Chapter Text
May 21
As per her routine, Nile goes to the gym after her shift at the coffeeshop. She warms up with some dynamic stretches before moving on to cardio, letting herself get lost in the familiar motions. It would be a day like any other if she wasn’t so busy stressing out about where the actual fuck she’s gonna live next month.
She’s trying to channel all her anxiety into the treadmill when she notices the bulletin board next to the water cooler.
She’s never paid it any attention before, but as she draws closer she sees it’s absolutely plastered with various ads—there’s about three layers of “help wanted” and “seeking bass player" and “missing pet” signs, some of them more than a year old. Nile’s about to give it up as a bad job when a woman she vaguely recognizes comes to stand next to her.
“You see any unused pushpins?” the woman asks. She’s wearing a cutoff tank that highlights her toned arms.
Nile wipes her sweaty temple with the back of her wrist. “Honestly, you can probably just take your pick. Some of these ads are pretty old.”
The woman leans in, inspecting a flyer with an offer the juice place down the street was running four months ago. She takes it down, and Nile’s adrenaline jumps a little when she sees what it’s being replaced with.
“You’re looking for a roommate?”
The woman raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, that’s what it says.”
“Sorry.” Nile swallows and tries to take it down a notch. “I’m just looking for a place, is all, and the renting situation here is outta control.”
The woman looks her up and down, and Nile knows when she’s being sized up. “What’s your name?”
“Nile.” She holds out her hand.
“Andy.” The woman takes it. Her grip is as intimidating as Nile would have guessed. “When are you looking to move?”
“Lease is up at the end of the month.”
“Okay.” Andy nods. “The apartment is really more of a loft—there’s four rooms, and there’s five of us living there. The bathroom’s kind of weird, but you can check it out for yourself if you’re still interested.”
“Um.” Nile tries not to get stuck on what a “weird bathroom” could entail. “Yeah, I mean—I’d have my own room?”
“Yeah.”
Nile takes a minute to do her own sizing-up. Andy is definitely older than her—probably about ten years, Nile guesses—and she has some questions about why a thirty-something woman is living with four (possibly five) other people, but she doesn’t get serial-killer or cult vibes, and being ex-military, she likes to think she’s got a good sense for people who are unpalatably weird.
“Okay, sure, I’d love to come see the place.”
Andy smiles then. “Great. What’s your number?”
Nile gives it to her.
“I’ll figure out a time that everyone can be home, so you can meet them.”
Nile smiles. “Sounds good.”
Andy maintains eye contact as she unpins her “roommate wanted” sign from the board and crumples it in her hand.
Nile blinks.
“I think you show promise,” Andy says by way of explanation.
———
Joe comes home to his third-favorite sight: Nicky cooking. (Second place is Nicky, naked, and coming in first is Nicky, cooking naked.)
Nicky looks up from the stove and smiles. “Hello, love.” He’s already changed out of his business casual and into sweats and Joe’s Alicia Keyes t-shirt.
Joe toes off his shoes and presses up against Nicky’s back, arms wrapped around his chest. He kisses his neck, his cheek, his temple. “Hello. What’re you making?”
“Your favorite.”
“Ah, you’re too good for me.” He rests his head on Nicky’s shoulder, feeling his migraine start to subside.
“How was work?”
Joe just grunts, knowing Nicky will understand. The startup he works at is getting some serious attention and new rounds of funding, and the board’s been insisting on a rebrand. As a result, Joe’s been working fifty-to-sixty hour weeks on options for both revised and new logos. It’s design hell.
Nicky reaches back to tangle a hand in his hair. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Joe sighs. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m home now, and I’ve got my beautiful lover cooking for me.” He glances around and tries to listen carefully for any other signs of life in the loft. “And it sounds like we have our place to ourselves.”
Nicky huffs a laugh. “For once.”
Instead of taking the bait, Joe just tightens his embrace. “Anything I can do to help?” he asks in a desperate and wildly transparent attempt to change the subject.
Nicky gives him an exasperated look, but he lets it drop. “You can open the wine,” he says, nodding to the island counter.
Joe reluctantly leaves Nicky and hunts down the bottle opener, which is somehow never left in the same place twice. After he finds it in the last possible drawer it could be hiding in, he inspects the label on the bottle. “This is nice, Nicky,” he says. “What was this, a twenty-dollar bottle?”
“Twenty-seven. It’s not that nice.” Nicky’s voice is a little tight. “We aren’t twenty anymore, we don’t have to drink five-dollar wine.” He looks over his shoulder and says very pointedly, “We can afford nice things.”
“Can we pause this?” Joe asks tiredly. Every argument—discussion—they’ve had for the past year has centered around this particular issue, and the worst part of it is that Joe knows Nicky’s right. Nicky was promoted to director of the HR department at the insurance company he works at two years ago, and Joe’s been making more than starving artist money at the startup (though sometimes he wonders if it’s worth it).
They have enough saved to get their own place, where they can be alone together and not share a dorm-style bathroom with four—now three—other adults, as Nicky has been reminding him more and more frequently.
Nicky is watching him. His face is patient, but Joe thinks he’s stirring the sauce a little aggressively.
“Just until the weekend, please, baby?”
Nicky nods. “Fine, yes, the weekend.”
“I love you,” Joe tells him. “I know I’m being stupid. I’m really sorry. I promise I will be less stupid after I make it through this week.”
Nicky smiles then. “I will love you even if you are not,” he says, and turns back to the stove. Joe feels a weight lift off his chest. He’s grinning like an idiot as he uncorks the wine and pours them each a glass.
———
The familiar smell of Nicky’s cooking is there to greet Andy when she gets back from the gym.
“Thank fuck,” she says, dropping her gym bag as her sight zeroes in on the shakshouka. “I’m starving.”
She grabs the plate and fork she used for breakfast from the sink and sits down at the table across from Joe, who’s staring at her with a pained expression.
“What?” she asks as she dishes herself some food.
“Did you really just take a dirty plate out of the sink? Is that what just happened?”
Andy stares at him. “Yeah, but it’s mine. It was just toast and eggs. Which is basically this.”
Nicky rubs at his eyes. He and Joe exchange one of their patented “we’re sharing the same brain” couple looks, the kind she and Quỳnh give each other, or, maybe more accurately, gave each other.
“Andy.” Nicky’s voice is patient, but she thinks it’s taking some effort on his part. “Joe and I were trying to spend some time together.”
She knows what he means, but lately she hasn’t been in the mood to aid or abet any sort of romance. “Looks like you are,” she says, mouth full.
“Nicky wasn’t cooking for the whole loft, Andy.” Joe sounds very Not Mad, Just Disappointed and it raises her hackles.
She lets her fork thunk down on her plate. “Fine, sorry to intrude on couples’ time.” She means for it to sound casually dismissive, but it comes out just a little too hot and way too revealing, if they look Nicky and Joe share is anything to go by.
“Stop,” she mutters. Now they’re both looking at her, wide-eyed, attentive, pitying. “It’s fine,” she adds.
“She gets back in a few days, yes?” Nicky asks gently.
Andy loves them, these guys who know her better than almost anyone else, but the careful, on-eggshells quality of Nicky’s tone is tempting her to stab him with her fork. “The twenty-fourth,” she tells him, grudgingly, almost wishing she didn’t care enough to know.
“We’ll be sure to crash all of your romantic dinners then,” Joe teases, and Andy can’t help smiling back, which reminds her—
“Hey, new topic, good news,” she says. “I think I found us a new roomie.”
“Wow. Already?” They both look impressed, which is gratifying.
“Yep. Met her at the gym. Told you I was a people-person.” She helps herself to some bread.
Nicky laughs, his little snorting chuckle that is usually reserved for some terrible joke of Joe’s, and now she feels downright smug.
Joe looks like he’s about to ask another question when the door opens and Booker comes shuffling in, looking disheveled as ever.
“Hey Book,” she says casually. “How’s chapter one coming?”
He flips her the finger. “Fuck off.”
“Stop picking fights and tell Booker the good news,” Nicky urges.
Booker pulls up a seat next to Joe and reaches across the table for the wine bottle. Joe smacks at his bicep, but Booker remains undeterred. He takes a long pull straight from the bottle. “This is some nice shit,” he says, and Nicky’s jaw is clenched, always a tell, but he just turns his attention back to Andy, waiting.
“I think I found a replacement for Copley,” Andy tells Booker.
“Huh,” Booker says, and takes another drink.
Joe rolls his eyes.
“Tell us more,” Nicky says. “You said a her?”
“Yeah. Her name’s Nile. She’s a little younger. But I have a good feeling.”
Booker narrows his eyes. “How much younger?”
Andy shrugs.
“Andy, I’m not living with a fucking eighteen-year-old—”
“Jesus, Book, not that much younger. She’s probably, I don’t know, mid-twenties?”
Booker makes a disgruntled noise but lets it drop.
“So, we’re meeting her, right?” Joe asks.
“Yeah. I’m gonna text her but wanted to find a time everyone would be home.”
“We’re free all weekend,” Joe says.
She glances at Booker. “I’m working normal hours,” he tells her.
“I can’t remember your fucking schedule.”
“Saturday, four to close, Sunday, two to ten.”
“We should also probably work around your writing schedule, huh?” she deadpans. “You’re on deadline, right?”
Joe covers his smile with his hand. Booker just flips her off again.
Once again, Nicky steers them away from conflict. “Will the weekend work for you and Quỳnh?”
“Yeah,” Andy says, though she’s frankly lost track of when Quỳnh will be leaving next. “I’ll let you guys know a final time tomorrow.”
Andy finishes her plate, Booker finishes the wine, and Nicky and Joe clean up the kitchen, which is admittedly a shit deal, but she’s too preoccupied by the looming dread of the call she has to make to do anything but simmer in her guilt.
She puts it off as long as she can by showering and catching up on emails from pushy parents, but if she waits any longer, it’s going to be too late in New York to call.
Quỳnh picks up on the third ring. “Hey, what’s up?”
Andy clears her throat. “Just saying hi. How’s the trip?”
“Busy,” Quỳnh says, absently.
Andy waits for her to elaborate, but she doesn’t. “Okay.”
“How’s it there?”
She thinks about everything that’s happened in the last week—the indie show she and Booker saw, the TV show she and Nicky spent last weekend bingeing, the new ramen place she and Joe discovered—and she could tell her girlfriend every last detail, and Quỳnh would say “oh, cool” and “sounds great” and make all the right comments at all the right tunes, but she wouldn’t actually give a shit about anything but the deals she’s brokering, and Andy would rather hear nothing than fake interest, so she just says, “Think I found a replacement roommate.”
“Oh, cool,” Quỳnh says.
“She’s gonna come over and look at the loft. I wanted us all to be there. You’re back on Friday, right?”
“Right.”
“So maybe she could come over Sunday? We’ll be around?”
“Sounds great,” Quỳnh says.
“Great.” Andy breathes into the silence. “Well. It’s late there, right?”
“Almost ten. But I still have a few things to finish up.”
“Okay. I’ll let you go.” Two years ago, Andy would have told her not to work too hard, to catch up on sleep or to do something fun, but she knows better now. There’s an entire continent between them, but somehow it feels like even more.
“Mmkay,” Quỳnh says. “Love you.”
“Love you. Bye.” There’s no “you-hang-up-first-no-you-hang-up-first” but she still stays on until her phone tells her the call’s ended.
She opens a new message.
Hey, its Andy. 1pm Sunday work for you to come see the loft and meet everyone?
Andy drops the phone on the bed and stares at the ceiling. She’s trying to remember if there’s still any vodka in the kitchen (or under her bed) when her phone lights up.
It’s Nile.
Sounds great! Send me the address when you have a chance, I’ll be there. Looking forward to it!
Well, she thinks, that’s something.