Chapter Text
“You know, I’ve been doing some introspection, and I just have to face it,” Piper starts, sitting forward and placing her chin in her palm. “I have horrible taste in men. I mean, I rearrange my whole life to revolve around Dylan, only for him to cheat on me with the girl he knows I couldn’t stand in high school. I should’ve seen that one coming. ‘Oh, we’re just lab partners, Piper. Nothing for you to worry about.’ Oh yeah, me walking in on her wearing my silk kimono robe that I got as a bid day gift seven years later is totally nothing for me to worry about.”
Piper finishes her overly long tirade with a sarcastic laugh, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair. The three men on the other side of the kitchen island watch her in silence, a shared look of confusion on their faces.
“Wait,” Piper sits up again, “what was the question?”
One of them gives an awkward cough. “…What do you do for a living?”
“Oh,” Piper says. Her faces goes warm. “I work at an animal shelter.”
The tallest one furrows their brow. “You got a silk kimono robe as a bid day gift?”
“It had ‘ADPi' on the back and everything. I have to burn it now.”
He whistles. “That’s fucked up.”
The man with black hair and vibrant green eyes leans forward onto the counter. “Look—sorry, what was your name again?”
“Piper,” she says miserably.
He nods, putting a hand on his chest. “Percy. Piper, are you sure you’d be. . .okay rooming with us? Like, three adult men?”
“Well, I wouldn’t room with three underaged men. That’d be like. . .weird,” she comments, and then immediately resists the urge to slap her forehead.
The curly haired one wearing a green flannel and stained white tank top snorts into his hand.
Piper clears her throat. “It’s fine, it’s totally fine. I love men.” An awkward pause. “ . .in a non-heterosexual way. Well, yes that way because I swing that way but like, in a platonic way. In a roommate way. Men are. . . great.”
“Your latest tweet says ‘men are trash fr’ with two cry laughing emojis,” the tall one remarks, squinting at his phone. His eyebrows raise in surprise. “It has 3k retweets and 10k likes.”
Flannel-boy leans over to peer at the phone screen. “How the hell is it so easy for people to go viral on that app?”
His roommate smirks. “Tweetdecking. I do it all the time. Such easy clout.”
“I wasn’t tweetdecking.” Piper bitterly mutters. “I was just saying what everyone else was thinking.”
Percy gives his roommates a dirty look. Piper's kind of surprised she's not on the other end of it the way this is going. “Travis, why are you stalking her on Twitter?”
“Background checking, dude.”
“How did you even find it?”
“His lurk game is insane,” flannel-boy says.
“She’s right in front of us!” Percy widens his eyes, exasperated.
Piper gives a small wave to emphasize Percy’s point. “Hi.”
The other two barely acknowledge that she said anything. Travis lifts both his hands in defense. “Look, I’m just making sure she’s not crazy or anything—“
“I’m not,” Piper insists. Though if he continues to scroll through her Twitter profile she figures why he might come to a different conclusion. “I’m not crazy. Nowhere on the DSM-5. Totally normal. Plus, it’ll be like I’m not even here. Trust me. I work most days, and on top of that, I have depressive episodes where I isolate myself in my room for weeks.”
The three of them wear a concerned look. She bites the inside of her cheek, realizing that she may have pled her case a bit too much.
“Okay, maybe a little bit on the DSM-5. Look, I know I’m a girl and that will throw the natural balance of things for a little bit, but I swear I’m chill! Basically one of the guys.”
“Bruh girl,” flannel-boy interjects. “I’ve dated one of those. Not gonna lie, I prefer the ones who use the pouty face emoji.”
Piper’s eyes flit between the three of them in confusion. “What are we talking about?”
Percy glares at his roommate. “Ignore Leo, he’s an idiot.”
Leo makes a comment about comparing SAT scores. Travis shakes his head at him and points at one of three jars that sit on fireplace mantel. “Douchebag. Douchebag. We’re literally college grads, who cares about SAT scores?”
Leo grumbles to himself as he crosses toward the fireplace. They watch as Leo reaches into his pocket, pulls out a crumpled dollar and shoves it into the jar labeled ‘Douchebag.’ Instead of rejoining them in the kitchen, Leo throws himself onto the living room sofa.
Piper laughs nervously, not sure how react with this established dynamic. Percy picks up on her discomfort and gives her a sympathetic look.
“Are you sure you don’t wanna room with other girls?”
Piper frowns, twiddling her thumbs. “I’m rooming with other girls right now. My old sorority sister is letting me stay with her. She’s a model and so are her roommates. I hate it.”
Leo abruptly sits up, raising his eyebrows in interest. “How soon can you move in?”