Housemates

Chapter 2

“So Mia…” Ellie said to Mark a few days later.

“Yeah?”

“She’s gay, right?”

“I think so.”

Ellie looked at him and tried to decide if he was being difficult on purpose.   “You don’t know?”

“I don’t know what she is, but she sleeps with women and she doesn’t sleep with me.”

Ellie stood there for a moment.  “So same as, really…”

“Not really.”

Ellie shrugged.  It was true, but it also wasn’t what the was trying to find out right now.  “She’s your friend,” she said.

Mark nodded.

“She’s your friend and you don’t know?”

Mark looked at her.  “And?”

“And you don’t know?  How can you not know?”

Mark shrugged.

“It just seems like something people should know.”

“You don’t think me not asking her all the time might be something to do with why she’s my friend?”

Ellie thought about that.  “Maybe.”

“Hey Ellie, want to talk about sex a lot? 

“No,” Ellie said.

“Want to keep living here if I do that every night?”

Ellie glared at him for a moment, but got his point.  “No,” she said.  “And stop now.”

“So I don’t know,” Mark said.  “Because we don’t talk about it.  We talk about movies, and about graphic novels.”

Ellie nodded. 

“Anyway,” Mark said, looking at her, apparently getting curious now.  “What about Mia?  What do you want to know?”

“Nah,” Ellie said, and went into the lounge.  “Nothing.”

                                                                                      *

Ellie waited a few days, so Mark wouldn’t think she was obsessively asking about Mia.  One morning, while they were both in the kitchen, Mark making his breakfast and Ellie waiting for the coffee machine to be ready, she said, as casually as she could, “So Mia’s a player, right?  Like she sleeps around a bit?”

“No idea.”

“Because you don’t ask her about that, which is why you’re friends?”

“Pretty much.”

“You’re kind of uncurious, you know that?”

Mark shrugged. 

Ellie looked at him, wondering how he could be not the slightest interested.  And he was a guy.

“Really uncurious,” she said.

“Yeah.  So?”

“Just saying.”

Ellie watched the machine gurgle, hoping it would be ready soon. 

Mark was thinking again now.  Wondering things himself.  “Why are you so interested?” he said.

“I’m not,” Ellie said, sharply.  Firmly.  “I was just asking.”

“That’s the second time you’ve asked about her in two days.”

“Yeah, because she’s here all the time, dickhead.”

Mark was looking at Ellie, still thinking.  Thinking too much, Ellie thought.  Looking at Ellie almost like people did when they wondering about setting people up. 

“Don’t,” Ellie said.

“Don’t what?”

Ellie shook her head, and got all flustered, and walked out of the kitchen. 

“Your coffee…” Mark said.

“I don’t have time,” Ellie said, backwards.  She went to her room and stayed there for fifteen minutes, until she heard Mark leave.

                                                                                      *

Ellie still saw Mia.

Mia was there, visiting Mark, but never actually alone to for Ellie to talk to.  She said hi to Ellie, and talked to her about work, like any polite friend of any housemate, coming and going.  A perfectly nice, polite friend who’d never got Ellie off on her hand, not ever.

Ellie was starting to wonder how she could engineer a moment alone with Mia.

On Thursday night Mia was there again, waiting for Mark to get ready to go to see a film with her.  Mark was looking for something, his wallet or his keys.  He hunted around the kitchen first, then went to look in his bedroom.

That left Ellie and Mia alone. 

“I haven’t done this before,” Ellie said, as soon as Mark had left.  Said it suddenly, without warning, before she could change her mind about saying anything. 

Mia looked at her for a while.  “Done what?”

“Don’t.”

Mia nodded, and looked a bit apologetic.  “Yeah, sorry.”

“I haven’t before.  I just thought you should know that.”

Mia grinned for a while.  “No shit,” she said.

“What does that mean?”

Mia shrugged, and kept grinning.  “No shit is what it means.  Just no shit.”

“I’m bad at it?”

“Nothing to be bad at.”

“I’m doing something wrong?”

Mia shook her head.

Ellie looked at her for a while, uncertain.  Then she decided to say what she’d been going to say anyway.

“I haven’t before,” she said.  “So I’m a bit nervous.”

“Okay.”

“You aren’t helping.”

Mia smiled more.  “I know.”

“You’re awful.”

“Yep.”

“I was trying to say something.”

“Okay.  So say it.”

“I liked that.  The other night.”

“All of us having dinner?”

“Really just don’t.  Please.”

Mia nodded.  She looked guilty.  “Yeah,” she said.  “I’m sorry.  I’ll stop.”

“I liked it,” Ellie said.  “And I think I’d like to again, if you did.”

“You think?”

Ellie shrugged. 

Mia smiled a little.  A nice smile now.  A kind smile.  “So decide,” she said. 

“I’m trying.”

“So decide, then tell me when you have.”

Ellie stood there looking at her, and almost kissed her.

Mark came back into the room, and said he was ready, and Mia followed him outside.

She stopped at the door, and smiled at Ellie, and then waved, and left.  

Ellie watched her go, surprised.  Surprised someone could be so casual, about something that seemed so big.