I don’t know how long I stand there, watching the treeline where the cab vanished, until the hinges creak and my flatmate’s soft voice tugs me back.
“Hey, you good?” Letty asks.
I turn, muscles stiff, mouth dry. The sky is dark with boiling clouds, and the humidity presses against my skin; the railing under my hands is slick and cold, grounding me in the moment.
I unglue my tongue from the roof of my mouth.
“Y-yeah. I’ll just miss them, is all.”
Her dark-brown gaze softens, full mauve lips curving gently at the edges. “Hey, now that we’ve graduated, you can visit them more often,” she says, unknowingly rubbing salt in my wounds. When I don’t answer, she chuckles softly, waving me inside. “Come on. Chelsea just finished making brunch. She overdid it, of course, but she wants it to be special since it’s our last family meal with all of us living under the same roof.”
I clear my throat. “I’ll be in shortly.”
Letty leaves with a nod, gently shutting the door behind her. I take in the warmth and faint aroma of cooked food wafting from the kitchen, a comforting structure in the chaos of my thoughts.
Laughter spills from my lips, and I have to smack a hand over my mouth to contain it, not wanting to encourage my best friends and soon-to-be ex-flatmates’ childish behaviour.
Chelsea—our southern-belle, domestic-mama-bear who feeds people like it’s her love language—and Letty—our warm, sometimes overbearing friend who loves with her whole body and is nosier than any one person has any right to be—are leaning over the kitchen island with a single strand of noodle between their mouths, trying to recreate one of Chelsea’s favourite films from her childhood.
Elise chants, “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” Her blue eyes are wide with mischief; she’s the chaos of our quartet, rough-edged and unapologetic in the best of ways.
There’s a knock at the door, and Elise hollers at them to come in.
Rafael, our interim coach for the last season of our uni football career and Elise’s new boyfriend, stumbles inside with his teammates, Nakoa and Jelani, their mouths curving into wide grins as they take in the scene before them.
Jelani and Nakoa are big, friendly, and hopeless where Letty and Chelsea are concerned, both of them clearly harbouring crushes: Jelani with his humorous, ridiculous charm aimed at Letty, and Nakoa with his quiet, affectionate teasing that leaves Chelsea blushing.
“Did someone say there was kissing going on in here?” Nakoa asks, waggling his dark brows.
Jelani smacks him on the back, gripping his shoulder with a rough, good-natured squeeze. “When you ladies get done there, I volunteer to help with the cleanup,” he says, throwing an exaggerated wink at Letty. She bites off the pasta, breaking the connection with an eyeroll as she slumps back in her seat.
“That’s what napkins are for, Jay,” Letty says, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin as if to prove her point.
Jelani rounds the kitchen island, bracing his hands on the counter on either side of Letty, invading her space as she peers up at him, wide-eyed. Her back goes rigid, but she makes no effort to move. As his lips descend upon hers, he quickly turns his face, planting a kiss on her temple before backing away. She releases an audible breath, turning back to face Elise and me with a dazed expression.
Chelsea cuts through the mounting tension in the room. “Eat up, boys. You’re late, the food is almost cold, and you’ve got warm-ups to get to.”
Nakoa beams at Chelsea before grabbing a plate and piling it high. “Don’t have to tell me twice.”
Before long, the three massive ruggers are taking up nearly all the space at our small kitchen island, made even smaller by the boxes stacked in the kitchen and living room with all of our belongings.
Without even knowing it, Chelsea and Letty made things easier on me when they sat Elise and me down a couple of weeks ago to let us know they’d decided to move in together in a flat closer to their internships. With them gone, it made little sense for Elise and me to stay in this big house without them, and seeing as Elise and Rafael have been snogging on every surface, it made sense that she would want to move in with him.
The only complication was getting my overbearing best friends to understand that I’ll very gladly live on my own. Elise was insistent that I could move in with her and Rafael or with Chelsea and Letty. I made it known that I have zero interest in overhearing all of the kinky shite that goes on behind closed doors when Rafael and Elise are left to their own devices, and Chelsea and Letty’s new apartment is too far from the clinic I’d been working at. Not that they need to know I’m no longer going to be working there now that I’m soon to be immunocompromised once I start chemo on Tuesday.
“Looks like you ladies are almost finished packing up,” Nakoa says, stuffing his face with the mess of food piled on his plate. The combination of foods touching makes me queasy; my stomach twists.
“Yeah, not much left. Just have to move it all,” Chelsea groans out.
“We can help!” Nakoa volunteers, his excitement entirely too palpable. It’s manual labour he’s volunteering for, not a bloody blow job. “Right, Jay?”
“Sure can,” Jelani answers with ease.
They’re all so obvious, even I can see it. It feels ridiculous that they haven’t just had a conversation about it by now, but I guess I’m one to talk. I’ve been keeping secrets for weeks and have no plans to the contrary.
“Adhira, are you still looking for a flatmate?” Rafael asks, pulling me from my thoughts.
“Uh, yeah. I just need someone quiet who’ll mind their own business.”
