Marriage of Unconvenience

“She has a spreadsheet, everyone,” I said, and she smacked me in the shoulder with said spreadsheet.

“Who are you talking to?” she said, unfolding the spreadsheet and glancing at it.

“No one,” I said as the doorbell rang. I almost tripped and died about three times before I made it downstairs to get the door open to find Ansel, Jason, Anh, Jamie and Cedar.

“Our bodies are yours,” Jason said, spreading his arms out.

“What the hell are you wearing?” His outfit consisted of a blue polo shirt and black yoga pants, but the real oddity was the sweatband on his head.

“These are my moving clothes,” he said, looking down.

“Fair enough.” Everyone else piled into the house.

“I brought candy,” Ansel said, holding up a bag.

“I didn’t know we were supposed to bring anything,” Jamie said. “I would have brought something if I’d known I was supposed to.”

“No, no, we didn’t need anyone to bring anything. Other than themselves,” I said, hoping to stop Jamie from panicking. He had a hard time in social situations if he didn’t know what the expectations were ahead of time.

“Okay, good,” he said, leaning against a box. “Don’t scare me like that, Ansel.”

Ansel looked sheepish and held up the bag.

“Chocolate?”

“Absolutely,” Jamie said, sticking his hand in the bag and then noisily unwrapping one of the candy bars he unearthed.

“So I’ve assigned you all certain rooms that I’m calling zones,” Cara said, and we all looked at each other.

“Care, we don’t have to –”

“Ansel, you are red, which is the kitchen zone,” she continued without even noticing me, “Anh, you’re blue, bathroom zone, Jamie and Cedar, you are yellow which is bedroom zone, Jason, you are green, which is living room zone.” We all saluted her.

“And what about me?” I asked, a little sad to not be assigned a zone.

“You’re green with Jason,” she said, not looking up from her spreadsheet. I needed to get her a clipboard one of these days. She definitely needed a clipboard.

“And you?” I asked, and she finally looked up.

“I’m head supervisor,” she said, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder.

“Oh, are you now?” I said.

“Damn right. Who else is gonna manage this mess?” As if they’d heard her, there was the sound of a box being dropped none to gently on the floor in another room and a loud “ooops” that followed.

“Remind me why we invited them over?” she said as she dashed off to see what had happened.

“Because we needed the help?” I called after her, but she didn’t hear me.

“Hey, Jason, you ready?” He flexed and let out a grunt.

“Let’s do this,” he said in his Batman voice.

“Please don’t do the voice. I can’t take you seriously when you do the voice,” I said as we looked at the array of boxes.

“You just don’t appreciate the voice,” he said in his regular voice.

“Okay, we need to get started or else Cara is going to come back in here and crack the whip.” Jason sighed.

“I’m guessing not in the fun way.” I snorted and bent down to read what was written on the closest box to me in Cara’s immaculate penmanship.

“No, probably not,” I said. I didn’t want to think about Cara and whips in that way. It was too weird.

“Okay, this one is blue,” I said, trying to pick it up, finding it far too heavy. “Jesus, what does she have in here?”

Jason closed his green eyes and put his hand on the box, and then froze, as if he was trying to listen or something.

“I’m going to say books? I’m feeling books. Definitely a books vibe,” he said, nodding.

“You are such a dork, but could you lift that for me?” I asked. Jason was a total doll, good-looking as hell, and nice on top of it. If I liked men even a little bit, I would want to date him.

“Of course,” he said, easily hauling the box into his arms and taking it back to the bedroom. Cara was in the kitchen with Ansel and they were definitely having a debate about something. Good grief, they were quite the pair sometimes. They only ever pretended to fight and never actually fought. More often than not, one of their fake fights ended when they both started laughing at the same time.