Roger's POV

"Oh. My. God."

"I know, right? See Mimi, I told you!" I whispered furiously

"Are we dreaming?" she said, dazed

"Nope, I pinched myself like fifty times already to check." I confirmed

"Mimi!" I whispered frantically

"What Roger?" she mumbled

"You have to see this, you won't believe what I just saw!"

"Fine. But if you woke me up again just to listen to you try to play Musetta's waltz backward, then I will personally kill you."

"Is that a girl in bed with Mark?"

"We have confirmed that that is an actual human female, right?"

"Yes Roger, I mean, even though her hair is kind of covering her entire face, you can see that she has a hand right?" Mimi said exasperated

"And that is Mark?"

"Yes, Roger. Shouldn't you be glad that your best friend just got laid after almost two years?"

"Yeah, I should, just can't believe that our little Marky is growing up,"

"Aww Roger, that's actually kind of sweet-"

"I mean, I can't make fun of him anymore for that anymore"

"ROGER!" Mimi scolded

"Shhhh! Do you want to get caught spying on them?"

"You shut up, they're waking up now! Come on, let's go! And why do you care, you do that all the time! And you can stick to albino pumpkin head, okay?!" Mimi whispered

Mark's Pov

"Mark!" Rose whispered

"Hmmm?"

"Mark, pookie, wake up, I have to go, I have to go to work, I can't be late!" she said, quickly putting on her clothes, wait, POOKIE?! Was that some universally popular nickname for significant others?!

"Okay," I said, kind of hurt, was I that bad? Honestly, I didn't really remember much of the details, just that we got drunk and had sex, probably for the best though, who knows what embarrassing stuff I told her

"Here's my number!" Rose said, scribbling down her number on a random piece of paper with a pen she found "Call me! Bye!" she said hurriedly and rushed out

"Bye!" I said, I looked at the piece of paper that she shoved into my hand, it said: 'Your girlfriend, or just person you fucked, whatever, check one, last night was great, don't worry, I know that you have a wimpy, sad excuse for an ego, your roommate sounds like a jerk, and I know all we did last night was have sex, which means I should probably ghost you, but you seemed cute, so… meet again at my place later at 4:30?', followed by her address and phone number, and "Love, Rose", so maybe last night wasn't so horrible for her, and maybe I have a shot with this girl, and she seemed really nice and funny, with her protest stories and with this note, she left me, hmmm, 'Upper East Side', upper huh? Sounds kind of expensive, I'll ask Joanne how exactly to get there later, since it was her day off and she was coming over later today, much to Maureen's disappointment, who probably just wanted to make out with her the entire day, at the very least. Also, how did she write so much in like 30 seconds?

"Hi Joanne," I said, Maureen pouted "and of course the one and only Maureen Johnson. Come in, Roger is in his room probably making out with Mimi, they'll come out late though," a loud moan echoed through the room "or not, we decided to switch things up a bit today and instead of Captain Crunch we have Fruit Loops, right next to Angel, and there's Stoli next to Collins- "

"The best brand!" Collins yelled

"Collins honey, they're right there." Angel said, giving Collins a kiss on the cheek

"Joanne, could I talk to you for a second?" I said quietly

"Sure," she said, puzzled

"Better not steal my girlfriend Cohen!" Maureen winked, teasing me, I rolled my eyes

"I swear!" I responded

"So Mark, what do you need to talk about?" Joanne said

"Do you know where the Upper East Side is?" I asked

"Ooo fancy. It's actually quite close to where I live, it's a 20-minute bike ride from my apartment to there. Why? Meeting someone? A girlfriend perhaps?" Joanne said as she lifted an eyebrow, I have always admired people who could do that, they were usually very calm people, I groaned

"Roger told you?"

"Yup, he said and I quote 'Guess what? Mark finally got a hook-up! A chick with wavy black hair and a normal arm and hand, but for all, we know, she's disfigured', to which Maureen squealed so loud that she probably burst his eardrums, and after that, they talked about how you got her to have sex with you and the popular theory is that she probably suffered a head injury." Joanne smirked, I groaned

"That was probably a one-night stand," I lied, "I mean, half of the pity blind dates you guys set me up with stood me up, and she did not suffer any head injury as far as I know, plus she's totally normal. And no, it's not her, I'm just visiting an old college friend." I said, they would probably never get to meet her anyways, since the only girls I attract and Jewish goody-two-shoes and crazy bisexual performance artists, wait, Rose was bisexual, why do I attract bisexual people?! Does that mean I'm girly?! Mark, calm down, that's probably not how it works. RIGHT?!

"Hasn't it been like half a decade since you've left Brown?" Joanne inquired, eyebrow still perfectly poised and arched

"Yeeeeesssss," I grit out, here I was trying to lie to a lawyer "I bumped into him a week ago."

"Okay, fine, I'll back off, what time are you planning to this mystery college friend of yours?"

"Oh shit! In about an hour, how far is it from here to there on bike?"

"Um, about half an hour, but I say you better go since, you know, Roger probably blabbed it to everyone so you might want to…"

"Yes, yes, thank you so much, I'll go, right now, to make sure I get to his place on time."

"Hi, Mark!" Rose said brightly after she opened the door, oh thank god she answered, I think I might have waited half an hour at her doorstep then another few minutes just to knock on the door "Ooooo 4:30 on the dot, very punctual," she smiled "come in."

"Hi Rose, nice glasses," I said nervously, wait, what?!

"Well, sit," she said, "decided on whether or not to be my boyfriend yet?"

"Well, I would like to, but you might want to know people aren't exactly lining up to be my girlfriend, just so you know what you're getting into." I said, Rose rolled her eyes at me

"I don't like you because you're some hot hunk, I like you because you're cute, and you seem like a really nice person."

"Gee thanks," I said sarcastically

"And I really haven't dated a lot of people, and we could totally learn more about each other, starting now, how about I go first?" she offered

"Sure," I shrugged

"Okay, let's see: I'm 23, I already told you that, so check, I used to do ballet, I mean, I guess I still do it as a hobby sometimes, I don't really have a favorite color, but I guess I don't really like brown or gray? I mean different variants of brown and gray are usually very pretty, but brown and gray like plain brown and gray, nope! But I guess pink is a special color to me? Because I used to have pink hair that was shorter and only an inch longer than my shoulders, I have been wanting to cut them that short again though. My opinion on colors pretty much stands on my opinion of books, I love them all, but some are just so boring I just can't stand them, I guess I particularly like historical fiction, but only some of my favorite books are actually historical fiction, weird, but not so weird if you think about it though. My favorite food is dumplings, especially my grandmother's, but not the stupid type you see in Chinese restaurants, maybe I'll make you some the next time you come over is dinner time, I like drawing, and all the pets I ever had, had either died, ran away, gotten lost, or gotten stolen, so that's sad, oh! And I had a roommate because my life is boring and I need some roommate drama, but she left a month ago, so that was sad, and- "

"How about I talk now since you look like you might run out of breath." I teased, grinning, she was obviously a very opinionated and absolutely hilarious girl(Maureen-like girl warning! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! The warnings in my head blared), but she did look a little out of breath, how she talked that long without stopping is a mystery

"And I absolutely hate whipped cream," she said "Now, you can go"

"Um, so hobby, favorite color, books, favorite food, pets, and least favorite food?" I said, she nodded "Well my friends like say I have an obsession with my camera, and true, I do have it around me 24/7, like during the night we met, because I'm a filmmaker, and like you said; all books are good, but my favorite books when I was a kid were probably Shel Silverstein's, my favorite food is probably my mother's latkes, I had goldfish growing up, but they all died, then my older sister wanted a dog, so she got a dog, which wasn't fair, but Cindy always got what she wanted, and my least favorite at this point is Captain Crunch, because we eat it very often since we can't afford anything else, and I think I forgot favorite color, so either dark navy blue or white."

"Like your scarf," Rose said, grinning, suddenly getting very close, then she closed the gap and kissed me, which I welcomed.

We had sex on her couch that afternoon.

A/N: Not super proud of this one, but it moves the story forward and introduces you to Rose a bit. I also didn't grow up in New York, so the only evidence I have to show that the locations and time in the story are accurate is Google, but I also can't confirm these streets were established back in the 90's so... in Google we trust