I hadn't spent any substantial amount of time with Cole Knight in years.
It turned out he was arrogant, sarcastic, a little selfish, amusing and loved to make jokes at my expense, even though I was saving him from a life on the streets.
So obviously, we were undeniably similar.
"I don't get it, right?" said Knight, who was swinging dangerously on my egg chair and would likely break it, or topple straight off. I really enjoyed the way he appreciated the extent of my generous hospitality by respecting my things. It was sweet, how long it took him to touch anything, as he refused to be a burden on my personal space. The 0.4 seconds he hovered in the doorway were truly telling of his humility. "How could they kick me out? I'm awesome. And pretty. Bad things aren't supposed to happen to pretty people. It's literally hot privilege. It's a thing, I heard. Like, I've been rich and hot all my life. This isn't supposed to happen to me."
The brooding sad white boy thing was slightly less effective since he'd inhaled helium—I had some in my room, it made me feel better when I was sad—and his voice was reminiscent of a Beverly Hills Chihuahua audition. It was hard to think of him as a beneficiary of hot person privilege when he sounded like he'd walked off the Alvin and the Chipmunks soundtrack.
"I get it man," I said, slightly disoriented. I was lying with my head dangling off the edge of my bed, staring at Knight upside down. There was a tiny chip in the paint above his head. My eyes crossed as I tried to stare at it. His swinging didn't help the dizziness. Nor did the time; it was after 2AM, and Knight and I had giggled ourselves silly coming home, belting out the words to AC/DC and the Bubble Guppies theme song. We'd also tried to do Follow the Yellow Brick Road, but I couldn't do the skipping and arm linking, with the crutches, and without all that, there's really no point. The neighbours probably thought we were drunk. I had planned to be, before being a good Samaritan had impeded me. Instead, he was drunk on the thoughts of a warm bed and clean clothes, and I was just... excited. I couldn't say why, or how. But somehow, it felt like the start of something important.
Or at least I'd thought so, until we'd argued profusely while setting up a makeshift bed in the closet. He had complained that I wasn't offering my bed. Apparently, I was a bad hostess.
He was just a dick.
"How do you get it? Are you homeless?"
"No, I've just been rich and hot all my life."
I'd been planning to spend the night in the guest house, so that I wouldn't wake up my family. But Knight needed things; hot food and clothes and a shower, so I'd forced him to carry me up the stairs so that we could be silent. He'd protested the whole time.
"It's good, though, right?" Knight said dreamily. "I like being hot and rich. But, see, the thing is. I'm not even hot without my wealth. Everyone knows that money equals sexy. Something about fancier skincare products, adequate sleep and no stress." He touched his hair cautiously. "What if the stress makes me go bald?"
I grinned. "Vanity is a sin, you know."
Knight looked pensive. "I've heard sinners are sexy."
"Yeah, okay, Lucifer," I replied. "I'm sure all the people are gonna think, 'wow, Cole Knight just stared at himself in the mirror for six hours? What a bad boy, I hope he has my babies.'"
Knight laughed. "I prefer to stare at myself for seven hours. Got to give myself the appreciation it deserves." There was a pause. "I know you obviously can't relate."
"Ha. Ha."
Despite his selfish vanity, I realised I really liked this guy. There was a certain kinship, a similarity. For a moment, I wondered why I had invited him to stay with me. Compassion may have played a role, sure, but maybe there was a bit of longing there too. I'd always been a little jealous—jealous of all my friends, coupled up in duos of friendship rather than ones of romance. I'd always romanticised the connection between Daria and Jace, even though I hated him, always wanted it for myself. Alec and Liv, Jace and Daria, even the weird bond between Cady and Jonah.
Maybe I wanted that too, a friendship that close. I didn't think I would ever have it, especially not with a guy like Cole Knight, but maybe there was something in it.
"So, like, how's this whole roommate sitch gonna work," I said. "Like, do I have to take you for a walk? Feed you? Is this like having a Labrador now?"
Knight inhaled a large gasp of helium. "Yes!" he squeaked, and giggled. "You're my mommy now, Lena!" This was said mockingly.
I almost choked. "That's not even funny, ugh."
"Yeah, it is," he said, his voice slightly deeper. "But I don't know how it's going to work. It's your idea." He paused for a moment, and then looked down, as if he was trying to disguise an expression of pain. "I don't... I don't expect anything. If you change your mind tomorrow, I'll leave immediately."
It was the first sign of vulnerability I'd seen from him. He'd been so flippant, so determined not to react, to act as if the offer of a home was meaningless.
Then he ruined it. "By leave immediately, I mean I'll tell you I'm leaving and then set up camp in that pool house you have out back. I probably won't even hide it. I'll definitely text you hourly for snacks. Oh, also, what's the Netflix password?"
Apparently, he needed to compensate for a moment of vulnerability with new heights of insufferability. What a charmer.
"I'm not going to kick you out," was all I said. "The password is I-Might-Change-My-Mind-If-You-Take-The-Good-Snacks69."
Knight grinned. "69."
I rolled my eyes.
"Nah, you're going to be so excited to have found your first friend that you'll never kick me out," he said, confidently.
I laughed. "I'm so lucky, what an incredible first friendship! I've always wanted a selfish dick!"
"Didn't you date Reece Moore?" Knight said,and the judgement was etched in every line of his face. "You already hadone. And based on what he told everyone at the Alzheimers fundraiser, youtouched one too." Knightgrinned. "Which he told us all, because he's a selfish dick."
I threw a pillow at him, which he deftly caught. My mouth was in a perfect 'oh' shape. "He did not tell everyone."
"Bragged about it too. Hence, the selfish dick argument."
"He is a dick."
"That was never a secret."
I pouted. "When I'm no longer a cripple, want to come with me to egg his house?"
Knight looked positively gleeful. "Yes. Please. 100%."
"Toilet paper too."
"Obsessed, yes," he said, reinforcing his complete enthusiasm for the idea.
We sat there for a moment in silence, grinning at each other like maniacs. The egg chair had stopped swinging as my head stopped spinning.
Knight cocked his head, contemplative. "You know, you're not a bad sort, Montez. This might just be a little bit of fun."
It really might, I thought. We could egg Reece Moore's house—the disrespectful, sexist prick—and maybe, on the way back, we could stop by Jace Hartley's place and throw the rotten ones inside his window. I kind of had the feeling Cole wouldn't be a half bad partner-in-crime. Mostly because he'd be so bored out of his mind from living in my bedroom that he would take any form of entertainment. If that was shamelessly enslaving him and forcing him to do my bidding, so be it.
"It really might be," I said. Then I pinched my nose. "Like, if you showered. Please, Cole. Disgusting."
Cole threw his hands in the air. "Clearly, you fail to understand empathy. I have been on the streets for two months. It's not like, regular showering. I went to the beach to get clean."
"Firstly. I do understand empathy. I'm empathetically telling you to go shower to remedy your plight."
"Yeah, yeah. And second?"
"Please do not put your hands up, it only wafts the smell further over here." I grinned as I dramatically mimed retching and my subsequent fake death, as I enacted my fatal end at the hands of his foul stench.
He threw the pillow back at me. "Oh, shut up."
Cole was right, I thought, as he mimed strangling me with his stench and joked about what would truly cause me to die, which he suggested was the sight of his glorious abs glistening with water from the shower as he sauntered shirtless into my room. Knight did not have abs. So, like, okay, whatever you say.
But he was right on one front.
This might just be a bit of fun.