of his eye. "You are too," he said through a pout.

Sora stretched his legs out under the kotatsu since Ray had his legs folded beneath him, which gave Sora plenty of room to relax, drink his smoothie, and listen to the iterations Ray went through. As Ray polished up his set, Sora pictured it all flowing in a mosaic of color on a foggy, clear limited edition vinyl that he could play on repeat in a Northern Cali beach house, or on a static-y cassette player surrounded by redwoods, sitting on a lawn chair propped up atop a VW.