I am shaking all over, but I keep my voice calm. “Excuse me?”
Drake pauses on the other end. “That was quite a surprise you gave me last night,” he tells me. “I will say black lingerie isn’t really my thing, but you seemed to make it work.”
I take a breath and decide to play along. Better he think I was roleplaying than bat shit crazy, right? “Well you’ll have to let me know what your thing is and maybe I’ll deliver.”
“I’ll have to think about that,” he says. “Come by tonight. Leave the lingerie at home, though. I much preferred that little yellow thing you left in the back of my car with no bra.”
“Perhaps I can,” I say. I want to know more about what happened last night but I don’t want to blow it. “It will be much later, though. I’m having dinner with my brother and a friend.”
“As long as it’s not a good friend,” Drake replies, stressing the word “friend”. “Take a cab if you want. I know you don’t drive. I’ll pay for it if you call me when you get here.”
“Okay,” I say, not really sure how I got roped into seeing him, but I have to see him. My fingers trail down between my legs and feel that his voice is making me wet already. I want to see him tonight. I realize I will have to sneak out. Devin is going to be watching me closely after what he witnessed this morning.
“Goodbye Jenna,” he says, and we hang up. My hand reaches down inside the waistband of my shorts, and my fingers send a volt of electricity through my body, and then I hear the door open.
“Jenna!” Devin calls out. My hand snaps up and then I realize that the paintings are all sitting out on the floor around me. Fuck! I scramble and begin to put them away. “Jenna, where are you?” Devin walks in to the front room where I am standing over the forbidden box. “What the hell are you doing?” His face turns red and he storms over and snatches the canvas out of my hand. It’s the one of me. It rips as he pulls it away. We both stand and look between us at the destroyed painting. “Why did you open this?” he shouts.
I see Justin in the doorway, watching this scene. He doesn’t say anything and looks awkward, knowing he walked in on something he shouldn’t see. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I just started opening it. I didn’t know it wasn’t meant for me to see.” The last words come out sounding a bit threatening. Devin thinks I can’t have secrets from him but he’s been keeping these from me for a reason. It’s obvious he didn’t want me to know this side of him.
“Just let me put them away,” he says calmly. If Justin weren’t in the room, I know this would be a screaming match. I stand aside and watch Devin put the ripped canvas and all of the others I took out back in the box. He walks them over to his bedroom and puts the box inside and comes back out, closing the door behind him.
“Hi Jenna,” Justin says. “We brought ribs, chicken and beer.” I follow him to the kitchen and we begin to unpack the bags. I find some paper plates and napkins and knives and begin to set the table in silence. Devin comes in and he and Justin and I sit at the round table and eat silently for a bit. Justin breaks the ice by asking “Did you guys eat all of those leftovers already? I swear Ma cooks enough for twenty people even when I tell her it’s just us.”
Devin smirks after a long swig of beer. “Jenna got the munchies late last night and demolished them.”
I glare at him. “I had a little help,” I say.
Justin grins. “Boy, you two are going to be awesome roommates, I can tell already.”
I sort of hate him for lightening up that particular topic, but we can’t continue to argue while we have company. I wolf down an entire rack of ribs and a wing and thigh of Greek chicken, which Devin knows is one of my favorites. I forget how hungry I am. Justin stares in shock as we inhale everything on the table and sit back contentedly. “I think now would be an excellent time to engage Justin’s help in setting up the TV,” I tell Devin.
He shrugs. “I’ve been putting it off because I feel like once it’s hooked up we’re going to end up like mindless drones and not make any progress on the unpacking.”
I stick out my lower lip like a small child and play the drama queen. “De-vin! I haven’t had a TV in years. How could you possibly deny me this?”
Justin steps in, as usual. “How about you guys have some rule about not having the TV on between the hours of 9-5?”
“Yeah,” I pipe in. “Devin, you know you want to sit on the couch tonight and veg out with a beer in one hand and a bowl of popcorn on your lap and perhaps a viewing of Fiddler on the Roof or something.”