I stayed up way too late writing this. Oh well. Basically, Em steals Mike's girl because she's just awesome like that. Thanks for reading and please enjoy!
P.S. I was in an anti-Mike mood this chapter, just some forewarning. He's not the best roommate.
The night sky was a smoggy, diluted navy color over Emily's head. She spared it a brief glance as she leaned into the backseat of her car to retrieve her suitcase.
This business trip had been particularly more hellish than usual. The idiot she'd been sent to Seattle with had completely butchered their presentation, and as a result the company sent them back home earlier than planned.
"I mean, who the hell answers their phone in the middle of an important business meeting?" Emily spat angrily into the phone she had nestled between her neck and shoulder. "Thanks to that imbecile, now we're probably going to lose a good…"— she paused, listening to the person on the other line, then nodded vigorously to the empty air— "… yes, exactly! Or even more than that. Our stocks are fucked, that's for sure. We— no, he— lost a really good deal."
Finally, she was able to get a good hold on her suitcase, and with a grunt she heaved it out of the backseat of her silver Acura. She then circled around to the trunk of the car to remove her remaining bags. Mike had given her a difficult time while loading her luggage into the car just three days prior; Emily's retort had been a perfectly-delivered "A woman can never have too many outfit options, Michael."
Once everything was out, she locked up the car and began making her way to the front door of her and Mike's shared single family home.
"Alright, Kelly, I'll have to talk to you later. I'm almost at the door," Emily spoke into the phone again. "Yeah, I know. Yes… yep. See ya, hon. And let's hope our jobs still exist come Monday!" With that, Emily ended the call and slipped her phone into a back pocket.
She tried the door handle on the chance it was open, but of course Mike had left it locked. Emily glanced back over her shoulder, noting again that his car was indeed parked out front. Maybe the bastard had fallen asleep in front of the TV again. Emily couldn't wrap her mind around why he even watched football and baseball if those programs only ever made him into a snore machine.
She fished her key out of her purse and was inside seconds later. Immediately she noticed all the lights were off, except for the back hallway leading to their bedrooms. Keeping quiet, she crept around blindly through the kitchen, stopping off in her room for a moment to take off her jewelry. She would've left Mike alone, but the strip of light under his closed door prodded too much at her curiosity.
Most Friday nights, she would arrive home to find her buffoon of a roommate slumped on the couch, phone still in one hand and TV remote in the other. Because he also happened to be the neighborhood heartthrob, he brought home girls on many an occasion. He had been living here a couple years before Emily moved in, and now that she'd been under their shared roof for nearly eleven months, she had spent more than her fair share of nights trying to muffle the sounds coming through the wall. She'd used loud music, ear plugs, and the classic stuffing-your-pillow-over-your-head method. They almost never worked, but she put up with Mike and his apparently magnetic, girl-attracting dick anyway because the rent was cheap.
She was fine with it, as long as he never tried to make a move on her, of course. She didn't exactly… swing that way.
Emily stepped out of her room and went across the hall to Mike's door. She pressed her ear to the hollow wood and heard muffled talking. Maybe he was Skyping his mom again or something? Setting her face into a nonchalant expression, she nudged open the door and right away the voices trickled to a halt.
There her roommate was, with his usual tousled brown hair and a light coating of stubble along his jaw and chin. His mouth was frozen in an O-shape as his eyes spotted Emily.
Sitting on the bed with him was one of the most captivating girls Emily had ever seen. Her hair was long, dyed a pale beige blonde with darker roots. It cascaded down her back and shoulders in messy waves. She had a nice face of makeup, though her lipstick was smudged from what was no doubt a nice spit-swapping session with Michael. This was evidenced by the slight ring of pink around his mouth.
The girl was staring straight at Emily and not even bothering with any of the typical reactions. Usually when Emily accidentally walked in on Mike and a girl— this happened quite a lot, due to her being shit at detecting sex sounds through a door, Mike being shit at leaving a warning on the door, or maybe, deep down, Emily wanted to see just who he brought home that night, because Mike Munroe never brought home just any Ugly Betty— the stranger would scowl at her for interrupting them, or would glance from Emily to Mike, or otherwise do something to show she couldn't care less about Emily.
But this girl tonight was vastly different. Not only was her appearance more striking, but her fixation on Emily was not one of annoyance or anger. The best way Emily's awful face reading skills could label this girl's face was relieved, of all things.
"Uh— Em." Mike cleared his throat, lifting his hand in a casual wave.
"Hey," she tried to say, but her voice stumbled and faltered, still trying to find its footing like a newborn fawn.
Mike's eyes flashed from one girl to the other, then he went on, "So… you're back early."
She leaned heavily on the doorframe. "Oh, yeah. Um… it was… it didn't— end well, so they just sent us back home. My partner was stupid, and… yeah…" She wasn't even sure why she'd gone on about work as long as she did. It had been made clear long ago that Mike didn't care about anyone or anything except for himself and getting lucky at least five nights a week.
Then silence fell on them like a suffocating blanket. Both Mike and Emily shifted uncomfortably, her waiting for the usual dismissal— and, just possibly, an introduction to the third occupant of the room.
"Well," Mike said after half a minute, "this is… Jessica." He jabbed a thumb in the blonde girl's direction. "Jess… Emily."
Emily dragged her gaze back over toward this Jess. Getting a better look at her, Em quickly realized that Jess wasn't exactly a girl Mike had picked up from the bar. She was wearing just a sheer white t-shirt over lacy black lingerie. There were no clothes discarded on the floor, meaning that was all she had arrived in, probably by taxi or Uber or something. Some type of 1-800-Prostitute service. Was there an app for that now? That definitely seemed like something Mike would invest in.
Emily swallowed hard and said a meek "hi" at the same time a far more exuberant "hey!" exploded from Jess. The two of them stared at each other a few seconds more, while Mike's puzzled frown deepened.
After an eon or two, Emily stammered something vaguely resembling "See you later" before closing the door.
For a long while, too long of a while, Emily sat against the wall next to Mike's door. She wasn't sure what it was about Jess that got under her skin, but she couldn't get that soft, grinning face out of her mind. Emily could look at anything else in the hallway: the light fixture, her bedroom door, the threadbare carpet she was curling her toes into, and still her mind would drift to those shiny gems of green eyes.
When she checked her phone, it had been almost twenty-five minutes of her just sitting there contemplating the unreachable things in life. The nosiest part of her urged her to listen through her roommate's door again, but the moral side of her begged to differ. She ended up changing into her pajamas, wiping off most of her makeup, and lazily unpacking her things behind the closed door of her bedroom. As an extra caution measure, she kept her earbuds in and the music's volume high.
She emerged from her sanctuary at around eleven p.m. to rummage through the fridge for something edible Mike might've left behind. She didn't get her hopes up, because to him the definition of "oh yeah, I saved some pizza for you" was half a slice that was mostly floury crust.
Emily was almost elbows deep in the gently humming fridge, shoving aside beer cans and the like in pursuit of an old Tupperware container. When she finally got ahold of it, it turned out to be reddish mush that might have once been spaghetti. With a grimace, she turned to scrape the baby food-lookalike into the trash, only to be assaulted in the nicest way possible.
Standing casually in the entrance to the dark kitchen was Mike's one-night-stand lady friend. Her face was illuminated in the fading light of the fridge, until the door shut on its own and plunged them back in darkness.
"Is it your cheat day?" Jess hummed teasingly. Emily could hear her stride closer, and right on cue her heartrate began to pick up speed as if it was in a race.
Logic was not with Emily tonight. She nearly dropped the entire container into the garbage can. Her words trembled on the way up her throat. "Umm… every day's my cheat day," she replied while trying to match the girl's playful tone. She ended up sounding more defensive than amused.
Jess didn't speak for a few seconds, presumably waiting for Emily to turn away from the trash bin. Once she had dumped the empty container in the sink, Emily opened up the fridge again and was greeted once more by that gorgeous face, now in closer proximity than before.
"You have midnight snacks often?" Jess asked. Her voice remained low and sultry. Emily wondered if keeping up that tone was under the girl's "job" contract.
"I… try not to," Em answered honestly. "But hey, if there's no diet to follow in the first place, then… what the hell."
Jesus, even the girl's laugh was pretty. Light and airy, like swimming in clouds. Those giggles were music Emily would gladly listen to any day.
"Right, right. I would indulge, but… I do have a figure to maintain."
Emily paused. The cool air of the fridge did nothing to ease the sudden heat in her cheeks which was brought on by the word "figure." Just that tiny mention was enough to send Emily's sexually deprived mind wandering.
At last, she discovered half of a turkey sandwich wrapped in tin foil. A quick sniff test proved it eatable, and although it was soaked in mayo and definitely something the entirety of her privileged family would recoil from, it was food and Emily didn't hesitate in taking a big bite.
Still Jess watched her through the rapidly decreasing sliver of light from the fridge. Any other person might've found what she was doing creepy, but no alarm bells were ringing in Emily's head. She just quietly munched her sandwich and waited for their so far minimal conversation to resume.
"So… are you and Mike, like… an on-and-off kind of thing?"
Of all questions, Emily didn't expect that one. Mike seriously didn't tell her Emily was just a roommate? Ah, classic him.
"No, no, not at all." Emily shook her head quickly, wanting to wretch at the thought. "We're just roommates, I promise. I've been living here a little under a year, but nothing has ever happened between us. Really."
As Emily's eyes readjusted to the darkness, she saw the silhouette of Jessica's head nod. "Oh, cool. Cool." There was a sizeable pause, then the other girl abruptly stated, "I— I haven't even slept with him."
"Oh?" This piqued Emily's interest. The rest of the words came tumbling out before her brain could put a stop to them. "But isn't that, like, your job?" She swallowed her food. "Bone the dude, get paid, be gone by morning?"
There was a shift in mood after that. The other girl's words became terser. "No. I mean. I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"Hey." Jess crossed her arms. "This is… was… kind of my first gig, or job, or whatever you call it."
Emily chewed thoughtfully before responding. "So what went wrong?"
"I wimped out. I got here and we kissed for a while, then… you opened the door and—" Her voice cut off with a sharp breath, as if she'd gotten winded. "I guess… I had a moment of realization, like, 'what am I doing here?'"
"And what's the answer to that? Why are you a… hooker?"
Emily squinted and saw the girl visibly wince at the word. "To pay for college. I got in a few years late, and I still don't have the money for it. I'm drowning in student loan debt. My one ex told me I'd be a good hit-it-and-quit-it kind of gal, so, well… I thought, what the hell. Now I kinda wish I could turn back the clock to before I made that choice." A grim laugh rose up from her again, but was short-lived. "Because… I just don't know if I have it in me to sleep with people and then never see them again."
"Why?"
"Why? I mean… I guess I like longer-term things. I like getting to know a person. And I think… I wimped out with your roommate because when I saw your face, I realized that… you're one of those people I wanna get to know better. Does that make sense?"
A half-grin curled up one end of Emily's lips. She polished off the sandwich and set the wrapper on the counter. "Yeah. I guess that explains why you've spilled so much to me when I don't even know your last name."
"Riley," Jess said. The name was barely a whisper on her lips. "Jess Riley." She stuck out a hand and Emily shook it. "I think it's time we formally meet."
"Emily Davis. Pleasure is mine," Emily said with a touch of sarcasm that drew out Jessica's beautiful laugh again.
Quiet began to fall on them again, but Jess didn't let it get too far. Now she started sounding confident again, and that was much more fitting for her. "You know, if I decide to keep this up, my service isn't limited to men."
Her statement was so suggestive; Emily practically broke a sweat. It felt like firecrackers were going off in her chest.
"You could really tell that easily I'm gay?" Emily chuckled. "Not too shabby. I would take you up on your offer, but…"
In the dim light, she could see Jessica's face fall slightly. The flicker of confidence was still in her eyes, though whatever Emily said next would surely control whether it got extinguished or not.
"… I'm not really into the whole one-night stand thing, either. You're someone I'd like to get to know better too."
As Emily finished, the other girl's bright smile chased away some of the darkness. In a split second, Jess had moved in close to her. Emily knew what was coming next, and a small ounce of panic erupted in her stomach.
"I— I'd love to, but… my breath probably smells like mayo—"
The words died on her tongue as two gentle fingers were pressed against Emily's mouth. "That's fine," Jess whispered. That was the last thing Emily heard before their lips collided and she was launched into a world of bliss.
When they separated, both had shy grins gracing their faces. Emily couldn't quite fathom what to say, but luckily Jess had her covered.
"How does coffee in the morning sound?"
"Sounds like a plan," Emily agreed. With that, the pair retreated to Em's room and talked until their lips were too tired to move. They fell asleep with their fingers woven together and lips tasting of each other.