Our room was big enough for the three of us and each of us had made our part of the room our own. Mine was “minimalist” as I called it. In reality I just didn’t see the point in spending hours decorating something that was only going to be my home for nine months. Sophie had spent at least two days hanging purple Christmas lights and posters of Justin Timberlake. It wasn’t that I minded her efforts, I just wasn’t willing to do it myself. I had my red bedspread which was always hanging down, partially blocking my desk that was housed underneath my bunked bed.
We’d made the decision to forgo beds on the floor for a futon. Grace wound up passing out on it most nights watching her DVDs of Gilmore Girls and Dawson’s Creek. The only real decorative part of my own section of the room was a collage I’d been adding to throughout the course of the year. Most of them were stupid pictures of us, but there were pictures of Taylor, Chris and Jackson strewn throughout as well. Taylor had the ability to make anything more beautiful. I’d never seen anything like him before and apparently neither had most of the female population of our school. They followed him around and he though he didn’t fool around with most of them, he did flirt enough to make any self-respecting person nauseous. I loved that collage and would frequently stare at it, knowing that things would be different when we moved off-campus next year. Then, the guys wouldn’t just be upstairs. I wouldn’t be able to go up there every time Taylor demanded it.
I was staring at my computer screen aimlessly, pretending to do homework but actually reading people’s LJ posts instead when an IM popped up on the screen.
TayDawg83: Get up here.
Cammers: Screw you. I’m doing homework.
TayDawg83: No you’re not. You just posted on my livejournal. Get up here. I need help with my homework.
Cammers: No you don’t! You get better grades than me…
TayDawg83: Well, yeah, that’s obvious.
Cammers: Remind me why I’m friends with you again?
TayDawg83: Because you want me
Cammers: Oh you so wish.
TayDawg83: No… it’s just something that I hang out with you in spite of.
Cammers: You’re so obnoxious.
TayDawg83: Cams… please come up here. Bring your homework.
Cammers: Taylor…
TayDawg83: We both know you’re coming up, so you might as well stop bitching and just do it.
I just rolled my eyes and pushed my laptop closed. He was right. The second he IMed me I knew that I would go up there eventually. He had that sick power over me. I started to gather up my books and laptop.
“Where are you going?” Grace asked from her sprawled out position on the futon.
“Up to Taylor’s room,” I stated quickly, already preparing myself for their reaction.
“Cameron! You’re not going to get any of your homework done now,” Sophie said, shaking her head at me from her desk.
“Whatever, you’ll be upstairs screwing David’s brains out any second now,” I spat back. Sophie and her boyfriend had a very physical relationship that we were all forced to deal with on a regular basis. She just smiled and turned back to her computer.
“At least I’m getting some,” she said in a sing-song voice. I practically growled at her.
“I get plenty, thanks.”
“At least I know where mine’s coming from,” she said. I left the room in a huff.
Oh poor single Cameron. Grace was single, too, and I never heard anything about her. Why did I choose to live with such sassy people? As I climbed the flight of stairs to Taylor’s floor, I tried to clear my head of all murderous thoughts regarding my roommates, but still managed to be crabby when I entered his room. I found him sitting at his desk beside the window in only a pair of pajama pants, his hand dangling out the open window holding a cigarette.
“Are you seriously so lazy you can’t even go downstairs to smoke?” I asked as I dropped my belongings onto their futon and made my way over to sit on Taylor’s desk beside his computer.
“Yeah, I seriously am,” he said with a smirk, leaning his head towards the window to take a drag, “You want some?” He knew I did, damn him. I’d quit smoking a few months prior and he made sure to rub it in my face as often as possible that he was still able to enjoy it and I wasn’t.
“Fuck you,” I said, pulling out one of his drawers to set my feet on.
“And to what do I owe the honor of your foul mood?”
“My roommates. I’m sick of getting shit from them.”
“About what?” I couldn’t tell him. He had no idea they hated him with a fiery passion. I instead chose to lie.
“How jealous they are of my glorious sex life.” He snorted at my comment and took another drag.
“Yeah, you’re just rolling in it, Cams,” he laughed, using his free hand to push his hair out of his face. As much as it annoyed me every time he did that, I also found the shaggy hair incredibly sexy.
“Get a haircut, good lord,” I said, ignoring his comment and throwing a kick to his thigh, “And put some fucking clothes on. It’s three in the afternoon.”
“You love it, shut up,” he said, running his hand over his toned abs. Muscular, but not too muscular, slightly tan. Yes, I did love it. Instead of letting on, I just rolled my eyes and hopped off his desk to grab my Spanish book.
“Come on, pretty boy. Let’s do some homework. Put down the cancer stick.”
“Cancer stick? Ha! If you hadn’t gone all moral all of a sudden, you’d be on the end of this thing like white on rice.”
“That’s what she said,” I laughed. He stubbed out the end of his Marlboro and flicked it out the window, mostly only to annoy me. Without bothering to pull on a shirt, he just grabbed a random notebook off of his desk and sat down next to me on the worn-down futon.
“What are we working on?” he asked. I noticed that he didn’t even have a pen.
“Spanish.”
“I don’t even take Spanish.”
“Can you tell me how this is my problem?”
“We’re supposed to be working on homework together!”
“We are, or at least I am. I need to memorize a lot of vocab for a quiz tomorrow.”
“Well what am I supposed to do?” he whined.
“Some homework! Good lord! I’m not doing the Music Theory homework just so you can copy it. You’re the damned musician. Do it yourself!”
“Some friend you are,” he huffed, tossing the notebook on the floor and thus abandoning all hopes of completing the homework any time soon. He’d do it five minutes before class would start tomorrow and he’d still get a better grade than me. And this is how it went for several minutes. I actually did my homework and he sat there occasionally sighing and generally trying to annoy me to the point of stopping.
“Where are Chris and Jackson?” I asked not taking my eyes off of the conjugated verbs in front of me.
“Probably having sex with each other, I don’t know.”
“If any of the three of you was gay, it’d be you. At least they’ve noticed that I’m a girl.”
“Just because they want to have sex with you doesn’t mean they think you’re a girl. It goes along with my whole gay theory.”
“Yeah, you would have a gay theory. You shouldn’t hide it from me, Tay. You know I have several gay guy friends. They’d love to be set up with you, I’m sure. Several have already expressed the interest. In quite graphic detail.”
“Okay, that’s enough. You win, but only this once,” he stated, picking up the notebook from the floor on his way back to his desk. He plopped down over-dramatically and started to do his music homework. With that we were silent.
Chris and Jackson came home about thirty minutes later bringing a lot of noise and two large pizzas with them.
“Hey guys,” Chris said, unceremoniously dropping the pizza boxes onto the floor before climbing beside me on the futon.
“Hey,” Taylor and I said in unison, neither of us taking our eyes off of our homework.
“You know, Cams, if you weren’t friends with Taylor, I don’t think he’d ever get any homework done,” Jackson said, turning on the TV and sitting to my other side.
“You’re probably right. He is pretty worthless,” I said, deciding that I had studied enough and closing my textbook. Taylor did the same and came over to sit on the floor right next to the pizzas. He immediately opened the top one and grabbed a slice.
“Who said you could have any?” Jackson asked him.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure there’s a dress code in here,” Chris replied, not-so-sneakily putting his arm on the back of the futon and also around my shoulders.
“Whatever, it’s hot in here,” Taylor whined with a full mouth. I just ignored him and accepted a piece of pepperoni from Jackson. Taylor looked so adorable sitting there on the floor watching TV and eating. He looked like a little kid; eyes wide open, laughing with the bad sitcom Jackson had settled on. It was then, during my little staring session, that Taylor caught me.
“What are you looking at?” he asked, immediately wiping at his face to remove any food that could potentially be there.
“You look like an idiot. Seriously. Go put a shirt on,” I stated, allowing the lie to pass so easily through my lips. He sighed and went to grab a shirt out of his drawer, eliciting cheers from his roommates.
I hated how easy it had become to lie to him, to everyone. I hated it, but it was so much a part of my persona, I couldn’t let it up now. When all Taylor and I had ever done was give each other a hard time, then how could I all of a sudden stop? I wasn’t used to actually falling for guys, especially not ones who were so incredibly oblivious.