It was his last gift to me as he died less than a week later.
In the kitchen, I find Myles at the round table that seats four, head bent over his laptop. He’s in IT and gets lost in coding with a dopey look of pleasure on his face. He’s cute by any woman’s standards with dark hair that’s shaggy and unkempt, with locks that fall adorably across his forehead. His brown eyes always shine warm and inquisitive through his black-framed glasses, and he rarely shaves, so there’s always scruff on his face. It’s not thick enough to grow into a full beard, and at twenty-six, that’s probably not going to change at this point. But still, it presents a roguish kind of cute that totally works.
There’s a bagel on a plate beside his laptop, and I nab it as I walk by.
“Hey, Finley,” he gripes, head popping up. “That’s my breakfast.”
“And it was feeling completely ignored.” I bat my eyelashes to help plead my case for absolution, but he just rolls his eyes at my efforts. Myles has been secretly in love with Rainey for about the same amount of time I’ve been knocking on her bedroom door to wake her up, and he couldn’t care less if I bat my lashes. In fact, I could probably prance around naked, and he wouldn’t give me a second glance. Myles was second to move in after Rainey, and he has been here for just about four years, too.
“I’ll make you another one,” Adira tells Myles quietly from behind the small kitchen counter where she’s pouring me a cup of coffee.
Adira’s the last of my roommates, but she’s only been here a year. While Rainey, Myles, and I have the three bedrooms on the second floor, Adira has settled into the small hobby shop my dad had converted from our detached garage many years ago. He installed baseboard heaters and a small working bathroom with a shower, and he spent a lot of his free time puttering out there—fixing broken things and making little pieces of furniture that were wobbly and adorable at the same time. When I considered adding Adira as a roommate to boost my rental income, I sprang to have the room carpeted for more comfort. She brought her pull-out couch when she moved in, keeps her personal belongings in milk crates, and has been happily, but quietly, living with us since.
She pushes the steaming mug across the counter to me—strong and black, the only way to drink coffee in my opinion—and grabs the bag of bagels to toast another for Myles.
Leaning a hip against the counter, I take a quick sip of the hot java before asking Adira, “Are we carpooling today?”
Adira and I work at the same downtown coffee shop—one of about a few thousand—and we’ll often take turns driving to save gas. That’s how we met and eventually became roommates—I heard she was looking to move out of her ex-boyfriend’s house after a bad breakup.
She shakes her head, her dark wavy locks bouncing. She has the coolest hair. It’s cut in asymmetrical layers, shorter on one side, longer on the other, but never touching her shoulders. She has pretty blue eyes with a light smattering of freckles across her nose and cheekbones. She’s tiny like a waif and while she’s sweet and genuine, it takes a while to get to know her.
“I have a job interview after I get off work,” she explains.
I cock an eyebrow at her. As the manager of the coffee shop where we work together, I’m a little surprised she’d admit such a thing to me.
Noting my expression, she smiles reassuringly. “It’s for a second job doing proofing for a small educational publisher. It won’t take away from my shifts.”
“Phew,” I say with a dramatic swipe of my hand across my brow. “I was fearful for all coffee drinkers I was going to lose one of my best baristas.”
Blushing, Adira busies herself putting cream cheese on Myles’ bagel, which popped out of the toaster.
It’s at this moment Myles sits up straighter in his chair as Rainey shuffles into the kitchen. She has on a blue silk robe wrapped tight around her body, her golden blonde hair quite the mess. Still, she’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever had the pleasure of being friends with.
Rainey has one of those perfectly symmetrical faces with large blue eyes and a perfectly straight nose, along with full lips, gleaming, straight teeth, and contoured cheekbones. Her body—just from an unbiased, non-lesbian perspective—is the unrealistic model of perfection every woman dreams about, from her exquisitely shaped breasts to her tiny waist to her long legs.
I’d absolutely hate her for her perfection if I didn’t love the wench so much. After four years as roommates, she’s my closest friend.
My gaze moves to Myles, who shoots her a longing glance. He’s my closest friend, too. To be honest, it’s a draw between them and I hate being the one who holds the secret of his unrequited love. Still, I couldn’t bear to tell Rainey as she’d feel awful not being able to reciprocate, and Myles would be so mortified he’d probably move out.
So I hold my tongue like I always do.
“Okay, nerds,” I announce to my household posse. “I’m outta here. I’m thinking of grilling some burgers tonight, so I need to know who’s in.”
I’m the household cook. Long ago, we divvied up responsibilities and since I was the best at cooking, I became the resident chef and chief grocery shopper. Rainey, Myles, and Adira have a system worked out for cleaning the house, and they all three chip in to cover the groceries.
“I’m out,” Adira says, and I figured as much if she has a job interview after work. “I’ll just grab something downtown.”
“I’m in,” Myles says, his attention now back on his laptop. Adira brings him the bagel she’d just prepared. He ignores it like he did the one before it, but that’s just the way he gets wrapped up in his work.
“I’m in, too,” Rainey mutters as she sips at the coffee she just poured. It takes her a while to wake up and function. She works in the mall as head of the makeup section in a fancy department store. Unlike me, she has a college education. Like me, Rainey’s happy doing what she’s doing and not aspiring toward a more ambitious and lucrative career. Deep down, she’s just waiting to land the right rich man who will keep her in lavish comfort, and I can respect that ambition.
I wolf down the rest of my bagel and coffee, grab my backpack by the side door off the kitchen, and head out to my car.
Since this is my house, I get privileges of parking in the gravel driveway that runs right up to the detached garage that serves as Adira’s room. The only real perk is I’m a few feet closer to the door. Rainey and Adira park on the street, and Myles has never owned a car. He either takes the bus or bikes wherever he needs to go.
I love my car. It’s a Subaru Forester in the coolest metallic gray-green color I’ve ever seen. It’s eight years old, and I got it for a great price. It’s been a trusty mode of transportation, and even though traffic in Seattle is some of the worst in the world, I love driving the jam-packed freeways into downtown. It helps me polish my skills of observance, calm steadiness, and the ability to make dangerous maneuvers without hesitation by slipping into the next lane when needed. Not sure when I would ever need such skills outside of driving the Seattle freeways, but they’re nice, shiny, and ready for use.
I’m less than a mile from 99—also known as Aurora Avenue—which is a straight shot south into downtown where I work. It’s roughly an eleven-mile trip that can sometimes take me an hour, depending on rush-hour traffic. It’s my time to gear up for the day, though, and I jam to the prince of Seattle, Kurt Cobain, as I make a mental list of tasks I need to accomplish at the coffee shop.