Page 67 of Want Me
* * *
By four in the afternoon,we had everything loaded in and we walked through the small townhome surveying the rooms. No washing machine or dryer, but there was a communal laundry room on the premises and a laundromat a block away. A tiny kitchen opened to the living room with an equally tiny fireplace we would probably never use tucked in the corner. Upstairs were two bedrooms with a shared bath. We’d put our desks in the second bedroom and left my full-size bed for the next roommate at the old house, bringing Eric’s queen for the master.
After we finished our walk-through, I hopped up on the kitchen counter, taking the beer Eric passed me and cracking the seal as he leaned up against the counter next to me, draping one arm over my thigh. We silently considered the living room, the small couch from my old room, and the coffee table. There was an empty patch of stained carpet that was reserved for a dining table. At some point.
I sucked down a long draft of brew and licked my lips. “It looks like shit.” Not even the braided rug my mom had sent home with me after a visit earlier in the spring could help the aesthetic. In fact, as I squinted at the multicolored ropes, I thought it might actually be making things worse.
“Grade A dog shit, yep,” Eric agreed, and we both cracked up, laughing until I had a stitch in my side and tears leaking from the corners of my eyes.
“I guess only gay guys get the mad interior design skills?” I said, when I could. “Bi’s get, like, fifty-fifty odds and we both must’ve landed on the wrong side of them.”
“No way,” Eric said vehemently. “I’ve known way too many gay dudes who were absolute shit at dressing. Themselves or their digs.”
“Maybe we can get a new couch after a few paychecks.” We’d both gotten summer jobs. Nothing spectacular. Eric had taken an engineering internship one of his professors had hooked him up with, while I’d gotten a serving position at an upscale restaurant downtown.
“I think we need a dining table first. That bare patch of carpet is scary.”
“Point. Okay, table first.”
I knocked my beer can against his and took a long swallow. “Done. What’s next?”
He gave me some side eye along with a wicked grin that sent the tempo of my pulse into a gallop. “What do you think, frat boy? We’re going to christen at least one room. It’s basically a rite of passage.”
I had to laugh at how it echoed what my mom had said earlier. Definitely not what she’d meant when she said it. I liked Eric’s version better, though.
“But groceries first,” he tacked on, and I groaned. The fucker never missed a chance to build me up and then keep me waiting. Ever.
* * *
“Eric.”
He glanced up from the fruit display where he stood stuffing some apples in a produce bag, and I tipped my head toward the eggplant I held in my hand. “Look familiar?”
His brows shot up, an expression of mock concern taking over his features. “Fuck, I hope not. Unless it’s symbolic or something.”
Wrapping my fists around the neck of the eggplant, I gave it a testing squeeze. “I dunno, the girth is feeling like a pretty solid match to me.” I tossed the thing in Eric’s direction, snickering as he was forced to leap sideways to catch it. He shook his head at me and brought the eggplant back over to the bin, dropping it in before retrieving his sack of apples, knotting the bag up, and sticking it in the cart. Then he picked up a cucumber and looked it over speculatively before cutting his eyes my way. He didn’t even waggle his brows, and I still cracked up at the innuendo in his expression.
It was one of the things I loved about him, how he didn’t even have to open his mouth and he could make me laugh. And shit, there were a lot of other things he could make me do without opening his mouth—but the laughing part, that was something I’d come to increasingly appreciate in the months that had passed since we’d officially gotten together.
We moved on from the produce section and wandered down the aisles. Eric seemed to have more of a strategy than I did. If I had cereal, bread, and some lunch meat, I was set.
“I guess we should get some frozen dinners and stuff? Pizza?” he said. “My internship is sure as shit not paying enough to eat out all the time. Or maybe things to cook?”
We both gave each other a gauging glance and then laughed again.
“My mom would be horrified right now. But I’m good on a grill,” I offered. “Except we don’t have a grill. Bump it up before table purchase?”
“Definitely. I’m all right at cooking,” Eric said, pursing his lips before he added another box to the pile in our cart.
“I guess whoever’s home can figure out dinner.” I tossed in a few frozen meals, and Eric grabbed a couple for himself. “I haven’t thought much about who would do what,” I admitted. “Like, are we both gonna do our own laundry individually or just whoever’s around? Do people actually discuss this before living together? Domestic roles are weird.”
“I’m not sure,” Eric murmured thoughtfully and then rapped his knuckles lightly atop the handle of the cart. “Okay, we can do this. Let’s break it down on a scale of hatred. Laundry?”
“Don’t hate it, really.” Actually folding laundry kind of sucked, but I got an idea neither of us much cared if our laundry was folded or not.
“Me either, so not helpful. Cooking?”
“Hate it, but like I said, I’m cool with grilling.”