“Your brother,” I said, careful not to say his name. “Why did he come over?”
“God, who knows, probably just to torture me,” Rebecca said. She shook her head and her expression turned bitter. “He always holds that card over my head – Mom and Dad paid for our security deposit, and he thinks that gives him rights to our apartment!”
I frowned.
“We should just find a way to pay them back,” Rebecca said. “That way, he’d have no reason whatsoever to come over.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, really? Does it bother you that much?”
“Doesn’t it bother you? Those gross men with their sense of entitlement,” Rebecca said, taking a long sip of her wine. “They just barge right in, eat our food, and kick their dirty feet up on my couch,” she said. “It’s disgusting.”
“Maybe he just wants to find a way to be closer,” I said cautiously. “I know you guys haven’t ever been close.”
“Yeah, it’s because he’s always been a pig,” Rebecca said. “If I had a dollar for all the times he cracked a joke about me being a lesbian, I’d have enough money to pay off my parents right now.”
I frowned. “That is rude,” I said. “But it’s just like kids teasing kids, you know? Like back in middle school, when everyone called each other a fag.”
“Well, it’s rude and I don’t like it,” Rebecca said. “Besides, it’s not true. I just don’t have time for a boyfriend.”
“I know,” I said. “I don’t really, either. I mean, I shouldn’t. I should really be focusing on my work at school.”
Rebecca gave me an odd look. “You don’t need a boyfriend to have sex, Molly. Maybe that would be good for you.”
“What, exactly?”
Rebecca flushed. “Don’t make me say it out loud, Molly.”
“No, I mean, I don’t understand what you’re talking about. What is it?”
“Have you ever heard of…friends with benefits?”
I flushed hotly. “No.”
“It means friends who have sex, that’s all.”
“So, like a boyfriend.”
“No,” Rebecca said. She leaned in close and lowered her voice – I’d noticed that we’d begun to attract the attention of a guy sitting nearby, with dark scruff on his face
Just as I was about to ask what she meant, the scruffy guy stood up and smirked. He walked closer, standing next to Rebecca.
“Hello, ladies,” he said. “May I join you?”
Rebecca blushed. “I was just talking to my roommate,” she said.
The guy laughed. “Well, you can always talk more at home, without me,” he said. He eyed Rebecca in a way that made my stomach twist with jealousy.
“We always do,” Rebecca said.
“I’m Brian. Can I buy you a drink?”
Rebecca looked at him over the rims of her glasses. “Well, you can,” she said in a bossy sort of voice that I hadn’t ever heard before. “But I don’t know if I’ll allow you to.”
Brian laughed again. “Whoa, cheeky!” He licked his lips. “Let me guess – English major?”
Rebecca blushed and shook her fair hair. “No,” she said. “MLS in library science.”
“Ah,” Brian said.