Life is funny. Not in a hahahehe kind of way, but more of an 'isn't that ironic' or weird kind of way.
Before there was even a roommate issue, my life was pretty humdrum, well as about as humdrum as it can be with a pop star as a boyfriend/best friend. I never really did much other than study and hang out with the same two people: Coral and Nikki. Then Coral was scratched off the list, and then Nikki went frolicking off into the land of live-in girlfriend with Jason, leaving me to be alone. Not completely alone, but it felt like it sometimes. Sure I'd started to hang out with Britney occasionally, but it wasn't the same you know? I mean, Nikki was a really close friend of mine and to just suddenly have her gone too was a little hard to get used to.
But life goes on. I went on in my usual way - sleeping, eating, studying, and repeat way. But then I needed a roommate, because I simply could not afford to pay for the apartment on my own. And moving in with Justin, despite all his arguments was not going to happen. I hadn't planned on getting a guy roommate. It wasn't my ideal choice. However my luck isn't the best, so naturally the one thing I didn't want is the exact thing I wound up with.
But perhaps my luck is turning around though, because despite the headaches that Justin has been giving me over this, Nate is great. And I'm not just saying that for the rhyme.
He's a senior, majoring in business management with a minor in computer technology. He can be the biggest nerd sometimes, but my computer hasn't been working this good since...well, ever. And when he walks into the room, he's one of those people who are hard to ignore. And I'm not just talking about his physical appearance - but don't be mistaken it's hard not to notice how good he looks, though I have tried not to for Justin's sake - but there's just something about him. This aura, this vibe that surrounds him, permeates off him, flows from him to you when he's in your presence. You almost feel blessed to just have him in the same room as you.
If I had to describe him in the sense of what kind of CD he’d be, he’s definitely on some Cool Relax Jon B shit. Or any Babyface, Brian McKnight album…just one of them brothas that has the kind of presence that soothes the soul, you know what I mean?
And the crazy part is he's been on the same campus all these years and I never noticed him before. How did I miss him? My freshman year, besides studying until the words blurred and began to swim on the page, had been devoted to boy scooping. If there was any eye candy in this school, I wanted to be the first to know about it. But somehow he'd slipped under my radar. Maybe that's the way he likes it though. I'm learning more and more about him everyday and one of those things I'm learning is he's not one of those high profile cuties. He's not trying to be flashy, he's not trying to put on the smoke and mirrors show to lure your interest. He's just him.
Yeah, sure he works out, more for his Channing Tatum look-a-like maintenance than for his own caring about looking toned and ripped. But we all are superficial on some level, the degree and magnitude just varies based on the personal values.
And lawd, can that boy talk! He can run his mouth like no other! But it really only gets irritating when talking to him means I'm not going to get a word in edgewise so I might as well just shut the hell up and listen (or pretend to be listening like I've started to learn to do instead). And he's like Justin in the way that as soon as I'm getting sleepy that's when he wants to have a long drawn out conversation. However, unlike Justin he's a lot easier to get rid of.
The first week was probably the most awkward week of my entire life. I'm not exactly known for my social skills or being much of a people person. So having a stranger in constant, close quarters with me was something that was a lot harder to get used to than I'd expected. Especially since he was a male stranger. With a girl roommate, I can wake up and walk out of my room with my hair making me a shoo-in for the Medusa look-a-like contest, with any ole kind of pajamas on without much worry cause if she's a normal girl she'll probably walk out of her room looking just the same way as I do. But with a guy in the house?
Ooooh hell no. You gotta look presentable at all times. At least that's what I thought that first week until Nate looked over at me, while we were sitting at the table eating breakfast, grimaced and said, "You're one of them morning people aren't you?"
I'd frowned at that before asking, "No. Why do you say that?"
"I'm mean look at you,” He said, gesturing to my attire, causing me to look at myself. “You're fully dressed, pressed, and even bothered to put on a touch of make-up on all before nine in the morning. What non-morning person would do that? Look at me," He said, offering himself as an example. "I'm sitting over here, probably looking more like a bum than most bums do. I can hardly keep my eyes open long enough to pour the milk in my cereal and you're sitting across from me looking like Miss Susie Sunshine over here." He laughed. "If you just roll out of bed and crawl your way into the kitchen in the mornings, I'm not going to be looking at you funny, because lord knows I'll be on that floor crawling right behind you."
Now Nate too has been added to the very short list of people who have been unfortunate enough to see me and my Medusa bed head, which he found ridiculously hilarious for awhile and even threatened that if I ever pissed him off there'd be a website dedicated to the Medusa look. Of course I countered such a threat in a very mature manner by telling him that he if was ever to even think about seriously doing such a thing, I'd be forced to tell his Momma that he hadn't taken her advice and was still dating Tamela.
That's just what good roommates do for each other.
I don't know how but by...say oh, I think it was the fourth week of him living here; he'd already developed a nickname for me. It's the most horrible, terrible, nickname a person could have be so unfortunate as to receive. Goo Boo. Don't ask me where it came from, what it means, or why he likes calling me that. He just does. He's weird. In a very weak retaliation he became Nate Dogg, which just as my luck would have it he finds to be pretty cool.
Besides the nicknames, we just got comfortable with each other a lot quicker than I ever would have bothered myself with hoping for. Now we say corny shit to each other like 'where have you been all my life?'
But in a way, we're serious though. He's become a really good friend of mine now and I couldn't imagine anyone else to share my space with.
I tried to explain how good this was to Justin, but he just grumbles to himself and changes the subject. I almost would rather him continue his constant badgering of me on the moving in with him, than getting all bitter over the situation. But bitter or not that doesn't stop him from fulfilling his word of being around a lot more often now so he can 'protect what's his.'
I mean, honestly, what proof does he have that shows that this needs to be done in the first place? Knowing Justin, he'd probably say 'That thing swinging between his legs is all the proof I need.' And there's only one other person in the world who would say such a thing and ironically she's also probably the one person he hates the most in the world: Coral.
I really do miss that bitch sometimes.
But just as quickly as my brain switches gears to the sadness of a good friendship lost over stupid shit, I'm involuntarily snapped back to thought of 'that thing swinging between his legs.'
Swinging.
Reality pulls me away from getting too far into dirty visualizations of a man that I would without hesitation swear up, down and all around that I have no attraction towards.
“Di-di-did I just see what I think I did?” Justin exclaimed in utter dismay.
Okay so Nate had few bad qualities. Who doesn’t though? Besides his utter spinelessness whenever the she-devil (Tamela) is involved, his tendency to babble at the most inopportune moments like when I’m trying to watch one of my shows or read, his love of Tom Cruise movies and his inclination to act out scenes in them especially the one in Risky Business where he’s dancing and sliding across the floor clad in only a white collared shirt, tidy whites and white socks “ which wasn’t all that bad considering how he’d nearly collided smack into the wall when he was unable to stop his slide, and his affinity toward singing his own version of opera (loudly) in the shower every single morning but these weren’t huge flaws though. Definitely nothing to get in an uproar about.
Oh yeah and then there was this other small rather insignificant flaw of his that was more than likely the reason for Justin’s current distress. What is this harmless flaw? …you ask.
Nathan has a propensity to uh, well, to walk around nude sometimes. He’s good-looking so despite wanting to say something in objection, I just let him do his thang. I cover my eyes, but peek occasionally. Look, but don’t touch…is the rule I live by.
Unfortunately this happened to be one of those times he did that and had my bedroom door not been wide open in the first place, Justin wouldn’t have gotten to witness this. But in Nate’s defense he was raised by nudists. So it’s really a wonder that he wears clothes as much as he does in the first place. I should seriously change his nickname to Nature Boy.
“You did, you did. You did taw a puddytat.” I laughed.
“Don’t joke.” He snapped, his face the picture of controlled anger. “Where the hell is that fool’s clothes?”
“Justin, relax. It’s no big deal.” I said, trying to nip the conversation in the bud before he could ask more questions which would only lead to him getting angrier. And I completely understand him being angry about that because naturally who wouldn’t be angered by the thought of an attractive member of the opposite sex promenading about all willy-nilly like in front of your significant other?
“What, he’s always walking around like that? Is that why you’re so nonchalant about this?” His voice was steadily rising as was his ill temper.
Perhaps a little humour would save me from having to continue this conversation. “What do you want me to do? Start screaming in horror? Faint from embarrassment? It’s not like I’ve never seen a man naked before.”
“How many have you seen?” He asked, his voice having gone back to its normal volume so suddenly that it worried me slightly.
Well at least he wasn’t talking about Nate anymore. Unfortunately now he’d just moved us from one argument to another. “C’mon now, Justin…you know that’s a trick question.”
“How is it a trick question?”
“You might as well ask me how many people I’ve slept with.” I said, shaking my head.
“Well…how many have you?” He prodded.
“I’m not even going there with you.”
“No, really…humour me. How many?” He said. “One?”
“One?” I laughed. “What, you think you’re the only one I’ve ever been with?”
“I-I…I’m just asking.” He retorted, getting flustered just at the thought of me being with someone other than him. “So how many was it?”
“Nah, I’m not going there with you.” I said, shaking my head firmly.
“That many?” He asked his eyes bugging out his head. Looking at me like I was about to reach in between my legs, pulling the guys out one by one while counting off how many there was like the Count on Sesame Street.
“Justin don’t even look at me like that. I didn’t say anything…you’re the one jumping to crazy conclusions.” I said. “Just cause I’m not a virgin doesn’t mean my panties drop at the sight or whiff of a man.”
“Just tell me.”
“Why do you wanna know? Cause Nate walks around bare-ass every now and then?”
He frowned at the mention of Nate and his occasional nakedness but that didn’t even deter him from this damn subject. “It’s not about that.”
“Then what is it about?”
“I just want to know.”
“Why now? Why all of sudden is it so important to you?”
“It’s not…I just…if you don’t wanna tell me…then don’t.”
Glancing at him, I smiled. “Thanks for the permission. I won’t.”
“I can count the number of lovers I’ve had on one hand.” He continued allowing only a few beats pause in the conversation.
“Lovers? What’s that…just the ones you had feeling for? Add in the ones you just fucked….and you won’t have enough fingers or toes to count them on…not even if you borrowed some of mine and half of NYC’s.”
Shaking his head, he rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I’ll admit that I get around. But---”
“Oh, you get around huh? So who exactly have you been getting around with Timberlake?” I said, sitting up now, suddenly interested in the conversation.
“I meant I got around. Past tense.”
“Uh-huh. Sounds like a Freudian slip to me.” I said, still eyeing him suspiciously. “I’ll let it go this time. But if I do ever catch you with someone else…again…I swear I’ll---”
“I don’t even wanna know. I trust it’s not going to be pleasant.” He said, laughing nervously.
As the conversation fell into a comfortable lull I picked up one my textbooks that I’d gotten behind in the reading for the class. Five minutes into my reading I was interrupted. And really, I don’t even know why I bothered with trying to read in the first place. I never get any work done with him around.
Poking me in my side, Justin didn’t stop until I turned to face him. “What?!”
He smiled at my exasperation, for how much he loved to bug me it was hard to believe that he was an only child and not the youngest of a large family so then he would had have many years of experience in the art of annoying folks so as to explain why he had it down to a science now.
“I’ve only been in love three times. That’s who I count as lovers.”
“That’s nice, Justin.” I said my eyes back on the page I was reading.
“So how many have you had?” He persisted.
“If I tell you will you promise never to bring it up again? And there’ll also be no discussions about it.”
“But---”
“None. That’s the deal…take it or leave it.”
He hesitated before finally nodding. “Fine, tell me.”
Sighing, I put my book down and began counting off the names in my head on my fingers and when I’d run out of my own fingers and toes I turned to Justin. “Gimme your hand.”
“You have had that many?” Justin said his jaw hanging so low that I had to wonder if it was still attached.
“Define ‘have had’…cause if you’re talking about sex without feelings I’m gonna need your other hand too…and maybe one of your feet.”
“Are you serious?” He exclaimed. I could hear his ego bruising as he stared at me half-believing half-hoping I was joking. Which naturally I was. Justin was the only lover I’ve ever had “ lover being defined as actually being in love with the person I’m giving my body to. But to tell him that would…I dunno. I just didn’t want to tell him. So I figured I had to exaggerate the number, it was only a matter of how much now.
“Five.” I finally said.
“Five?”
“Okay, it was four.”
“Four?”
“Fine, three.”
“Three?”
“Damn…what number do you want it to be?”
“Just tell me what it really is. I’m not asking how many people you’ve had sex with, I’m asking how many lovers have you had.”
I know and that’s what’s making this so hard to say. “I---”
“Nevermind, you don’t have to tell me.” He sighed, turning his back on me as he lay on his side.
I watched him for several seconds before picking my book back up. But in that moment the words were meaningless. Exhaling my frustration, I put the book back on the nightstand and quickly cut the lights, flooding the room with darkness. I watched the shadows dance along the walls as the cars passed by outside. I listened to the sound of the apartment creaking from a long day of being walked on and over.
Rolling from my side unto my back, I watched the ceiling. When the ceiling proved to be as uninteresting as the walls, I rolled onto my side. My eyes instantly roamed over the figure that lay next to me with his back still to me. I could stand the silent treatment…but just don’t turn your back on me. Especially if you’re combining it with disappointed silence.
“Justin?” I finally called into the darkness.
“Yeah?”
“I just wanted to know if you were still awake.”
“Okay.”
For my eleven words I’d only received two in response. Not that his amount of words used necessarily meant something. But in a way it did.
“Goodnight.” I added.
“Night.”
See, what I’m talking about? He couldn’t even wish me a goodnight. Just night, that was all he was willing to give up. Maybe I’m being too sensitive. Maybe I’m---
“Justin?”
“What?”
Annoyance…pray tell is that what I’m hearing?
“I love you.”
He sighed then. He actually had the nerve to sigh as if my saying I love you was a burden for him. As if my saying that caused him pain in some way. As if---
He rolled over then; his back now causing the wall to feel ignored. “Love you too, K.”
I smiled then and moved closer to him as I simultaneously felt his arms wrap around me. Closing my eyes I thought I must have been dreaming when I heard a voice that sounded strangely like mine saying, “One.”
“One, what baby?”
“Lover that I’ve had.” It was then that I realized that I wasn’t dreaming and listening to an illusion of me saying those things. That’s also when I realized that lying my way out this would be too predictable. No, this situation called for something much more drastic.
I was going to tell him the truth.
He didn’t say anything for a moment so long that my hopes soared with the idea that he might not have heard me…and my fallback lying could work after all.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yeah.”
Damn.
“I don’t know…I don’t know what to say.” He stammered.
“Good. Go with that. Don’t say anything at all. In fact, forget I said anything. Actually I didn’t say anything…nothing was said.”
Laughing he said, “Why is it so hard for you to admit that I’m your first?”
“You’re not my first!” I proclaimed defiantly.
“Maybe not the first…uh, to penetrate…physically. But I’m the first to get in the better guarded place.”
“What are you saying? That I’d spread my legs literally before I’d spread my arms figuratively?”
“Well…um, yeah. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
A small disappointed snort came out, I wasn’t expecting that answer. “Thanks, J. Glad to know that you think I’m a whore.”
Laughing he said, “You know that’s not what I meant. I’m just saying that you’d let someone get close to you physically before you’d let them get close to you emotionally. But neither are easy feats.”
“And you know why that is? Because when I do, I gotta listen to dumb shit like that.” I huffed.
He didn’t say anything for several seconds. “Sit up.” He finally said, already sitting up himself as he turned the lamp on that sat on the nightstand nearest him.
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
“This isn’t a Nike commercial.” I replied, sitting up anyway. “So why am I sitting up?”
“C’mere.” He said motioning for me to come closer.
“What?”
“I said, ‘c’mere.’”
“I know what you said…but…”
“But nothing. Just c’mere.”
After watching him curiously for a few moments I scooted closer to him.
“Closer.” He said, not moving so much as a centimeter my way.
Moving closer until I was chest to chest with him, I said, “Now what?”
“Now…nothing.” He said, his arms wrapping around me, holding me close and keeping my closer. My first thought was to tell him to let me go so I could go to sleep. Just as I was about to speak up, Justin said, “Sometimes just holding you, being close to you like this is better than sex.”
I laughed, but found myself nodding. “Yeah, sometimes it is.” Leaning back slightly so that I could look him in the eye, I said, “But sometimes I need more than to be held.”
At first he smirked, then the smirk changed to a confident yet beautiful smile as he licked his lips and said, “I can give you that too.”
This is normally where I would have laughed, giggled or simply made a sarcastic joke/stab at his ego but instead I found myself stroking his ego…or if you wanna get all technical about it, simply telling the truth. “Yes, you can.”
We’d gone from sitting up holding each other to laying down holding each other to rolling away from each other completely in an attempt to fall asleep. Only to wind up with our arms just barely brushing against one another as we both laid face up, staring at the shadow dancing performance on the ceiling. Tamela’s ever-growing excitement filled ‘Ay papi’s carrying through the walls of my small apartment with the squeaking of Nate’s bed in accompaniment was main reason I’d yet to manage to fall asleep.
With all the activity and carrying on going on in the room just across the hall from mine, it made me feel like Justin and my relationship had reached the old married couple stage prematurely while Nate and Tamela’s was still a spring chicken full of life. If only in the sexual sense. But hey, at least it was alive…and screaming now in a blasphemous mixture of ‘ay dios mio’s and series of profanities.
“So…” He sighed, rolling onto his side so that he was facing me again.
I smiled in the darkness; eyes still trained on the ceiling, glad to hear the annoyance in his voice which let me know I wasn’t the only one aggravated by the horny ones loud carrying on.
“So…” I echoed.
“Does this mean you’ll move in with me?” He asked, wistfully and completely out of the blue.
I sighed softly; those weren’t exactly the words I’d wanted to hear. “You’re never going to let this go, are you?”
“I have been known to be a tad…persistent when I want something.” He laughed.
“True.” I nodded in agreement. “But so have I.”
“And you don’t want to move in with me that much?”
“Yep.”
“And there’s nothing I can say to change that?”
“Yep.”
“And there’s nothing I can do to change that?”
I smiled at the possibilities. “Mmm, depends…what did you have in mind?”
Before he could answer, Tamela suddenly run past my opened bedroom door naked and giggling. What the hell were those two doing? Playing a game of sex tag? I waited for Justin’s complaints to begin anew, but he didn’t say a thing. I turned to say something to him about that, but then Nate passed by…naked, again and I silently cursed my laziness for not having gotten up and closed that damn door already.
Groaning Justin said, “Why do you want to live with a nudist over me?”
“Cause he’s a nudist, duh.” I laughed, rolling my eyes as if the answer was crystal clear.
“So he’s always walking around like that?!” He screeched as his voice cracked with his sudden burst of anger, making it very, very hard not to laugh at him.
“No, Justin, he doesn’t. So you can calm down.” I replied before pointing out something he’d failed to mention yet. “You know, Tamela ran past here and you didn’t say a word.”
“Why would I?” He asked, his face wrinkling up with confusion.
“She was naked too.” I said, starting to become annoyed by his sudden stoicalness to the situation where it related to Tamela showing her ass.
Tamela, what can I say about her? Besides that I don’t like her and that she’s bad getting schooled by the devil. And probably if it wasn’t for the fact that she was really pretty Hispanic girl who could have easily given JLO a run for her money, I really fail to see what Nate could possibly see in her. But there had to be more than mere looks that kept him staying with her, right? I mean, the girl has an evil side that could quite easily rival Michelle Rodriguez, who is capable of looking life-threatening even when she’s smiling a big toothy grin.
Tamela’s so crazy that she’d probably take a knife to your throat one minute; threatening to slit your throat and let you die slowly…then the next minute remember she was baking some cookies and ask if you wanted some. And don’t dare offend her by saying no, otherwise that knife would come right back out and you’d find yourself bleeding to death before you even had time to realize what the hell had just happened to you. And even if I weren’t convinced she was suffering from split personalities with one being extra sweet and the other a bitch and a half “ I still wouldn’t like her.
She can be a very flirtatious kind of girl and ends up flirting with Justin whenever the mood strikes her. And as if it wasn’t bad enough to see her strutting around the apartment, ‘accidentally’ dropping things just so she could bend over in front of him and pick it up at annoyingly slow pace or her constant reference to him as ‘papi’ - the worse part is that Justin would actually flirt back with her skanky ass! Leaving Nate and I to silently watch the scene as it played out right in front of us.
“Yeah, but that’s different.”
I bet it is. “How?” I asked, wondering how he was going to explain that away.
Opening his mouth to respond, he frowned when all that come out was more silence. “Don’t question me, woman.”
I laughed, shaking my head at him sadly. “I love it when you get all caveman ‘me “ Tarzan, you “ Jane’ on me. Turns me on.”
“Really?” He said moving closer to me, left eyebrow rose in attention.
“No.” I said, rolling over and cuddling with the blankets instead of him.
