Roommates

Chapter 19

Around 8:30 in the morning, Evangeline's phone started buzzing from somewhere in the cushions. She fought the urge to move because Aurora was still resting, but after the buzzing stopped for a moment and picked up again, indicating another call, she couldn't resist the cries anymore.

She sat up and dug her hands through the grey cushions, grabbing at years worth of dust. She quietly apologized as Aurora shielded her eyes from the sunlight and groaned. Grabbing hold of her vibrating phone, Evangeline pulled it out and put it to her ear. "You better be dead or dying," she grumbled, "why are you calling me this early, Trey?"

He always was an early riser. On his days off, he hiked before the sun came up and spent his nights camping. He was a nature enthusiast. "Good morning and Merry Christmas to you too," he chirped, unsurprised by her bitter tone. "Light of my life, I don't need a reason to drag your miserable ass out of bed after the sun is up. It's time to get up."

Aurora sat up, slowly crawling off the bench so she wasn't eavesdropping on their conversation. Evangeline brushed her fingers against the back of Aurora's hand offering her a gentle smile. She wanted to say thank you over and over again, but she sufficed with mouthing the words. She switched back to her phone call. "Where are you? Your signal is cutting in and out."

"I met up with a guy from Grindr and went up to his cabin last night. I'm heading home now," he reported. "Four acres of land and four extra inches, if you know what I mean."

Amused by his middle school humor, she couldn't help but laugh. "You would spend Christmas Eve with a complete stranger."

"You wish I spent it with you," Trey teased. It was a sly raillery he has never let go of since meeting her. In an attempt to make her jealous, he began painting her a scene of his night: laying beneath a creaking hand-made ceiling fan, beneath a large cowboy in his massive log house that he built from the ground up. He described all of the logs involved.

"Trey," she tried to interrupt. She didn't want to hear this! He continued detailing his sex-capade in vivid detail. "Trey!"

He laughed. "You could've joined in, I'm just sayin'. He is in an open marriage. His wife gets around too."

"Aurora and I slept together last night," she whispered before she could stop the words from falling out of her mouth. She flickered her eyes to the back bedroom where Aurora had disappeared off to. She didn't want to betray her trust, but she couldn't resist the needle-pricking excitement of telling someone.

Trey's line fell silent. Small reverberations from his truck driving down a dirt road filled their silence. Running through his mind were thoughts that were anything but erotic. "Eve, you're her boss."

"Not like that!" She hissed, disappointed. Why was he always assuming she'd sleep with Aurora— wait... "I mean, we fell asleep on the window bench together."

"Your back must be killing you!" He had spent a few nights on that window bench over the first year he had known Chloe and Evangeline, but he was too high at the time to mind. Sober Trey hated himself in the morning anytime he spent more than a few hours laying on that slab of concrete. "My back hurts just from thinking about it— and thinking about Greg."

Evangeline scoffed. "Of course his name is Greg."

"Greg has got ninety head of cattle, Eve. God, his milk was fantastic!" His double entendre was mediocre, but it still made Evangeline blush like a pubescent pre-teen. Maybe they had the same humor, and maybe she liked his immature jokes. She'd never admit it to him, though. He was such a perv.

Regrettably, she wasn't any better than he was.

"I'm hanging up now," Evangeline stated bluntly.

"Merry Christmas, Eve!" He ended their call with his sing-song voice cutting out and abandoning her to the silent living room. The weight of her consequences threatening to fall upon her.