first september

It's September and I need a roommate. I couldn't live in the dorms anymore. I was fed up of being paired with idiots. I was done sharing my kitchen and my bathroom with an entire floor. When I signed the lease for my apartment, I did it with the guy I was seeing at the time. Turned out he was as unreliable as he was loud in bed. Which was very.

So here I am, alone in an apartment I can't afford, force to put up ads for a room to rent.

I talk with a couple of people, but they all sound shady. Then there's this guy that messages me and sounds alright so I tell him to come look at the place.

I want to be a picky queen but I know that I can't afford it. I need to find someone fast. I've already had to pay for July and August on my own. I don't want to pay for September too.

You know when you see someone for the first time and you think that those clothes they're wearing really are appalling and that they should immediately remove them, any type of clothing really, well that's the first thing that crosses my mind when I first meet Holt.

I think about Xander in Buffy saying that Spike is compact but well muscled. That's what that dude is. He's not buff, but I can tell under that shirt he means business.

And I should also be thinking business.

I give him the tour of the apartment, show him the room that could be his. It's smaller than mine, but it's my apartment.

I lower the price of the rent a bit, because he'll get the smaller room beside the bathroom and because he's hot.

He looks like he's ready to sign whatever I'll tell him to sign. He also seems a little bit shy and awkward. I think it's adorable. And I also think I need to make him even more uncomfortable.

"Before you say yes to moving in, I prefer to tell you I'm gay. I know some people aren't okay with that," because apparently we're still in medieval time and we settle matters with duels and we have no idea what personal hygiene means. Seriously, you can Uber food to your freaking front door, while sending a drone to kill someone half way across the world, but we're still concerned about who fucks who? Humans disgust me sometimes. "And I will probably be bringing boys back to our apartment, so I prefer telling you right away if that's something that could change your mind."

He doesn't make a face or look shock. I like that dude. "Oh, I don't mind. I'm straight, but it's fine if you're gay. As long as you like, don't try to look at me while I shower," he says and chuckles softly, like he's trying to be funny, but worried he might not be allowed to say jokes.

It makes no sense. Clearly, this dude has no self esteem, but he's like especially hot. He's so hot that even if he's not my usual type, I would totally take him up against the fridge, even if there should be no sex in common areas—that's a rule. I have rules. I'm a queen, fuck everyone else.

"I'll resist the temptation." That's what I tell him. In my head I'm thinking, I wanna taste your dick! Obviously, I'm not going to tell that to that poor heterosexual boy though, he'll have a heart attack.

While he fills out all the papers I give him—sue me, I'm a perfectionist, I'm not about to get screwed without lotion again—we make small talk.

"What's your major?" I ask him, while I sit on the opposite side of him around the center counter.

"Business." Boring. "I got in with a sport scholarship. I was in the football team, but I got injured during my first year. I'm in athletics now because I can't play football anymore."

That's a little bit more interesting. Business major is so unimaginative. It's what someone with no definite goals studies in. If you don't have dreams, get a business major, that should be their slogan. "What's your position?" I ask him, because I'm a nosy bitch.

"I'm a receiver," Yeah I bet you are. Christ Eliah, stop thirsting.

I was never that much into football. My father never really cared for it. Eloise, my twin sister on the other hand was crazy about it, for the football boys. She used to drag me to all the football games so she could decide who would be her next play toy. Those were painful years. She could pick any one of them she wanted and all I could do was pine and suffer.

Speaking of my twin, after Holt signs everything and he's gone, Eloise comes by the apartment that evening. She's offered to come live with me, but I've refused every time. I love my sister, I couldn't live without her, and in different circumstances, I would totally live with her, but our taste in men is too similar and I couldn't deal with her bringing back men candy I would want in my own bed. I've resented her while we were in high school because she could get all the boys I wanted. I don't want to live that again. I don't want any reason to not adore my sister.

Growing up, things seemed to come more easily for Eloise. She had more friends. She had a better grasp of who she was and what she wanted to be. For the longest time I couldn't even look in the mirror because I was too disgusted with myself. I wanted to be normal. I didn't want people to make a face or look at me with judgement when I talked about the person I was attracted to. Even if being gay wasn't as taboo as it had once been, people still felt a little uncomfortable, I knew it, I could feel it any time I held another guy's hand in public or any time I made any kind of public demonstration of affection. I wasn't getting rocks thrown at me, I was lucky because of where and when I lived, and it wasn't always like blatant disgust, but it was always a sort of discomfort, the kind heterosexual people didn't have to deal with.

So, I wasn't a happy teenager. I wanted everyone to look at me, but at the same time I wanted everyone to not notice me. It made no sense. I made no sense. And I was always so angry.

I got kicked out of the school's newspaper for making up rumours about everyone in school. After that I started to write my own underground paper. I was unhappy, I was acting out. I wanted everyone around me to me as miserable as I was.

Needless to say my parents were often at the principal's office.

My parents are polar opposite. My father is a CSI. He's all facts. My mother is a political journalist and she's all he-said-she-said. She destroyed the careers of two senators. She knows the power of rumours.

I understand it too. I understand how much a part of my life is stigmatized because people have more misconceptions than Jeffree Star has makeup.

It's difficult, living my life. I often feel like those memes where it's like, what my straight friends think I do, what my gay friends think I do, what my boyfriends think I do, what my sister thinks I do, what my parents think I do and what I really do. My straight friends think I'm a lot more flamboyant than I am. My gay friends think I'm a lot more sexually deviant than I am. My boyfriends think I'm a lot more popular than I actually am. My sister thinks I'm her personal servant. My parents think I'm a sociopath. And I know I'm just a lazy queen. I want to be carried around a palanquin while people fan me and feed me grapes.

When I talk to my sister about my new roommate, the nosy little vixen wants to know what he looks like. Of course, we're both very vain human beings. I show the picture I have of him from his profile on the website where I put the ad for my room to rent. When she sees Holt she freaks out. "Oh my god! I know him! He's like instafamous!" she exclaims. I didn't know that. I mean, I'm not surprised, I would have been stalking him sooner had I known he existed, I was actually planning on doing just that the second my sister had left, but I don't tell her that. Instead I just shrug.

"You seriously never saw him?" she presses. "Come on, he's got a huge following because he's a hot hot tamale. Ooooh," she grabs my arm, shaking it enthusiastically. "I'm going to start coming to your place more often now. You think you might want to introduce us?"

I suddenly feel cold all over. "You're never meeting him."

She slaps my shoulder playfully. "Hey!"

"You're not having sex with my roommate," I tell my sister and get up to pour myself some water.

"Why not? You kissed my boyfriend."

I still don't want to tell her that I did a lot more than just kissing her boyfriend. And she should be thanking me, the only reason why he dated her was because he knew she would put out, he didn't even slightly like her, he actually found her annoying. He was a complete tool. "You weren't living with that boyfriend. I don't want to walk in on my sister getting it on with my roommate."

"You totally have a crush on him," she suddenly says, interrupting me.

I glare at her. "Shut up."

She ignores my change of mood, still her happy-go-lucky self. "Of course you do. He's my type, so that means he's also yours. We've got amazing taste in men."

I roll my eyes. "Our father would beg to differ."

Holt moves in a few days later.

When he's putting away his kitchenware, which mainly consists of mismatched mugs and glasses, two plates, a few mismatched cutlery and one old pot and one old pan, I say, "So, you're a big deal on instagram?" to strike up a conversation.

"Oh yeah, sorry. It's not that big of a deal. I used to just post the pictures that I take that I liked, but then one day my friend took a video of me while I was doing chin ups and messing around and people started to notice me after that. So I started to put more pictures of me. It gets me more followers and that means that more people can see the pictures I actually like. They always have less likes than my pecs, but that's okay. I'm used to it."

He looks a little sad when he admits that.

And I have to admit he's totally irresistible because of it.

He's going to be a problem, that Holt.