Hudson tossed his kitchen towel up into the air and let it fall to the floor. The front door opened, and Lance came up the stairs. He looked even bigger than the last time I saw him.
“You moved in with him?” he asked when he saw me. “I thought you had better taste than that.”
Hudson put his prepared meals in the refrigerator with a definite air of defeat. I felt I should tell his friends the truth.
“I didn’t really move in,” I announced, just as Jeremy and Tony burst in.
“What?” Tony asked. “Dude, I had somewhere to go. I came to congratulate you on the little missus.”
“There’s no little missus,” I told Tony. “Hudson is letting me stay here because I just lost my house. It’s temporary. I’m couch surfing. That’s all.”
There was a moment of silence when they all stared at me like I had sprouted a second head. Then, Peter started to laugh, and Lance, Jeremy, and Tony joined in.
“Couch surfing with a Marine?” Lance asked me. “No. Sorry, honey. Just no.”
“That’s right,” Jeremy said. “It’s never just couch surfing.”
Luckily, the conversation took a sharp right turn to Tony’s motorcycle problems and let Hudson and me off the hook. Someone had indeed ordered pizza, and a few minutes later, five large pies showed up, along with a case of beer and a brownie pie.
I sat down to eat with them, and Hudson sat down, too, but he ate chicken, rice, and asparagus. I had a good time with Hudson and his friends. They had veered off the topic of whatever relationship Hudson and I did or didn’t have. Instead, they teased each other and talked about cars, motorcycles, girls, and television shows. I noticed that they didn’t speak about work, about the military, and I wondered if that was calculated or not. Hudson joined in with them, and it was nice to see him relaxed with his friends, even though it was obvious that, friendly as they were, he was still their superior. They looked to him for advice and approval. Even Lance, who was the oldest and biggest of the group, deferred to Hudson.
Peter and Jeremy sat on my handmade chairs, and I was happy to see that they held up under the weight of the two men. As the afternoon turned into evening, I let them know that I made the chairs, and I offered them to them as gifts.
“Cool!” Peter said. “I’ve got like no furniture in my place next door. This’ll go great. It would be even better if I had a second chair.” He eyed Jeremy’s chair.
“No way, man,” Jeremy said, shaking his head. “Eliza gave this to me.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll make you another,” I told Peter. “If you really want another.”
“I do!” he said, slamming another slice of pizza into his mouth.
“It might not look exactly the same. It will be with a different kind of wood,” I said, since I was never going home again and couldn’t use Steve’s wood paneling anymore.
“Sounds killer,” Peter said.
My phone rang, and I left the table to get it. It was Joe, and I ran upstairs before I answered.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes. I’m… at a friend’s.”
“I was making a delivery nearby, and I saw the sheriff’s deputies, and then I saw you-know-who with you-know-who go inside.”
So, Steve and Tight Tammy had already moved into my house. It figured since her house was flooded with sewage. Still, it was quick. I had heard of power couples, but Steve and Tight Tammy were a ruthless couple.
“Steve kicked me out,” I told Joe. “He tricked me. The house was in his name.”
I didn’t want to admit that I had allowed him to put the house in his name, that I allowed myself to be tricked. At that moment on the phone, I decided not to blame the victim, and I was indeed the victim in this whole thing.
“I’m so sorry,” Joe said. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I didn’t like that house, anyway. It was never my house. I’ll be fine. I’m couch surfing.”
It was the second time I used the couch surfing line, and it made me uncomfortable to lie, but I didn’t want anyone to know that I would be using Hudson’s bed.
“Couch surfing is fun,” Joe said. “You could do that for a long time and have a lot of fun.”
“Lots of fun,” I agreed, but it made me think. Did I want to be a houseguest for a long time? No, I didn’t. I needed to find my own place. I needed to be a real person, a real adult, and stand on my own two feet. But I didn’t have a job or a credit rating. How would I find a place to live?
