Chapter 2
The heat from the late afternoon sun is oppressive, and my steps feel heavy as I make my way to the front door of my apartment.
Thank God Jonathan’s home. He was away for the weekend, some work conference up in Sacramento, and I can breathe a bit easier knowing that he’s back.
I find it hard to fall asleep when he’s not sleeping in the room next to mine, or sitting on the couch downstairs watching TV too loudly.
Hopefully, just seeing his face will be enough to get me out of my funk.
The smell of his cologne is the first thing that hits me as I step into our entryway. Musk and sandalwood, his signature scent.
“Jonathan!” I scream up the stairs.
“Greased Lightnin’,” his favorite song from his favorite soundtrack, blasts from the speakers in his room at full volume. I scream again, this time loud enough to overpower John Travolta.
“JONATHAN!!!”
“Pheebs!” Jonathan turns the music down and makes his way to the bottom of the stairs.
I owe everything to the Grease soundtrack.
—
I had just finished moving into my freshman year dorm at UCLA when I recognized the familiar tune of “Summer Nights” coming from a room at the end of the hall.
Grease being one of my favorite musicals (I’m pretty sure John Travolta as Danny Zuko was my sexual awakening), I took it as a sign that my first college friend had to be the room’s occupant.
I gave myself a quick pep talk and mustered up the courage to knock.
Nothing could have prepared me for who opened the door.
I was face-to-face with the most gorgeous guy I’d ever seen.
He had a thick mess of wavy dark brown hair that was just long enough to tuck behind his ears, and a tan that made him look like he had spent the entire summer living on the beach.
His hazel-green eyes were kind as he angled them down at me, and my neck protested as I met his gaze.
He had to be at least a foot taller than my five feet, three inches.
Maybe more. He arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow, an invitation for me to introduce myself, perhaps.
But I was so flustered by his appearance that my opening line came out harsher than I intended it.
“Why are you listening to this?” I couldn’t imagine what a guy like him was doing blasting the Grease soundtrack.
He crossed his arms against his broad chest, frowning slightly. “It’s a great song.”
“It is a great song,” I agreed. “Sorry, but when I heard Olivia Newton-John coming from your room, this”—I made a sweeping gesture over his body—“wasn’t what I was expecting.”
He chuckled, and I exhaled. “I’m Jonathan,” he said, opening his door farther to reveal a mess of clothes and moving boxes.
“I’m Phoebe,” I introduced myself, finally. “I can help you get organized if you want. I’m really good at it.”
We got to know each other while I helped him unpack.
I learned that Jonathan was from a small town in middle-of-nowhere West Virginia, which surprised me.
I had never met anyone from there and wasn’t entirely convinced it was a real place until Jonathan assured me that it did definitely exist and there were actually people who lived there.
“It wasn’t a great place to grow up,” he explained.
“There was nothing to do there. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if my parents were less strict, but they didn’t even let me watch TV.
We didn’t even have one in the house. I was so bored.
” He told me that when he was younger, the only time he ever got to watch anything was when he snuck over to his neighbor’s house before his parents got home from work.
She was a few years older than him, and while she did have access to a television, all she ever wanted to watch was Grease.
And so that was all Jonathan ever watched, too.
“And now here I am, majoring in film.”
“Wow,” I said. “But you’ve seen other movies by now, right?”
“Yes,” he said, laughing. “But I still love Grease the most.”
“I’m glad,” I told him. And I was glad. Thank god for Grease, because if I hadn’t heard it coming from Jonathan’s room that day, I probably would have looked down at my feet every time he passed me in the hallway.
—
Now, twelve years later, the soundtrack to our friendship is the same, only instead of having to lower the volume at ten p.m. in order to avoid noise complaints, we can play it as loud as we want in our own apartment.
I throw my arms around him the second he reaches the bottom of the stairs, knocking him slightly off-balance. He catches us both before we fall.
I step back, leaving less than a foot between us, and look him over.
He’s wearing my favorite shirt of his, the green one that brings out the emerald flecks in his hazel eyes.
It’s only been three days since I last saw him, but in that time, his stubble has grown out to the perfect length: a little longer than a five o’clock shadow, but not long enough to be considered a beard.
I ball my hands into fists at my sides to stop from reaching up and brushing a loose strand of dark hair from his face.
Sometimes the way he looks still manages to overwhelm me, like he just opened his dorm room door and I’m seeing him for the first time all over again.
Ironically, though, Jonathan’s looks quickly became one of the reasons I’ve always been so comfortable around him.
I’ve never had to worry about something sexual or romantic happening between us because there’s no way someone who looks like that could be attracted to someone who looks like me.
Not because I’m some sort of troll, but because I’m not in the same league as Jonathan.
Although I’m not sure anyone is.
He runs his fingers through his messy hair. “Are you gonna be ready to go soon?”
“Yes, give me a few minutes to freshen up,” I say while absentmindedly reaching for my own curls, smoothing down a halo of frizz. Luckily, trivia night at Jeffery’s doesn’t require too much primping.
I make my way up the stairs to my bedroom, subtly taking a deep breath in when I pass Jonathan. He’s been wearing the same cologne the entire time I’ve known him, and it always puts me at ease.
Two years ago, when Jonathan’s roommate moved out and he offered me his second bedroom, I jumped at the chance.
I’ve always loved this place and its high ceilings and bright, natural light.
Not to mention the bedrooms are huge; though I still haven’t quite gotten around to decorating mine the way I want to.
My walls are far too bare and the stack of books piled on top of my dresser needs a permanent home.
I’ve been daydreaming about getting myself a nice vintage bookshelf for my collection of romance novels, but the idea of investing in quality furniture in my twenties seems daunting, especially as someone who’s apartment hopped a bunch.
It could be a perfect thirtieth birthday gift to myself.
Something to actually look forward to about turning thirty.
I open my dresser drawers and stare at the neat stacks of shirts, currently organized by color.
I play around with alternative configurations in my brain.
Of course.
It would make infinitely more sense to organize them by how frequently I wear each one, rather than by color. Unable to stop myself, I start to shift the shirts around, arranging the ones I reach for least in the bottom drawers while keeping my favorites in the top ones.
“Pheebs!” Jonathan yells from the bottom of the steps. “I can hear you in the T-shirt drawers. Trivia starts soon!”
“Sorry!”
I grab a white tee with the Rugrats logo, a new favorite that I thrifted last week with Nora, to much protest. (“You don’t need any more T-shirts,” she had said.
“How about this?” She held up a red corset that I’m pretty sure was intended to be worn as lingerie.
“This screams ‘I’m ready to get laid.’ ” I ended up purchasing both, although I don’t know when I’ll get the chance, or the boost of confidence, to wear the corset.)
I pair the Rugrats tee with a pair of light-wash Levi’s shorts and a spritz of my new pheromone-infused perfume, which I purchased from an Instagram ad after being lured by the design of the bottle with the word Seduction written in red across the black glass.
Thanks to our seductive and captivating fragrance, he won’t be able to resist you was etched below the red name.
I take the claw clip out of my hair to see what it would look like if I decided to wear my natural curls down.
“Nope,” I say out loud to my own reflection, a portrait of a girl who looks like she was electrocuted.
I twist my hair back up into a knot and secure the clip, pulling out a few loose strands that Nora cut shorter to frame my face.
I apply a dab of concealer under my brown eyes, and then wipe it off immediately once I realize how cakey it looks on my sweaty skin.
I recently learned that liquid blush can be multipurpose, so I apply a thick layer of it on my cheeks and lips.
As I’m placing my discarded pants in the hamper next to my dresser, the tattered letter falls out. Lose your virginity. That’s all I ask. Without thinking about it, I snatch the letter off the floor and stuff it into my bedside drawer, hopeful that I won’t be able to hear it mocking me from inside.
—
Jeffery’s is down the street from our apartment, so we walk.
It still hasn’t cooled off outside and the air is thick with the smell of our dumpster wafting over to us from the garage.
I gag thinking about what the heat is doing to the rotisserie chicken carcass I tossed in there this morning.
I look up at Jonathan to distract myself from the thought, using his body to shield my eyes from the blinding sun.
I have to crane my neck to get a good look at him.
He nods and listens intently as I weigh the pros and cons of my new T-shirt organization system.