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Being the only one of his friends to stay in the city for college sucks. Having everyone else move into their dorms a week before he did sucks. Trying to bring an entire dorm room’s worth of stuff across town using the subway…
that’s probably not his best idea ever.
But Zay’s managing. He’s rolled two large suitcases and carried a stuffed backpack out of the oven-like subway station and onto the crowded streets. He’s located his dorm building and checked in and waited his turn for the elevators.
Now he just has to unpack these bags and do the whole thing over again. Twice.
Without getting a heatstroke. New York City in the summer (and the last few days of August were definitely still summer) was the world’s worst mix of heat and humidity and crowds.
On the bright side, his mysterious, social media phobic roommate hasn’t shown up yet, so at least Zay gets first pick of the beds.
He collapses onto the one farthest from the door. It’s away from the window, which he figures will allow him the best shot of sleeping in until noon on the weekends.
After a solid five minutes of indulging his exhaustion, Zay forces himself upright again. It would be kind of awkward if his roommate walked in on him face planted into an unmade bed.
And the first step to fixing that is actually making the bed. He’s trying to tuck in the final corner of his fitted bed sheet (extra-long twin, so he couldn’t just reuse the ones from home), when someone knocks on the door.
“It’s open,” he calls, stretching to tuck the sheet into the place. Of course, this yanks the opposite corner out of place.
“You need help?” a girl asks. She’s short, with dark hair, dark skin, and glasses.
“Desperately,” Zay asks. She doesn’t bat an eyelash. “Can you just tuck in that corner while I hold these down.”
She nods and Zay lies across the bed in an L shape, so he can keep everything in place. He’s pretty sure this girl must have some sort of laundry telekinesis, because nothing even budges.
“Thanks,” Zay says, rolling off the bed to his feet. “I’m Zay.”
“Jaz,” she replies.
The introduction that follows is one that Zay is pretty sure he’ll be making a lot this semester.
He’s from Austin via right here, actually. She’s from LA. She’s in the Culinary Arts program, and he’s totally undecided. Her older sister got frustrated and left the building as soon as all of Jaz’s stuff was unpacked, and his parents are presenting at some big work conference.
Jaz offers to help him drag the rest of his stuff across town if he’ll show her how to use the subway.
“Not only that, I’ll buy you a slice of pizza,” Zay tells her.
People with food are likable. People with a gooey, crisp slice of New York City pizza are lovable.
“Can it be bagels instead?” she asks. “I have a friend who’s a total snob about bagels and my first goal for New York City is to eat one and tell her that they’re awful.”
“I can respect that,” he says. “The bagel and spread of your choice, then.”
If she chooses anything other than cream cheese, she’s wrong. He’ll have no choice but to never speak to her again.
Or bombard her with bagels every morning until she sees the light.
They opt to skip the elevator line and just carry their suitcases down the seven flights of stairs to the exit. The smack of wheels against the concrete steps echoes loudly. Of course, they’re not expecting to anyone else to have the same idea, especially going up between the fifth and sixth floors, so Zay nearly knocks over an Asian guy and a blond guy carrying a mini-fridge between them.
“Watch out,” Jaz calls just in time for Zay to dodge them.
“Nice save,” the Asian guy says with a laugh.
Zay can’t help but notice that he has a musical laugh. And he isn’t exactly hard on the eyes, either.
“Watch where you’re going,” his friend snaps.
“Yikes,” Jaz mutters under her breath. The blond glares and her, and she glares right back.
“We’re fine, Chris,” the Asian guy says. “My fridge is fine. Dude’s got good reflexes.”
“I do ballet,” Zay explains. His reflexes and grace have improved exponentially in the years since he started taking lessons.
The blond just grunts at him, before starting to drag the fridge up the stairs again.
“Why are all the cute ones always jerks?” Jaz bemoans as soon as they’re out of earshot.
Zay shakes his head, “Not my type. Tall blond and chiseled just reminds me of my best friend Lucas. Those two could be brothers.”
He’s never thought about it before, but Zay is glad that Lucas doesn’t have a hot brother. First of all, that would of made things awkward growing up. And second of all, that’s just too much pretty for one family.
“And the other one?” Jaz asks.
“What other one?” Zay plays innocent.
Maybe momentary amnesia is a little too innocent.
“The one whose ass you were staring at as he walked away,” she replies.
He turns to her. “You are too observant. I don’t like it.”
“Too late,” Jaz tells him. “We’ve bonded. There’s not getting rid of me now.”
Zay thinks he can live with that.
Learning to ride the subway at 18 is much easier than at 13, so at no point does Jaz take them on an express train downtown when they should be on a local uptown. That means they made it to Zay’s family’s apartment pretty quickly.
A week without his friends has given him plenty of time to organize his stuff (plus Riley and Farkle have both video chatted and made him show them he was actually packing), so it’s just a matter of loading everything into their suitcases and finding a way to carry an empty laundry basket with them.
Then he buys Jaz the promised bagel. Plain, toasted with cream cheese.
He’s pretty sure his grimace is just for show.
They’re both panting by the time they get everything back to Zay’s room. He can’t believe it’s just barely 3 o’clock.
He spends a good ten minutes complaining about the air conditioning before her realizes the other bed has been made and posters have been hung on the opposite wall.
Superhero posters.
“At least it’s not naked chicks,” Zay points and remarks.
Riley and Maya would never come and visit if they saw naked ladies fun tacked to his wall.
“Glad you approve,” says a voice from the doorway.
Zay turns, then nearly chokes on his own breath.
Of course his roommate would be the super cute guy he nearly knocked down five flights of stairs.
“Jason?” Zay asks, hoping the answer is no.
The other guy smiles. “Yep. And you’re Isaiah?”
“Zay,” he manages to squeak out.
Jaz is trying really hard not to laugh, and failing really hard at concealing it.
“Nice to meet you, Jason,” she says. To Zay she adds, “That’s for the intro to New York, but I should go see if my sister pulled that stick out of her ass while we gone. See you guys later?”
“We should all check out the dining hall when it opens,” Jason suggests. “We’ll swing by you’re room.”
Jaz nods her consent, and Zay waves silently as she abandons him.
“Hey, I hope you don’t mind, but I already set up my mini-fridge, Jason says. “You’re welcome to use it.”
“Great,” Zay replies, trying to sound normal. “I bought us a rug. I hope you don’t mind green.”
Jason shrugs his approval and Zay knows this is the part where he should ask about majors or where Jayson’s from or how often he’s going to have to put up with that asshole Chris.
But all he can thing that spending one year sharing a room with The Cutest Boy Ever is going to be literal Hell.
His phone buzzes in his pocket. It’s a text from Lucas.
Good luck.
He’s going to need it.