Page 25 of The Roommate Subtext

Blake smiled and stirred the rice again. It was ready for another serving of stock, and he ladled it in. “If you hate crowds, why do you live in the city?”

“I like being alone as much as the next person, I guess.” Maggie tapped her fingers on the bar. “But only for a limited time. My folks used to take us camping, Cora and me, when we were little. You don’t get solitude when there’s four of you at a KOA campground, but I would take these hiking trails out into the woods and find a stump or something and sit for hours, listening to the forest. Then come back and my dad would be grilling burgers.”

“KOA campground, huh? I thought your parents were rich.” He thought only solidly middle-class families like his were the KOA campground type.

Maggie gave a shrug. “They lived modestly. Said they liked to keep us humble. I think they were saving it all for retirement, but that never happened.” She stared off into the distance for a moment, then brought herself back to the present with a jolt. “Anyway, yeah, alone time, then return to civilization and food. That level of solitude, that’s what I like.”

“Solitude with a time limit,” Blake clarified.

“Right. Not solitude like I’m alone in the space station.”

“No, that’s a horror film.”

Maggie laughed. “Exactly. In the city, I can be with people when I want and be alone when I want.”

“Except when we’re both working from home.”

She tipped her head. “It’s not bad. Your energy is nice to be around. Not like other roommates I’ve had.”

“Hmm.” The rice bubbled under its layer of stock. He smoothed it out with the back of the wooden spoon. “Got any roommate war stories?”

Maggie snorted. “So many.” She looked off to the side while thinking. “There was my freshman roommate who snuck her boyfriend into the dorm every night so they could have sex, that was a real winner.”

“I had one of those.” Blake raised the wooden spoon. “Not fun.”

“If I’m going to listen to people have sex, I at least want them to be good at it.”

Blake focused his attention down into the pan. He wasn’t going to think about Maggie getting off listening to people have sex. “I know, right?” His voice sounded too loud in his ears. “Amateurs.”

She laughed again. “Then there was the time my two other roommates became a couple, then broke up, but neither of them wanted to move out, leading to a nightmare of passive-aggressive bullshit.” She drew lines on the bar with her finger, absent-mindedly tracing the grain of wood. “It was all, ‘Maggie, would you please tell Johann to wash his dishes?’ And then Johann would be like, ‘Maggie, would you please tell Riley to go fuck herself?’”

“Yikes.” Blake stirred in another cup of stock.

“I know. I got out of there literally as soon as I could find an empty room. Which led to me living with a girl who had night terrors and didn’t know it. She’d wake up screaming but have no memory of it the next day.”

Blake started laughing. “That’s quite a streak.”

“That’s not even the worst of it! The last guy I roomed with started itemizing the rent. And then, at the end of the month, he handed me a bill, like a hotel bill, with all these surcharges.”

“What were the surcharges?”

She started ticking things off on her fingers. “Using an extra shelf in the fridge, failing to use all available natural light, showers longer than three minutes …”

“You’re kidding.”

“No joke, hand to god.” She raised her hand. “He even charged me for sitting on what he called ‘his’ living room furniture.”

Blake shook his head. “I wish I knew the bar was this low. I could have been acting way worse these last months.”

Maggie rested her chin on her hand. “No, you couldn’t. It’s not in you. You’re a kind guy.”

“Hey, don’t underestimate me. I could still be a serial killer.” He stirred the risotto again.

“I explicitly asked you about that and you said no, so it can’t be true.” Maggie flashed him another winning smile. “It’s not all bad. I put them anonymously into articles about red flags in roommates and made some money off it.”

“Always the entrepreneur.”

“Gotta be, in this day and age.” She gave a mock salute. “Respect the hustle. Everything’s content.”