Screwmates by Kayti McGee
Prologue
I knew from the first time I saw him that I was screwed.
He couldn’t be as hot as I thought he was, that wasn’t possible. I’m a visual artist. And that had to be an illusion. No way those brown curls and scruffy face were real. Twenty-eight year-old Colin Farrell didn’t live in Kansas City. Someone would have mentioned it. Also, time travel.
I had just taken off my glasses to clean them. Fatal mistake. I was still blinking in the doorway and trying to maneuver the hem of my plaid button-down to rub on the lenses when Ava, mistaking me for nervous, put the flat of her hand on the small of my back and shoved.
So my first real impression of Marc Kirby came as I tripped and fell to my knees. My chin, slightly pointed (Mom’s side, thanks for nothing) led as it usually does. Point first, I slammed headlong and hard into his dick. And man… it was a big dick.
Best first impression ever.
Typical Ava, cracking up, surveyed the scene (both of us on the floor: him in pain, me in humiliation).
“Madison’s chin, my cousin Marc’s crotch,” she choked out between howls of laughter. “Meet your new roommate, both of you. I’ll leave you to it!” The door slammed behind her.
So. Completely. Screwed.
“I’ll find my own room,” I said, before he had a chance to recover. “Sorry about—your boy parts.” My finest moment, obviously.
Swear to Stan Lee, I’ve never moved that fast in my life. Turning one knob, then another in rapid sequence: his room, closet, bathroom, finally (blessedly), my new room.
For the hundredth time, or at least the hundredth time that day, I cursed my former roomies for changing their minds the day we were supposed to turn in our lease renewal and leaving me in the lurch. You could argue that an unplanned pregnancy on Lizzie’s part and a nervous breakdown on Scarlett’s were unexpected, but I was in no mood to be charitable.
Because here I was now––a new room, a fresh start. A big dick.
I didn’t mean to, but the door slammed behind me about as loudly as it had behind Ava. But whereas hers was punctuation, mine was just—I don’t know, carelessness and humiliation combined, I guess.
Could he really have been as hot as I thought he was?
And could I really have just chinned him in the junk? And then I fled? And slammed the door?
And could chinned really be a verb?
Dying, seriously.
I flopped back on the bed. Thank Odin this place came furnished. I could not even handle going back out there right now to start hauling furniture around. Now was a time for cowering and trying to pretend that didn’t happen, even as I could smell the boy-scents of the apartment and hear him still letting out the occasional groan.
Okay. No prob. I could handle this.
The plan was to just hang out quietly for a while, let him… recover. Then I’d head on out casually like no big deal, and apologize when neither of us were embarrassed anymore. Easy peasy, we’d maybe order a pizza or something, hang out. Start fresh. Flirt a little. Just me and the hot curly-headed faux-Irish guy. Hot Marc. Eating hot pizza. Being roomies. As you do. Just doing the thing.
I woke up approximately five hours later, to full darkness and a pillow covered in drool. No pizza. No hot roomie.
And a whole lot more humiliation.
Because now Marc probably thought I was scared to face him. I wasn’t, not at all. Super brave, that was me. But you can’t say that to someone, so you have to just swagger around and hope they gather the general idea.
Which was what I was all ready to do the next day, only he evidently was at school the whole time I was at home drawing and awaiting him.
Not drawing him, per se. If you happen to put a familiar face on a body with a cape that’s just artistic license.
Grabbing my new key from the counter, I finally headed off to work for my night shift at the screenprint shop around five. I got home, wound down, went to bed while he was sleeping, and woke when he was gone again.
Well, there was still the weekend when school and work were both not in session. Weird waiting so long, but I wouldn’t act like it, I’d be like, “Oh, hey, never see you, how’s it going?” Super casually.
And he’d be all, “Man, our schedules are crazy, right? Bourbon?”
“Bourbon,” I’d reply. And then we’d get to know each other.
Except I never saw him Saturday. Or Sunday.
I texted Ava, nonchalant, like. Your cousin is an invisible roommate haha.
She wrote back almost immediately that he was not only in the middle of earning his doctorate, but went home to help out his mom on weekends.
Well, well. Hot, smart, and a good son. Cool. I could work with that. And really, I don’t even like bourbon, so.
But right then, I had to actually work work, because ComicCon was only a few months away and an aspiring comic artist like myself hustles like a motherfucker at those things. So one week blended into two pretty easily, between my day (night?) job and my art. Then one month became two and then a lot more and it honestly shocked me when one day I saw a stack of his graduation invitations sitting on the kitchen table.
Ten months had somehow meandered by in a parade of frames and frames (bad screening/artist joke, sorry) without ever getting the chance to get to hang with Marc. Don’t get me wrong––I saw him all the time in passing. We just never once fulfilled my pizza night fantasy.
Fantasy? No, that made it sound tawdry. My expectation, that was better. Because who lived with someone for nearly a year and never Netflix-ed and chilled?
Wait.
I meant actually watched Netflix while chilling. I did. I swear. Because, literally, who lives with someone for nearly a year and never has a boring couch night?
So it was weird, maybe, but it was what we did and it was no big deal and actually I hadn’t even thought about our embarrassing first encounter in months. Really.
Except maybe occasionally when I had date night with my vibrator.
But it wasn’t like he ever knew that’s what I thought about.
One
“Madison? Hey. Madison.”
I sat up with a jolt, my sketchbook falling to the floor.
“My boobs! Did I pass?” I was having That Dream. The one where I show up at school a frazzled mess with pencils sticking out of the messy brown bun on top of my head, my glasses on crooked, and ink stains all over my hands and arms that whisper rude things at passers-by who think it’s me. The one where the self-portrait I spent all week working on has somehow morphed into a picture of the dog I had when I was in elementary school only with my mom’s head on top, and I’m now entirely certain I’m going to get an F.
And that Mom will not be pleased. Did I mention I’m also nude in the dream?
I hate that dream.