I wrinkle my nose. “Ew.”
“And while I still enjoy hot Cheetos, my favorite food is Mexican. Probably enchiladas. Okay, what’s your five-year plan?” he asks.
But my five-year plan currently consists of picking myself up off the ground, keeping a job for more than a year, obtaining the ability to pay rent, and not completely disappointing my parents. I am their only living child. There are expectations to meet. Ones I am currently failing at.
It’s not the five-year plan I had a month ago. It’s a shiny, new, make-you-want-to-cry five-year plan. One I don’t feel like sharing with the pro athlete sitting next to me.
I nibble on my lip. “How is any of this useful? What’s the point?”
“The point is we need to know each other’s likes anddislikes, plans and goals. We need to know one another as if we’re in love,” he says. “We’ll have to do some studying, Stell. Some practicing. For immigration services.”
I puff out my cheeks, guilt and anxiety filling up my insides. “See?” I say, fueling all that emotion into sass. “You’re going to have to kiss me one day.”
Fourteen
My room lookslike an episode ofHoarders. That old TV show about people who never threw anything away. Their homes would be overrun and piled high with things they never used.
The things in this room are all I have. I use them. Daily. However, they are now in a ninety-square-foot room. It seems I am destined to be a reality TV star. It’s a good thing my last place was furnished. Where in the world would I fit a couch in here? My pottery wheel is smashed between the double-size bed and the tall dresser Roman bought for me. There is no way I can work in here. I can’t even walk in this room.
Not that I’m ready to work. I can’t quite get my headspace there … But it would be nice to have a clear path to my bed.
“Hey, Stell,” Roman says with a tap on my door. “I have these questions—” He opens the door—without permission—and pauses at the sight of my hoarder room.
“What if I’d beennaked?” I gripe.
His eyes are still roving over my things that I’ve been playing a dangerous game of Tetris with for the last two days. They are piled almost to the ceiling. “I knocked,” he says, but my things are distracting him.
“Yes, but you didn’t wait for an invitation.” I swallow. New and not-so-improved Roman is supposed to be the grumpy one. Not me. “I’m sorry. I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed.”
“I can imagine.” He clears his throat before glancing my way. “Stella, why is all of this in here? You have a whole house worth of things in this bedroom.” He picks up my one and only whisk.
I snatch it back and hold it to my chest. “This isn’t my house.”
“I told you to unpack. I told you to put things wherever.” He moves himself around my pottery wheel, past my box of thingy-ma-bobs, and sits on the bed. Unfortunately for Roman, he also sits on my scoring tool, because I haven’t figured out where to put all my things.
Huh, maybe Iama hoarder.
“Yo—” he barks.
“Sorry,” I say, picking up the tool. “That shouldn’t be there. I don’t even know if I’ll use it again.”
His brow furrows. “That’s insane. Of course you will.” The crease between his eyes deepens as he looks around my chaotic, star-of-hoarders bedroom. “But not in here. You need a place for these things.”
“This is your house, not mine, and I don’t want to?—”
He scoffs. “We’re going to be living together for a while. You can make this your home. I want you to.” He stands in front of me, setting one hand on my shoulder and squeezing. “Move in. It’s okay.”
“I still have boxes to unpack. But venture out of this room, Stell. Okay?” He moves around me, around a tower of boxes, and smacks his toe into the side of my small kiln sitting to the right of my pottery wheel. “Ouch.” He hops once, and I grimace for him. “That’s hard. I mean, I knew it was heavy, I carried it in, butow.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Are you okay?”
He hops again, and I can’t help it, I snort. Pinching my lips shut, I try—and fail—to keep a laugh from filtering through my lips.
“You’re laughing at me?” he says, hopping. He’s so not helping his case.
“I’m sorry,” I say, but the words come out with more delirious laughter. My entire disastrous life up until this point is catching up with me.
Roman stands on both feet and scowls at me. “Maybe I should tickle you until you wet your pants.”
