As we let ourselves into the house, Julia trots back toward my bedroom to change into my clothes, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. As if she’s done it a thousand times before. I’ve wanted her to; I’ve imagined her in nothing but one of my old, baggy t-shirts, but I’ve never seen her in one of them.
Tripp and I find ourselves in the living room, perched together on the plush cushions of the couch as Koda toddles toward us in search of the attention he’d been missing while we were out.
I watch as Tripp pets him, almost seeming to purposely avoid my gaze. Leaning against the back of the couch, I drape an arm behind him.
“Are you okay?”
“I thought it would be weird, or that I’d get jealous, you know? I mean, it’s one thing to say that we’re gonna do this; it’s another to actually go out in public anddoit. But…” He shrugs. “I don’t know, it’s the first thing that’s felt normal to me in a really long time.”
He reaches to scratch an impatient Koda behind the ear, earning a tilt of the head and a loud, satisfied groan in response. As his eyes move to the lamp that sits in the alley behind my house, they shine.
From what he tells me, he’s the only one of his siblings with brown eyes – the same deep brown that his father has. They suit him, even though I know that he hates them.
Reaching for his jaw, I pull him toward me, and he hums as I meet his lips with mine.
I’ve dated a handful of people, but no one that I was ever close with before I started seeing them. I’d always met them through an app or a mutual friend on an outing, or they’d been my roommates – nothing more than mere acquaintances at the start.
It made it easier to run if I got overwhelmed – or If I got hurt.
This scares me in a different way. Not just because I’m worried that I’m putting myself at risk, but because we’re calling this a casual thing when it feels anything but. I already know them, and in more ways than one, I already love them.
We’ve buried friends together, we’ve celebrated wins together, we’ve cheered each other on and consoled each other when things haven’t gone the way that we’d hoped they would.
All of our skeletons fit too well in each other’s closets.
“It feels normal to me, too,” I admit. “Maybe a little too normal too fast.”
“Look at our lives,” he laughs. “‘Too fast’ is pretty fucking on brand for us.”
Stepping out of the hallway in one of my old t-shirts and a pair of bike shorts, Julia drops into Tripp’s lap, his arm snaking around her waist as she throws her feet across my thighs. His hand trails up and down the length of her arm as her head rests against his shoulder, and when she smiles at me, my chest warms.
Spending this time together feels both exactly the same as it did before our worlds upended, and entirely different. It’s comfortable. It’s something that I find a large part of myself afraid of getting used to. But there’s another, larger part that is terrified of losing it.
Of losing them.
There is nothing casual about this – and I don’t think I’m the only one of us who feels that way.
Chapter 29
CONNOR
“Alright,” Tripp calls into the room, “Koda’s at the house and the cat has him locked in the bathroom.” Stuffing a set of car keys into his pocket, he hefts a large box in his hands. “Downstairs, this time. They’re changing it up.”
My bedroom and all of my belongings are packed away into a collection of cardboard boxes and plastic tubs, save the mini fridge that I’d kept next to my bed and the larger pieces of furniture which I spent all of last night disassembling.
This is insane. We’ve been seeing each other for a month and a half, and my life is in boxes.
When I mentioned renewing my lease two weeks ago, Julia met me with one question:‘what if you didn’t?’
It was crazy then. It’s even crazier now.
Her argument was convincing enough; I’ve already lived with them a handful of times, what would be any different about this time – aside from everything?
I thought it was because I’d had a few beers, but when I woke up the next morning and all three of us were still on board with the idea, I told my roommates that I was leaving. That they couldeither fight over my room themselves or find someone else to fill it; and I felt sure of that decision.
With seven people lined up to meet them, my roommates will have no problem quickly filling the space that I’m leaving behind, but I think a part of me will miss it here; which is ridiculous, taking into consideration the fact that I know almost nothing about either of them.
They were nice to my dog, though, and one of them brought me ibuprofen once when I was hungover; I guess that’s enough, in my mind, to count as friendship.
