To the Attic!

Bryan leaned against a column, forehead sweaty and eyes unfocused but pointed at the floor. It was nearly excruciating, the forced stillness necessary to withstand the long flight, and now this mass of people rushing towards him. He felt incapable of picking the girl out from the crowd and for a moment had given up trying, but realizing how foolishly irrational this sort of behavior was, he tugged his shirtsleeve over his hand and used it to wipe off his forehead, then resumed scanning the crowd. And there she was.

Gray pocketbook swinging back and forth against her left hip as she walked towards him, he and Marie looked at each other with relief. She sighed loudly before wrapping her arms around him, a gesture he returned somewhat tentatively. Drawing back, she laughed as she noted the tension in his face and they smiled at each for a moment before walking to the baggage claim, where he soon picked out his black shoulder bag. Then they were off, Marie weaving quickly between the cars in the packed parking lot until unlocking a small, beat-up looking red one. She gestured to him to put his bag in the backseat and sat behind the wheel, popping the passenger side door open.

Bryan hurriedly took his seat and swung the door closed as Marie started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. "Thirty minutes to my house," she said. Bryan nodded and stretched out his legs as far as possible in the cramped passenger seat. An awkward silence soon turned comfortable as they wound down streets familiar to them both and a conversation began about the small changes he noted in the surrounding landscape. She pointed out the sites of recent forest fires as he somewhat self-consciously described roadkill he had walked by on his way home the previous day. Once they were actually talking the drive went by quickly and they were soon parked in front of an apartment building covered in chipped blue paint, Bryan's black bag slung over Marie's shoulder, despite his protests. Odd stains encircling sun-bleached children's toys dotted the sidewalk leading towards the doorway.

His pupils dilated as she led him up the dark staircase to her attic apartment. She unlocked the door and swung it open; the apartment was equally dark, until she walked several feet into it and drew back a curtain he had been unable to make out, flooding the room with light.Bryan blinked rapidly, adjusting to the sudden brightness, then surveyed the room they were now in: a small combination living room/kitchen containing three beaten-up looking armchairs, a large rug spread across the wooden floor and an enormous trunk apparently doubling as a coffee table. Built-in shelves lined two of the walls, shelves filled with what looked to be a wide assortment of precariously stacked junk. From where he was standing he could see into a bedroom just off of the living room, empty aside from a bare mattress, as well as down a hallway in the right wall of which was set a doorway, presumably leading to another bedroom. At the end of the hall was a bathroom.

Marie walked into the nearly-empty bedroom and set Bryan's bag on the floor next to the mattress. He followed, stepping inside the room and looking around curiously at the blank white walls, pale green window curtain and brown-carpeted floor. "This is where you'll be staying, obviously. It's pretty bare, but you're welcome to drag home any furniture you take a liking to--or any people," she said, one eyebrow raised. Bryan rolled his eyes good-naturedly and she went off to make coffee, leaving him alone to make up the bed and unpack. The rest of the day was fairly relaxed given that he was planning on staying for at least a month, having rented out his room in a house nearly eight hours north of there and lacking any real plans for the rest of the winter. They started passing a bottle of wine back and forth a little after dark and were soon speaking companionably of their lives since they had last seen each other. Comfortable silence followed bursts of conversation, but when Bryan got up to use the bathroom Marie groaned and pushed her face into her hands.

Jesus Christ, she thought to herself. She had lived with him before--briefly and with several other roommates--and had been attracted to him from the start, an attraction she had not managed, as she usually could, to suppress as he became more familiar to her. The sense of his awkwardness and reservation grew stronger, and with it her desire to break through that. She thought she could manage quite well, if only she could get the courage to make the first move and at least momentarily brush aside the fear of the attraction not being mutual. It seemed just as likely that it was as that it wasn't; with Bryan, it was more or less impossible to judge.

At this point that she at least try seemed more important than the possible negative consequences, however. She had spent far too much time picturing her former roommate's lips, slightly rough looking from his habit of biting them nervously, his prominent Adam's apple, pale, flat chest and bony hips to justify inaction.

Marie raised her head as she heard the bathroom door click open and smiled to herself, amused by the ridiculousness of her dilemma, turning towards Bryan as he sat down beside her. She smiled more broadly as he tilted his head back to drink from the half-empty wine bottle. Several hours later it was completely empty and rolling from one end of the rug to the other as they gave up a drunken attempt to listen to music using a damaged computer speaker, a personal CD player and a cord for connecting one to the other.

"Ah well. I'm exhausted--what were you going to put on anyway? Some of that twee you like so much? Would've knocked me right out."
"Shut up!" Marie nearly yelled, punching him in the shoulder.
"Ow!" Bryan rubbed his upper arm. "Alright, alright, I'm sorry."
"Right you are. Now, I suppose I'm pretty exhausted as well. It is late, we should go to sleep."
"Alright then. Goodnight." Her eyes widened slightly as he leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. "Goodnight," she returned, voice even, smiling at his back as he walked into the bedroom and curled up on the bed, pulling a blanket over himself as he settled into place. Marie stood and pulled the bedroom door closed, then headed for her own bedroom, feeling both pleased and impatient.