CHAPTER 2
“You don’t have to stay in a hotel, you know?” Chase, her friend, told her over the phone.
Gabi looked around the hotel room she’d been staying in for the past week, ever since she’d relocated for work.
She had known that she’d be relocating for a month, but she had been searching for a place to live for almost as long, unfortunately.
It seemed like nearly everyone was moving to this used-to-be-small town that had been going through a tech and business boom for the past several years, and that meant that while they’d been building more apartments in the tri-county area, there still weren’t enough to go around.
She’d applied for three but had lost out on all three of them to other candidates who might have had better credit than her own, more income, or had just applied before her.
As a result, Gabi had been without a place to live by the time her new job had started earlier that week.
Technically, she hadn’t been required to relocate, but they had offered a small stipend for just that purpose because the company still preferred people to be in the office at least three days a week, and she’d been looking for a change anyway.
She had agreed to be a hybrid employee, had set a start date, but she hadn’t anticipated not being able to find a place to live by the time she’d had to report to her office for her new-hire orientation the previous Monday.
She’d found this job through Chase, whom she’d met in school.
They’d stayed in touch, mostly on social media, but when Gabi had mentioned that she’d been looking for a new role after missing out on a promotion that she’d thought had been all but guaranteed, he’d let her know that his company had been looking for someone.
It wasn’t exactly what she’d wanted – Gabi had majored in mechanical engineering with an emphasis on product development, and she’d planned on working in hardware – but she’d taught herself how to code as a teenager and had even considered going to school for that initially, so it wasn’t something that she hated.
She’d been a software engineer at her previous company, too, since they didn’t sell hardware, and she’d liked it enough.
It just wasn’t what she wanted to do long-term.
Chase’s company, now also her own, didn’t sell hardware, either, but she’d gotten a role one step above her old one, and so far, at least, she felt like it might be the right place for her at the moment.
“I know. I have another application out, though, and I should hear back tomorrow. I think I have a good chance at getting this one. It was only listed for rent for about three hours before I did an online 3D-tour and applied.”
“You didn’t even go check it out in person?” he asked.
Gabi looked through her suitcase that she had lying on the luggage rack and thought about all the rest of her clothes that she currently had in storage, wishing she had thought to bring one of her football jerseys with her.
She had a few. One had been her dad’s, and she wore it whenever she missed him, which was often.
The other two had been gifts from him and were all for their favorite team.
She didn’t have any of those here, though, so she found a casual-looking T-shirt and a pair of jeans, pulled them out, and put Chase on speakerphone.
“No, there’s not really time for that. Everything is going so fast. They have the option for a six-month lease, so if my application is accepted, I’ll check it out in person then.
If it’s doable, I’ll sign a short lease and look for something else if I need to, but I have two business days to sign the lease anyway.
I need to get my stuff out of storage, and I’m tired of not having a kitchen. ”
“I told you that you could stay with Mark and me.”
“I know, and I appreciate that, but you two just got married. Literally, you got back from your honeymoon two weeks ago. The last thing you need is a houseguest. I’ll be fine here, and I’m sure I’ll get this place anyway.”
“Okay. Well, just let us know if you change your mind. And we don’t care, by the way. Yes, we just got legally married, but we’ve been together since MIT.”
“I know. Lucky,” she said with a smile. “I have to run. I have a thing tonight.”
“You have a thing?” he asked.
“Plans with a friend.”
“You have friends here besides me?”
“Wow! Hilarious, Chase,” she said sarcastically.
He laughed and said, “I only meant that I thought Mark and I were the only people you knew here.”
“I thought that was the case, but I ran into someone I met once a million years ago at the bar the other night.”
“You went to a bar?”
“For dinner. Well, that was the plan. I wanted to order food to-go because I can’t cook anything here, and it was a couple of miles away. I was about to order when Sarai walked up, and we talked. She was there with her friends, and I met them back then, too, so I just hung out with them.”
“A million years ago?”
“When I was eighteen, so yes.”
“That was a long time ago,” Chase joked.
“Hanging up now. Have to go.”
She heard him laugh and hit the icon on her phone to end the call.
Then, she got dressed, looked around to see if she needed to bring anything else, grabbed her purse, which she rarely carried because she was used to lugging around a heavy laptop in her backpack, and left the cheap hotel room that she hoped to be checking out of soon.
◆◆◆
There were four cars in the driveway, practically bumper to bumper, so Gabi parked on the street and got out.
Having locked her car, she took a deep breath because she was actually a little nervous and walked toward the door.
She wasn’t sure why she was nervous. She’d spent time with these women just a few nights ago, but that had been at a bar, and this was Sarai’s house, or rather, their house, since a few of them still lived here.
“Hey,” Arlowe greeted when she pulled open the door. “Come on in. Sarai’s in the kitchen.” She pointed. “Straight back. If you want food or something to drink, it’s back there, too.”
“Hi. And thanks.”
Gabi walked in and looked around. She’d been directly deposited into the living room, where there were two comfortable-looking sofas, one on each wall, a shelf over what probably used to be a fireplace but was now covered with plaster, and a big, flat-screen TV in the corner.
“Oh. Hi, Gabi,” Stella said when she saw her, and Gabi quickly noticed her jersey choice, which was for an NFL team.
“Hey. How have you been?”
“Great. My girlfriend is home full-time now, so I’m loving that. You?”
The aforementioned girlfriend, Violet, was sitting next to Enya on one of the two sofas, and she was also wearing an NFL jersey.
“Great, yeah,” Gabi said, not sure what else to offer the woman she’d barely talked to the other night at the bar. “So, Sarai?”
“Kitchen,” Stella replied.
“Cool. I’ll be right back.”
She walked into the kitchen and found Sarai standing there with a woman and two guys, who were in NFL jerseys as well.
Sarai was in a pair of black jeans and a white V-neck shirt, and her dark-brown hair was pulled back, exposing her neck and a tattoo at her hairline that was some kind of language character that Gabi didn’t recognize but decided to ask her about later.
“Hey,” she greeted.
Sarai turned around and smiled at her.
“Oh, hey. You came?”
“I told you I would.”
“You left it pretty open-ended, so I wasn’t sure.”
“I said I’d come if I could, and I could, so I’m here,” she replied.
“I can see that,” Sarai said and nodded toward the other people in the room. “This is Clay. That’s Mitchell. They work with us. That’s Mitchell’s girlfriend, Laura,” Sarai introduced. “This is Gabi. We knew each other a while ago, and she just moved to town for a job.”
“Nice to meet you,” Laura said.
“You too,” Gabi replied.
“Babe, want to go grab a good seat on the couch before the game starts?” Mitchell asked his girlfriend.
“Not really, but sure,” Laura said and rubbed his shoulders. “Not a big football fan, but he loves it.”
“See you in there,” Clay added.
“Can I get you something to eat?” Sarai asked. “We did the whole chips and dip and fruit and veggie platter thing, but there’s actual food here if you want something else.”
“I think I made a mistake,” Gabi said.
“Mistake?”
“You said football game.”
“It’s about to start, yeah. Well, I think. I don’t really care for it all that much. Arlowe loves it, but it was just an excuse to get everyone together. I guess Stella is into it, too, so she bought Violet a matching jersey.”
“I thought you meant actual football.”
“Sorry?”
“Soccer.”
“You thought we were all getting together to watch soccer tonight?”
“Yeah. There’s an MLS and an NWSL team in the city, so I thought one of them had a game tonight.”
“Oh, no. It’s Thursday Night Football. Do you hate the NFL or something?”
“I’m just not an American football fan. Blame it on my upbringing,” she replied with a shoulder shrug. “I lived in Europe from the age of ten to nineteen, and my dad loved soccer, so we supported PSG.”
“PSG?”
“Paris Saint-Germain.”
“I have no idea what that is,” Sarai replied with a laugh. “Do you need to go or something if they’re going to be watching American football in there?”
“Oh, no. I’m just really glad that I didn’t put on my PSG jersey, that’s all.” Gabi chuckled.
“Well, Enya will be on her phone, Violet and Stella will make sex eyes at each other, Arlowe will be yelling at the TV if her team does something wrong or right, and so will the rest of them, except maybe Laura, who’s only here because Mitchell wanted to come, so if you want to hang out in here or even outside, we can.
It’s a nice night. I might need to grab a sweater, but I can get you one, too, if you want. ”
Gabi’s phone dinged in her purse.
“Sorry, one second. I’m waiting to hear back about an apartment, and they said they’d email me soon.”
She pulled out her phone while Sarai picked up a baby carrot and dipped it in some ranch dressing.
“No problem.”
“You’re looking for a place to live?” Arlowe asked her, walking into the room with an empty plate.
“Yeah. I thought I’d be able to find something before I had to start my new job, but apartments go very fast around here.” She then skimmed through the email, which was from the apartment complex, and muttered, “Damn it.”
“What?” Sarai asked.
“I didn’t get it. I found it right away. How am I not getting these places? My credit is good. I have a great new job,” she said as she put her phone away.
“We have a room here,” Arlowe told her while she filled her plate with snacks.
“Arlowe!” Sarai exclaimed.
“What? I completed my move into Violet’s room earlier today. It’s the biggest one, and I had dibs in the event that she moved out before me, so now I have my own bathroom. It’s going to be life-changing. Anyway, my old room is a decent size, and it’s available now.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I–”
“She was looking for an apartment for herself. I mean, to live by herself, without roommates, I assume,” Sarai interrupted. “Unless it’s you and someone else. I don’t think I’ve asked if you–”
“I’m single, aka alone. Pathetic, I know.”
“Not pathetic,” Arlowe offered. “Enya, Sarai, and I are all single, so we get it. The difference is that we all live here, so we can be alone together. It’s a nice room, and I cleaned it earlier, too. Want to take a look before the game starts?”
Gabi looked at Sarai, who seemed to be very interested in the carrots all of a sudden and was still holding one in the ranch dressing.
“Are you trying to infuse the carrot with that ranch flavor over there, Sarai?” Arlowe joked.
“What?” Sarai looked down at what she’d been doing. “Oh, no. Shit.”
“Can I think about it? I’ve got some feelers out on other places,” she lied because Sarai hadn’t seemed all that interested in her moving in.
And it shouldn’t have been a big deal to Gabi because they hardly knew each other – one fun weekend about eleven years ago didn’t mean that they were ready to be roommates – but it was a little odd that Sarai was so put off by the idea.
Gabi thought they’d had a connection back then.
In fact, leaving Amsterdam had been hard for her when the weekend had come to an end because of that connection, but she supposed that it hadn’t been as hard for Sarai to let her go as Gabi had thought for all these years.
“Yeah, sure,” Arlowe replied. “We weren’t going to find anyone else to live here anyway. We were planning on splitting the rent into three instead of four and just figuring out what to do with the extra room, but it would be nice to still split it four ways and save a little more money.”
“How soon do you need to know?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a week. By then, Sarai will have hung a dry-erase board in there, or Enya will have made it a room that she can pace in when she’s learning yet another language.”
“Okay. I’ll let you know.”
“The game is starting!” Mitchell yelled from the living room.
“Want to go outside?” Sarai asked. “I can get you that sweater.”
“Actually, can I grab some food and go watch the game?”
“Sure. Drinks are in the fridge,” Sarai replied, and she and Arlowe walked into the living room.
Gabi grabbed herself a plate, filled it with some snacks because she was starving, and opted for a can of soda as her drink instead of risking a beer because she didn’t know how long she’d be staying.
By the time she got to the living room, though, all the couches had already been taken.
Mitchell and Laura were on one, along with Clay.
Stella and Violet were on the other, with Enya sitting next to them, looking down at her phone.
Arlowe was sitting on the floor in front of the couch with Mitchell on it, and Sarai was sitting on the floor in front of Violet.
Gabi didn’t know where to sit, but Sarai looked up at her and nodded to the floor next to herself, while Arlowe’s eyes were glued to the screen, so Gabi went with her. She sat down and held out her plate.
“Carrot? You seem to like them.”
Sarai laughed and replied, “No thanks. I’m good.”
Sarai then leaned back on her hands, and Gabi had to look away from the skin that had been revealed to her when Sarai’s shirt lifted a little. She picked up one of the carrots to distract herself, took a bite, and turned her attention to the TV.