Before he had a roommate Spencer could expect things to be exactly how he left them when he returned home, the few times he left dishes in the sink at least he knew they were his but living with Josh was different. Josh was absent minded, though well intentioned, but he forgot things. Usually it was small things like his phone or his keys, sometimes a pair of scissors or a knife, once a pizza he left in the oven too long though luckily they were both home at the time.
The worst of it was the pot of water he left on the stove top. Spencer opened the front door of his apartment to an awful smell. “What the hell?” he said aloud as he entered, conscientious to leave the door open he went into the kitchen where he saw the pot was empty, the bottom and sides had turned white. He turned off the electric coil and moved the pot. He let out a grunt of frustration before he looked down the hallway to the closed door of Josh’s room. He started to walk but thought of a better idea so he retrieved the pot and went to his new roommate’s door. He knocked as calmly as he could bare.
“Hello?” Josh said from the other side of the door.
“Can I come in?”
“Yeah sure,” Josh said.
Spencer opened the door and looked into the room to see Josh on the floor in the middle of doing sit ups. He was shirtless and his exercise shorts were bunched down around his thighs. He looked to the young man’s muscled chest and then up to his eyes. He had seen his friends, many other men naked, in bed, during sex and the locker room but there was still something about him there, real and touchable. He fought the urge to panic but he realized he wasn’t saying anything at all. He thought about the dishes in the sink, about the mess on the coffee table.
“What’s up?” Josh asked.
Spencer held up the pot so Josh could see the insides.
“Oh crap,” Josh said, “is it bad?”
“It’s ruined,” Spencer said.
“What’s that smell?”
Spencer turned the pot in his hand.
“Really?” Josh asked.
“Poisonous too,” Spencer said. “It could have killed you.”
“Really?”
“Maybe, I don’t know. It supposedly can kill birds. That doesn’t matter. We need to talk.”
“Yeah sure,” Josh said. He began to get to his feet and Spencer turned around and walked back to the entrance where he closed the main door, returned the pot to the stove, and got a bottle of vodka and two glasses that he carried into the living room.
Moments later Josh walked into the living room wearing a sleeveless shirt and nervously biting his lip. Spencer invited him to sit down on the sofa.
How could we be so different, Spencer asked himself, but then he looked to the young man’s hands, his forearms that were muscled, hard and veiny. While I was inside on my computer he was out doing something, skateboarding, running, or playing football.
If they started to talk about sports, but more importantly teams and players Spencer knew he’d be lost and Josh would have the upper hand. He smiled at Josh who seemed equally anxious, maybe more.
Josh looked as if expected Spencer to strike him, hit him in some way, maybe a slap. Was that it? Some regular pattern of hitting the young man, yelling at him maybe, humiliating him maybe that caused him to flinch, to dread being near his boyfriend.
“You owe me a pot,” Spencer said.
“Okay,” Josh said. He reached down to his socks and pulled at them, ran his fingers up to his shorts, pulled at them.
“I’m not mad, not really, kind of annoyed,” Spencer said. “I’m pretty sure one of us could have been killed by it.”
“I wasn’t thinking. I just got into my routine. I’ll pay for a new pot.”
“Good,” Spencer said. “But uh, I think we should let the place air out. Would you want to join me for some dinner?”
“Yeah, that would be great, let me put some clothes on,” Josh said.
Josh got up and walked back to his room. Spencer heard the door close and he slapped his own forehead. The dishes, the mess, he told himself, when he comes out, when he’s got some clothes on then I’ll say something to him over dinner.
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