Lockdown Summer

I. House Meeting

I timed how long I collected my things from that small room into this other one.

It took me a little more than two hours. And that's already too long, for I don't own many things.

I tapped my fingers on the table after I opened my work laptop. And just as my butt was about to meet the chair, Dennis' voice filled the room.

"House meeting in two minutes," he said in his I'm-not-messing-around tone.

I closed the computer, grabbed my phone from the still unmade top bunk, and left the room that I'm about to share with him again.

I work during the night, and I have a different clock than them. But it's a Saturday, so I had time for that stupid house meeting even at ten in the evening.

The other guys were already in their usual spots in the living room when I went downstairs. Stout-boy Pablo was in the middle of the couch, and rich-boy Andrei was in the chair to its left.

He bought that fake leather sitting set in a sale at seventy-five percent off. Never mind that they're an ugly shade of green. Andrei also owns the red Mitsubishi Mirage in front of this house. He's not the living-in-a-mansion kind of rich, but the guy can afford things. By default, and because he has the means, he's got the bigger room with its own bathroom upstairs.

Dennis was standing with his back to the vine-patterned, carved dark wood front door when I crashed down on the other chair next to Andrei.

"Mindy," he commanded Pablo's AI. "Turn the TV off."

"Haha, nice try," Pablo said. "She only answers to me. Mindy, turn the TV off."

There's no response, and a zombie movie was still playing.

Andrei laughed. "You need to fix Mindy's bugs, Pablito."

"I'm still working on her voice recognition skills."

Dennis reached for the remote control instead, turned the TV off, and stood in front of it. He's in his usual bossy self.

"As you all know," he said against the silence in the room. "My cousin will arrive here tomorrow to stay with us for a while."

We didn't decide to make him the alpha in here, but we treat him as such. He's not really our leader, but he's the most responsible and dependable person under this roof. He runs the house, and we're his pack.

"Again, Marco," he addressed me. "Sorry for kicking you out of that room. I promise it's just temporary until she finds a job and a place for her own."

I nodded, even though I was against it at first.

Why did it even have to be me?

Dennis explained that it's the most ideal solution. Pablo is already attached to the room by the kitchen, and we need him there on the ground floor. There's no way Andrei would give in. And that room I called my own for two years is the smallest in the house. Plus, it's the cheapest in its share of the rent.

I just said, fine.

Dennis works during the day, and he's away most of the time anyway. He and I had known each other since we're younger, so it's easier for him to ask me this favor.

"What's this about?" Pablo asked with a circular flick of his hand. "It's not like we never lived with a girl before."

The last time we had a girl in this house was during our first year living in this compound. That's about three years ago. Pablo was in that small room upstairs, and I was sharing the bunk bed with Dennis.

She wasn't legally one of the tenants, but she was always here that she even used the house's address in her ID. She's Dennis' big brother Ralph's girlfriend then. They were shackled in that ground-floor room. The compound has a housekeeper who cleans and does laundry for all four houses for a reasonable rate. But Ralph's girl was just as useful around here.

Ralph and his girlfriend often fought, and they were loud. When they left, there's quiet in the house for once. But I can't deny that, sometimes, I miss that background noise.

"She's my cousin," Dennis went on about this new girl. "She's close to me as a sister. I owe her parents a lot. I'm doing this as a favor to them. What I mean is...no funny business, no messing around, no weird things around her."

I played dumb and asked, "like what?"

He sighed and frowned at us. "You all know what I mean."

"We'll be on our best behavior," Pablo kiddingly said.

Dennis sighed again.

"Dude," said Andrei, "you know us. We're not predators or something."

Dennis enumerated from an invisible list the things we should do and avoid doing when his cousin is around.

"Just don't make things weird for her," he pleaded.

The meeting was adjourned after. Dennis went out to the back of the house, and Andrei ran upstairs.

"Hey, Mindy," Pablo said to the air. "Turn the TV back on."

The LED light below the screen lit up, and the TV was alive again.

We're both surprised.

"Mindy can turn things on for you," I said.