Lockdown Summer

II. Kind of Hot

It's Monday morning, and there's a girl in front of the stove.

She's stirring a pot of what smelled like spaghetti sauce. Her thick black hair was tied high on her head, and loose strands fell on her shoulders. The strap of her black bra stuck out from underneath her purple top. She had earphones on. The wires went down to the cellphone in the back of her shorts.

She's almost as tall as me. And her arms and legs are toned.

I know how runners' and joggers' bodies are like, and I can see that she keeps her body fit like them.

She swayed her hips along with whatever she's listening to as she went on stirring, unaware that I was standing next to the dining table underneath the stairs.

This cousin of Dennis is H-O-T. And I mean, Penny from The Big Bang Theory kind of hot.

"Oh! Hey!" She stopped and dropped the ladle in the pot. "You must be Marco!" She realized she's shouting and took her earphones off. "I didn't catch you yesterday."

In her normal voice, she sounded giddy and girly. She also had a smile on as she talked.

I got the impression she's one of those people that post 'good vibes only' on their feeds.

"They said you work at nights," she added. "You're asleep then, and I crashed early last night. I was tired."

She bent forward and turned off the stove and gas. Her butt almost touched the door of Pablo's room.

"I'm Rica, by the way." She stood up again and faced me, grabbed the phone from her back pocket, and sloppily tangled the earphone wires around it. "Some people call me Ricks," she added with the same smile. "It's like Vicks, but with an R."

I needed to get a glass from the cupboard above the sink, and her body was blocking off the narrow kitchen hallway.

She lost her smile and asked, "what?"

"I...need to go...over there."

"Oh, right."

She lifted the pot and transferred it to the table. She's still in my way, but I walked past her and to the small kitchen area.

I opened the freezer and searched for something to eat. I remembered there were at least two more pieces of hotdogs there, but they're gone.

"Have you had your breakfast?" she asked as if she read my thoughts or heard my stomach. "You can join me here. I made enough for at least four people." Still, with that goody-girl smile.

I looked down on the table and saw the slices of hotdogs floating on the spaghetti sauce. I closed the freezer and sighed. Then I got my glass, poured water in it, and joined her.

Neither the guys nor I own the dining table. It's already here when we moved in, at the same spot touching the wall. It's a narrow, light, brushed wood set with four matching chairs.

"Don't be weird around me, okay?" Rica said. "I mean, just treat me like one of you guys. I've been one of the boys all my life."

I was hungry, alright. And even if I wasn't, the food she cooked was undeniably tasty. I instantly forgave her for the hotdogs.

"Is there other stuff that I need to know around here?" she asked in between bites. She's also talkative, I can tell. "Like, are some of your things here off limits?"

From those few minutes alone, I could already hear how she must've sounded in casual conversations. Aside from the 'good vibes,' she'd start her sentences with either 'like' or 'basically.'

"That geeky stuff is Pablo's," I said. "But we all share them. He's building his AI and trying to automate everything around here. He calls that Mindy."

I noticed her lips curled. So, I said, "don't ask why."

"Each of us owns one or two of the things in the house," I went on. "But we share everything in the common areas. Just that. Oh, and if you're coming in late in the evening, let Pablo know first. He sets up the alarm, and it'll piss him off if it's just one of us sneaking in."

"Got it. Thanks."

Maybe I was a bit wrong. She just sounded more formal.

She stared at the back door. "Whose bike is that out there?" she asked in that same formal tone.

"That's...mine."

She went back on this perky, girly, good-vibes-only tone as she spoke of how nervous she was for her job interview the next day. She even asked me for some tips.

"I...I don't think I have one for you," I said.

I work with a computer more than with people, so how should I know?

I went upstairs after I cleared the sink. It's the least I could do after she prepared food that no one asked her to.

The room I'm sharing again with Dennis is on the backmost part of the floor. There's another door on its side that opens to a narrow and short hallway going to a shared bathroom. The other door leads to the one I used to be in and is, temporarily, Rica's.

I heard pop music coming from that door as I entered the bathroom.

I'm sharing this tiny hallway and bathroom with this hot girl, I thought. And that should be fun.