See? There was that want. He hadn’t wasted any time, already planning to move out before he even had a job.
“I have some money saved up,” he rushed out. “It’s not like I won’t be able to pay my part.”
I chuckled, and he shook his hair out of his eyes. Something about that was cute. “My mind didn’t even go there. We’re good.” I clapped him on the back. “What do you like on your pizza?”
“I’m good with anything except mushrooms.”
“Right? Mushrooms are the worst on pizza.”
We decided on a barbecue-chicken pizza, which I put a quick order in for.
“I’ll give you half for it,” Jonathan offered.
“Yeah, sure. Or you can get it next time. Whatever works, since we’re going to be roomies.”
He cocked a dark brow. “Are we, now?”
“All signs point to yes.”
“You sound like a Magic 8-Ball.”
“That might be because I have one in my bedroom. Come on. I’ll show you the place.” I nodded toward the hallway, and Jonathan shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and followed me. “It’s designed kinda weird, if you ask me. Bathroom is on this side of the hallway, and both bedrooms on the other.”
“That’s because of how the main part of the apartment is set up. The living room extends farther back on the other side of the wall than the kitchen, so there’s less space. I would have never designed it that way.”
I had to agree with him there. “For real. It doesn’t make much sense. Anyway, this first door is your room.” I pushed it open. It wasn’t a large room by any stretch of the imagination, with a closet, no bathroom. I hit the lights and said, “It’s not much.”
Jonathan walked inside, looking around. “Don’t need much.” He shrugged. “It’s only temporary and all. I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing with my life.”
“You have time to figure it out.”
“I’m thirty-two,” he said again.
“Gasp!” I clutched my chest. “Are you sure we shouldn’t be looking for an assisted-living facility instead?”
“Ha-ha, fucker.” Jonathan gave me the finger. His forehead wrinkled slightly afterward, as if he was surprised he’d done it.
“You have the wrinkles.”
“I thought there were no more daddy jokes?”
“I didn’t say daddy. You did.”
Chuckling, he shook his head.
He followed me down the hallway to mine next. The door was open. Jonathan poked his head inside but didn’t follow me, as if my bedroom was a sacred place he couldn’t enter. “I have a bathroom in here, but it only has a shower. I like baths, so once in a while I’ll use the one in the hallway, but mostly I’ll take care of my shit in here.”
Okay, so using the word shit while discussing a bathroom probably shouldn’t ever happen unless you were actually talking about—
“Wait, so you shit in my bathtub? That’s a no-go for me, man. I’m out.”
We both laughed again, and I liked that he was joking with me. It was as if he’d let his guard down and felt a little more comfortable than he usually did. “I’ll admit I walked right into that one.” When I took a step toward him, Jonathan took one back. We made our way back into the living room, and I asked, “You want a beer? Wine? Water, Mountain Dew?”
“You might have it right disliking mushrooms on pizza, but you drink the wrong soda.”
I leaned my hip against the counter and crossed my arms. “Enlighten me, oh wise one.”
“Orange soda always and forever.”
“Excuse me, what? I didn’t see that coming.”
“Why?” he asked.
“I expected like… Me. Big. Man. Me. Like. Coke.”
Again, Jonathan laughed, deep and husky. Maybe the realest one I’d ever heard from him. “I had no idea Coke was considered a manly drink.”
“So many things to teach you, newbie.” I pulled a beer out for myself.
“I’ll just take some water, since I’m driving home tonight and all.”
I handed him a plastic bottle from the fridge. We uncapped, and I held out my drink. “To possible roommates.”
“To possible roommates.” Jonathan touched his to mine, and we drank on it before getting down to the nitty-gritty details of rent, utilities, and the like. “That all sounds fair to me,” he replied just as the intercom buzzed. I went over to the box on the wall, answered it, and let the delivery man in. A few minutes later we were sitting on the couch with pizza on the coffee table.
“What kind of work are you looking to do?” I asked, trying to get to know him some.
“Dunno.” He shrugged. “I’ll do anything, really. All my experience is in construction. For now, I’m looking for anything that isn’t my family business until I can decide what the fuck I want, I guess. That probably seems ridiculous at my age.”
“You’re obsessed with your age. You’re thirty-two, not eighty. Plus, it’s never too late to figure shit out, or hell, to evolve. I hope I evolve and change my whole life, finding out new parts of myself, finding new things to like. That’s what keeps life exciting.”
Jonathan gave me a forehead-wrinkling frown, as if unsure how to reply, then said, “Yeah…I like that.”
“Quick, tell me three things you enjoy.”
His frown was back and even deeper than it had been a second ago. “Wait. What?”
“Quick—three things. No thinking, just say them.”
“Art, building things, horror movies.” He cocked his head like he was surprised the words had come out of his mouth.
“What?” Why in the fuck was Jonathan Carson so intriguing to me?
“I…never mind. What about you?”
“Nope. Not happening. What were you thinking?”
“That this is good pizza?” he replied like it was a question.
I rolled my eyes. “You’re shitty at this.”
“At what? Conversation?” Jonathan asked, and we both laughed deeply.
I almost sucked pizza down my throat, so ya know, good times. “Okay, I have a plan.” I took a swallow of my beer.
“Shoot.” Jonathan took a bite. He was loosening up again, and I liked that. I wanted to make him do it even more.
“When you move in, we have to make a commitment that we’ll do one new thing a week, something you’ve never done before. Something you’ve been curious about, even if you’ve never really considered doing it. They don’t have to be big things, just new things.”
“I’m not sure I like this game.”
I chuckled. “I don’t even know you that well, and I had a feeling you’d say that. All the more reason you need to do it.”
“Let’s pretend for a second that I agree.”
“You will.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You can pretend I don’t,” I countered. He looked down and smiled, shaking his head, his mop of hair brushing his forehead.
“Again, let’s pretend I agree. How will we decide what these things are that I have to do?”