The Apartment

Love you... too?

His eyebrows raise when he beholds me splayed on the ground. "Oh my. I wasn't told my new roommate is prone to dramatic fainting. It might be a dealbreaker."

Iz snorts. "Please. You'd be so lucky to break her gorgeous ass from fainting."

"Might not be so gorgeous if she's falling all the time. More likely bruised."

I feel my face flush and I scramble to my feet. "As much as I love debating the potential state of my ass, maybe we could start over? I'd prefer to begin on a better note."

Kyle laughs, then says, "we can have a do-over." He steps back through the door and shuts it once again.

Iz turns to me immediately, giggling like a fiend, and whispers urgently, "strip!! Right now, before he opens the door, just straight up get naked and start dancing like crazy! Actually no, lay on the floor again but be all sexy, oh my gosh imagine his face!" She starts tugging on my clothes, giggling like a maniac, partly disabled by the laughter taking over her whole body.

Kyle opens the door again, yelling excitedly, "roomies!!" He stops in his tracks and takes in the sight of Iz grabbing at my clothes, still laughing hysterically, and let's out a low whistle. "Why hello new roomies," he sings, pretending to check us out.

I push Iz away from me, laughing at Kyle. "I'm gonna order a pizza. Want one?"

He shakes his head, slinging his jacket on the rack next to the door. "After you do that, I can give you both the official tour."

I pull out my phone and walk back into my new room, quickly looking up the nearest pizza place that does deliveries and clicking on the number.

"This is Eugene's Pizza House, how can I help you?" A deep, husky voice answers. It sounds distinctly masculine and slightly bored.

"Um hi, you make deliveries right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Great, I'd like a pepperoni pizza to be delivered to apartment number 97 in SW Pinegrove Apartment Complex?"

"Really?" The guy's voice sounds surprised.

"Um...yeah?" I mean, pepperoni pizza is pretty generic, you'd think it'd come as less of a shock.

"Uh, sorry, sure. You want breadsticks with that?"

"No thanks, just the pizza. How long should the wait be?" I stall, laying down on my bed and fiddling with a strand of my long wavy hair. In truth, I wouldn't mind hearing his melodic voice again, which is silly, because we're talking about the most mundane thing. Hell, it's not even a real talk, he's being payed to participate after all.

"About 20 minutes. That okay?" I briefly wonder if he talks to everyone who calls with the same sort of normalcy, almost like we've known each other longer than we really have.

"That's perfect, thanks."

"No problem."

"Alright, love you, bye."

"Love you... too?"

Oh shit. I gasp and clamp a hand over my mouth, cursing myself for speaking out of reflex. That's what I get for usually only calling Iz or my parents. He must really think I'm crazy. The line is silent for awhile, but I can tell he's still there.

"I hope you don't expect a discount just because we've confessed our undying love for each other," he says in an amused voice before ending the call. For some reason I feel like he was smiling.

For some reason, so am I.

#####

"Oh my gosh Iz the worst thing just happened to me," I exclaim, stepping out of my room. "This is a whole new level of stupidity! Where are you?"

"Kitchen!" She yells.

I shuffle over to her as fast as I can, finding her sitting at the kitchen island looking at her phone.

She looks up at me and says, "Kyle's changing, then he's going to give us the tour and stuff. I personally wanna wait for the other guys to get off work before he shows us around so it's not awkward when we make ourselves at home, but— what's wrong?"

"Izadora," I start, using her full name so she knows I'm serious. "I have made a complete fool of myself and you are going to love this story."

After recounting the past five minutes to Iz and suffering through her terrible teasing and laughter, Kyle walks into the main room of the apartment.

"Okay, tonight let's get to know each other better and play a game or something, and we can wait for the tour until Ferris and Jackie get home. Should be like an hour," he says.

Iz and I agree, and Kyle pulls out a deck of cards to pass the time. After several hands of speed, there's a knock on the door.

Iz immediately starts giggling, "what if it's the same guy?"

I scowl. "It will not be the same guy, they probably separate the deliveries and phone-people. Calm down."

I walk over to the door and pause outside of it, listening to the irrationally loud drum of my heart. While mentally reassuring myself that it likely will not be the same guy with the deep voice and quick humor, I assess how I must look.

I have on blue-gray lounge shorts and a form fitting black top that shows just a sliver of skin from the hemline to the top of my shorts. My hair is in a loose messy bun on the top of my head, and I have on a little mascara. My feet are bare, and my natural tan shows on my toned legs.

It could be worse.

I let out a deep breath and remind myself that pretty soon I will be eating a hot pizza and drowning my sorrows in delicious grease.

I square my shoulders and open the door.