He Glows

He Glows

By YodaandLumiere

"How am I supposed to pick? These stupid applications don't tell me anything useful" I said.

"It has their pertinent information and security questions."

She says that like it answers for all my doubts. I'm kind of over her tonight. I hate when she gets like this. I'm a modern man, so maybe it's me who gets like that, not her. Whichever way it goes, I want her to leave.

These applications that she created didn't ask any of the questions I wanted to put in it. She totally discounted my requests. See, the thing is, I'm the one looking for a roommate. You know, someone to live with ME. So maybe, just maybe, my questions should have made the fucking application. I let out a huge breath. She looks at me with a sourpuss face and I want to jump from my balcony. But I don't have one.

"Look, Julia, I appreciate the help, but" and before I can say something equally lame as the beginning of the sentence, she snaps on me.

"Oh! You APPRECIATE the help!?! Hardly! If you had your way, this stupid application would have questions about beer preferences! How can anyone take you seriously, Leo?"

"I don't want them to take me seriously! This is my house. I'm comfortable here, I want someone else that will be easy to be comfortable with. It's not a crazy concept!" I yelled back. We're both yelling. This is insane and I hate it.

"I'm just going to go home." She starts bustling around, gathering her things. She gets all ready to go, purse on the shoulder, keys in hand, her perfectly manicured thumb hovering over the auto start button on the key fob. She stands still by the door, looking proper and pissy. "Well, I'm leaving unless you want to have sex."

We've had this conversation before. This is how we have sex these days, if at all. The romance with Julia never really existed. Our relationship fit into our friend group. It made our families happy. We looked great together. But we were never concerned enough about happiness, easy companionship, and heaven forbid, the L word. Love wasn't a life requirement for Julia.

"No, I'm not in the mood tonight." I just shrug. I couldn't get excited for her tonight if she blindfolded me. Not the kink kind of blindfold. The literal, cover my eyes so I don't have to see you kind of blindfold.

"I'm going to remind you when you ask for a hand job, that you're the one who turned down sex tonight. Not me." She mashes the button to start her car. She acts like it's some sort of declaration of war or something. Like, once I've pressed THE button, there is no going back! You failed Leo. Okay maybe that's a bit dramatic, but she's easy to paint as the villain in my over active mind. I think it's a sign if your girlfriend is the villain in your life, maybe it's time to let it go. Sing it Elsa!

She storms out the door and slams it. She knows I how I feel about slamming. I swear if any of my art fell off the front wall, I'm going to do the most terrible thing I could ever do to her. I'll get the nice guy at the parking lot she uses to give her reserved spot to the next person on the wait-list. I'm an evil genius. And people actually liked me. Julia was pretty universally unliked. Actively disliked, if we're being honest.

How to solve the roommate problem, that is the question at hand. Maybe I can call some of these people disguised as small piles of pertinent information, and see if any of them have more to offer, more to share about themselves. Wow, that sounds kind of creepy, actually. I guess I need to go back to square one and make a new application with real questions.

I bought this place when I could afford it on my own, easily. I've been here for almost four years. This house is cool. It's kind of a weird mix of the late fifties space age mid century modern and mid-seventies high camp al a Brady Bunch. You'd have to see it. Trust this, if nothing else, Julia hates it, so you know it's cool. I'm breaking up with Julia. What the fuck? I don't actually hate myself this much, geez Leo, get it together loser.

I need a roommate to help pay the bills. Things got tight a while back and a roommate is the best solution to save me from losing this place. Julia was never a roommate option. Thank God. But I need to find someone by next month. I had hoped it would be this month, but I got nowhere, thanks to Julia's need to run everything around her. I wonder how long I'm going to think about and then blame Julia for everything that's wrong with everything? I'm already tired of it.

Tonight is shot. I'm eating a giant chicken Caesar salad, smoking a giant fat and putting my feet up in front of the TV. Salad, you might wonder. Yeah, it was an extra at a lunch and learn at work today and I snatched that free shit up faster then lighting. Free is my favorite flavor lately. There's good TV tonight, so I'm pre-celebrating my break up with Julia. Tomorrow, I'll suck all the fun out of it and I'll let Julia know we broke up last night. She'll be thrilled. My ear is bleeding already, in anticipation.

It's Thursday. Work. Rinse. Repeat.

Friday is Friday. And by default Friday is the best day. Everyone at work quits actually trying to accomplish anything around two on most Fridays. The rest of the day is fucking around, while remaining professional looking to an unknowing casual observer. We've elevated it to a fine art.

We had a visitor come by today and he gave us a handful of gift cards to a hoity toity sounding café that opened by the grungy hardware store down the way. Sounds delicious. But they are free. So I must have them. I took a few extras. Twelve is extras, right? Few? Ah, Who cares?

This is a drive thru garden shed in the hardware parking lot, not a café. I already feel bad for the employees and I haven't even seen one yet. I'm behind two cars in line. The menu actually has something that jumps out at me. Butter rum iced coffee latte. And it's free with my gift card.

I order from a hippy looking guy with a name tag that says "Hi, I'm Sage." Sage? Really? A hippy named Sage. Isn't that a little too dead on? It's almost Saturday Night Live character level irony. But he's super nice and he's really working that machine. You know, maybe he's not a hippy. Scruffy hipster, is that a thing? Well Sage is that. Scruffy hipster, I have declared it.

I tip him a real dollar. I flinch a little, but he deserves it even if it pushes me over the edge into complete poverty. Most weeks be like dat. Teetering on the razors edge of ruin when everything balances on several precious dollar bills. One wrong move and I'm living in this car. Shit. That reminds me I didn't look for a roommate the last two days. What's that they say? Avoidance is bliss?

Hey, the cafe gift card gives me an idea and I whip around and get back in line for the parking lot coffee. I'm going to see if my new friend Sage will let me hang a flyer. I don't have a flyer made, but if he says yes, then I'll have a reason to make one. Smart.

"Hey you're back! Is something wrong with the brew?" Sage asks me, looking genuinely concerned. I strangely heard an phantom "dude" at the end of his question. I don't think he said it, but my brain heard it anyway, just from looking at him.

"No, it's amazing!" I lift the straw back to me lips and suck to show my pleasure. I almost spit same said coffee out through my nose when I laugh at what I must look like. Sensually sucking the straw, giving Sage a sultry, side eye, come hither look from the front seat of my red convertible Cadillac. A few perfectly timed eyelash flutters and he's hooked.

And now we're back in the parking lot, my 2010 Hyundai Sonata's engine rumbles and the whole car shudders. Before I can obsess about how expensive that sounded, I refocus on the task at hand and my real desire to not cause a delay in Sage's Friday afternoon rush queue forming furiously behind me.

"Hey, is there any chance I could hang a flyer in your window? I'm looking for a roommate." I smile at Sage because I'M the likable one, Julia! Sage's eyes light up. Did he hear my question wrong? This face and my question aren't congruent.

"Actually, can I have the flyer? I need someplace to live and I'd like to see if we could be compatible. What kind of beer do you drink?" Sage asks.

I did a real double take. It hurt my neck. My neck is brittle!! Sorry, that's an inside joke between me and someone I haven't spoken to in eleven years. Why do I remember all this stuff? And why did it end up in my internal monologue when I was taking about a comedic double take about beer preferences. That's the joke. The punchline is the beer not the brittle neck. But hey, that early plot point about beer just paid off people, haha!

But really, it's a sign. A sign from sweet baby Jebus that maybe I need a pet scruffy hipster in my place. I've avoiding getting a dog because of poop. But a confusing hippy will deal with his own poop. Maybe it's time to adopt! Awwww, everyone will praise me for getting a rescue! I'm a good person.

"I don't have a flyer with me. Because it doesn't exist."

"The apartment doesn't exist?"

"Oh, no, it's a house, not an apartment. It exists. The flyer doesn't exist because I haven't made it yet." I'm relieved that's all cleared up. I smile at him. I think I just heard a goose. There it goes again. Yep, definitely a goose, not a Volvo with an impatient Karen behind the wheel. It's a happy little gosling on a happy little pond by a happy little tree.

"Here" Sage shoves a scrap of notebook paper to me with a phone number hand printed neatly on it. Oh man, I hope it the first clue in the scavenger hunt to find the unground RAVE! But if it's his number, that'd be cool too, I guess. "Text me so I have your number and I'll text you back when I close and we chat or something then. But I gotta deal with this line." He points behind me.

"Yes. Great. Maybe we can go get coffee." I'm an extra special kind of moron today. But he's laughing! Oh, phew! For once I didn't mean it as a joke, I was just being a stoner, but it hit it's mark, so that's what I meant to happen. "I'll text you when I get home. Don't text and drive."

"Okay, bye." Sage says, while still smiling. Finally he says "Go. Now." And I am back to being the moron, just like that.

And I hit the gas and speed away. I jump a curb and fly into the middle of the main thoroughfare, screeching tires, the whole thing. I run the red light at the intersection and make a risky sharp left turn at 87 miles an hour. A school bus is up ahead and the stop sign on the side is just popping out. I'm not going to make it. It's too late to stop at these high speeds and I'm not close enough to fly by before those precious little school children get to disembark. It's going to be a slaughter house on this beautiful residential street. "This is all Julia's fault!" I scream to the heavens as I make contact with the first two soft little bodies.

Traffic finally clears and I pull out of the hardware store parking lot, free gift card coffee and phone number in hand. I wish I could afford Panda Express. I'd celebrate getting one interested party in my spare bedroom with some under cooked, too largely cut veggies and some sticky sweet candy coated chicken conglomeration blobs. Ummmmm.........blobs. Insert picture of Homer Simpson here.

I open two small cans of tuna and grab the Miracle Whip and I make tuna salad. It tastes like freedom. Freedom from Satan's handmaiden and her deadly bummer ray weapon. It came with a fancy carrying case, but it's hard to shoot your bummer ray everywhere if it's enclosed in the protective case. But what's it protecting? The weapon, or the world? One may never know. Because I official kicked Julia to the curb. With the other trash. Some old rotten parsnips and a rancid Italian sausage take out turned science project in the fridge are all she has now. To keep her company on the curb. Those poor parsnips.

After my five star gas station accessible meal is concluded and Jeeves has cleared it away, I text my prospective coffee box boy roommate applicant.

"Hey, this is Leo.

The guy with the room for rent.

We met at the café.

I was the one that asked you out for coffee.

Which was, of course, a very funny joke.

So, yeah.

Text me back.

Like you said you would.

Before, while I was at the coffee shed.

I say shed in the most loving way possible.

It's called a café, but really?

Is it cold in there?

Where do you go to the bathroom?

Can you believe Julia expected me to want people to take me seriously?

You don't know Julia.

Be thankful.

She's a bitch!

Trust me.

You'll probably meet her if you move in.

She has some of her things here.

So she'll be back.

Sorry about that.

Do you have a girlfriend?

I don't care either way?

Even if it's a boyfriend.

I don't care.

I'm cool.

I promise."

Delete all. "This is Leo. Now you have my number." Send.

At eight thirty-five, Sage is expected for an interview. A friend interview? Is that a thing? Oh man. I wasn't sure if "scruffy hipster" was a thing earlier and now he's coming for a "friend interview". If neither "scruffy hipster" nor "friend interview" exist, do they cancel each other out and then somehow do exist? Or does it double down on the "not a thing" and create a black hole of things that aren't really things?

I either need more weed or less weed. Man, if Sage was already my real friend, I'd ask him to bring food. Tuna salad isn't cutting it any longer. But you can't ask someone to bring food to a friend interview. It's just not done. But maybe if I had asked and he had brought food, that would be a huge plus on the interview score card. Do I need to make a score card before he gets here?

Knock knock. Who's there? It's Sage!

Sage was actually closer to nine than eight thirty-five. And, as I'm a 29 year old man, I don't give a flying fuck one way or another. Especially because he brought FOOD!! If I wasn't straight and I wasn't fragile from dating Beelzebub, herself. Okay, I'm already over what's her name? But if I wasn't straight, I'd marry this coffee scented near stranger for bringing me this food. It's Taco Bell, y'all! Tacos are my love language. Sage is already a better girlfriend than Julia. Stupid bitch, I got a new man! But I'm still straight.

Sage and I like several of the same beers. We watch a lot of the same shows. He doesn't do dog poop either. But he will clean up his own poop, as I predicted. He also gets to take home the day old bakery goods from the coffee lean-to, for free. You know how I feel about free. I think I love Sage. That could be the tacos talking.

He can afford to pay what I'm asking. He smells like coffee. He comes bearing tacos. He will be the bringer of slightly dry day old mini bundt cakes in the future. He's perfect. He's moving in next Saturday. One week from today. Which means today is Saturday. Just the wrong one. I mean, there's nothing wrong with this Saturday. It's a perfectly lovely Saturday on its own merits, really. But the Saturday that is seven days from now, or is it technically six days between two consecutive Saturdays, or any two consecutive days of the week, like two consecutive Wednesdays, not a Monday and then a Tuesday, which are consecutive days, technically, but not the same as two days like two Saturdays or two Wednesdays, which are the same day, but a week apart.

Wednesday is my favorite word out of the seven days of the week, as words. It's got a backwards letter combo, right in the middle of the long, lovely looking word. It's a nice sounding word but it's an excellently fun word to spell. It should be pronounced Wed-ness-day, if it was pronounced like it's spelled. But it's pronounced Whens-day. Which is similar to how it looks as a word, but the n and the d are in the wrong order. Which is quirky and I enjoy that kind of thing.

So what I'm saying is that, on paper, figurative paper, not literal paper, Sage is a perfect new roommate. But because I refuse to do things the way Julia did, I didn't make him write on any papers at all! For the interview portion of this pageant anyway. Don't tell Julia, but I did make him sigh a renters agreement. I mean, I'm not an idiot!

Knock knock. Who's there? It shouldn't be Sage, today is the wrong Saturday. It's her. I don't like this knock knock joke anymore.

"Are you here for your stuff?" I ask, trying to sound hostile.

"I see you're still the King of Stupid Questions. Move, so I can come inside and get my stuff and then you'll never have to see me again." She shoves past me with a giant pink suitcase on wheels.

I lean and watch her from the bedroom door. I don't trust her to not plant anthrax in my bed, or steal all my socks, just to inconvenience me. It's crazy how hot she looks packing to leave. It's the sexiest thing I've her seen her do. "Hey Jules, you want this dick once more before you fuck off and die?"

She does. She takes off her jeans and panties. She never lets me play with her boobs. I named them and all of a sudden I couldn't play with them anymore. And they get punished, too. They're trapped in a tight, boney bra, under one or two t-shirts or tank tops. And they can't come out to flop around while I pounded her pussy. It's not fair to any of the three us. Me, Mister Saggy and Madam Surprisingly Plump were all treated unfairly for so long.

But I can't fight their fight today. I have a performance to conquer. This curtain call, in this particular pussy will have to leave them wanting more, never being truly satisfied again and depressed to the point of being committed to a Victorian asylum for ennui, all because she can't get this cock ever again. I'm going to make her regret treating me like shit.

I had her kneel on the couch and hold onto the back. And stare at the vintage paneling while you're at it bitch! And then I fucked her more thoroughly than I had in the last year. It's amazing how you can enjoy yourself when you get to roughly use someone that you hate, and she knows it, and you'll never have to do it again, so it's the big bang to go out on, in a blaze of glory. A fuck 'em and kick 'em out kind of Saturday. I'm winning. Just in general. At least in this situation. With Julia.

She loved it. She came on me, which she hadn't done in forever. Like seriously, never happened before. She sprawled on the couch afterwards and looked at me with big wide eyes. "You never fucked me like that before. We're you holding out on me?"

"Yeah, pretty much" I said honestly. "You always had so many rules. Don't do this! Only do this, if you do this first! Don't do that! That either! Don't touch that! So I gave you what you wanted, a vanilla session of light exercise. Today, I didn't care about your rules because I don't care about you. I used your hole like it was actually meant to be used and you loved it. Go figure."

"Leo, you know there's no one else. I didn't leave you for another man. We could work this out. We could just hook up, if nothing else. What do you think?"

"You're right, you didn't leave me for another man. I dumped you." And then I laughed right in her face. And then I laughed at the back of her head when I followed her as she dragged her pink suit case back to the front door. Then I stood on my front stoop and pointed and laughed, in full Nelson Muntz mode, as she could barely lift her giant bag into her trunk. And before she could back out of the driveway, I walked back into my cool house and gently closed the door on her forever.

"Dude, thanks again for letting me move in. It worked out perfectly that you didn't have to move your stuff out of my room, since I didn't own a bed." Sage smells like clean clothes today, instead of coffee. It's still rather pleasing.

I really did worry about jamming all my spare room furniture into other places to make room for Sage's furniture. Fun fact: hippies don't come with lot of big stuff, just lots of rasta backpacks, hacky sacks and incense burners. Okay, so it was just one hacky sack. But he definitely didn't bring a bed. Or a dresser. Or a TV. Seriously, he moved in over the course of an hour. He owns some clothes and some books. My furniture all stayed right where it was and that's fine with me.