The Roommate Situation by Zoe X. Rider Read Free Book Online Page B

good ballgame every now and then, but I don’t need to be surrounded by sports 24/7.”
    “My dad only gets into basketball,” I say.
    “What do you get into?”
    “Music. I used to play soccer, and it was fun, but I’d rather play guitar.”
    “I was in Little League for a while,” he says, and I can picture that, him with a plastic batting helmet on, tapping the end of the bat against home plate, lifting it up over his shoulder, squinting into the sun: ten-year-old Derek McClain with a number on his shirt, waiting for the pitch. I bet he spit in the dirt too.
    “I liked it,” he says, “but my dad’s shift changed. Getting a ride became a pain in the ass.”
    “I stayed in soccer until I didn’t make the team in high school.” I don’t remember rides being an issue; if my mom couldn’t make it, Jamie Douglas’s mom could. Or Taylor’s. Or anyone else on the team. “Where was your mom?” I ask.
    He flutters his fingers in the air. Then he switches his toothpick back to the other side of his mouth and gets to his feet. “Break’s over. Back to the books.”
    “I haven’t finished my beer.”
    He smiles as he says, “Guess you’ll have to chug it.”
    I follow him over the lip of the can, watching him return to his side of the room, his boots still on from going out to get the beer.
    * * * *
    A beer and a half isn’t enough for this, but my confidence is bolstered—or my sanity is shot—by successfully completing and even, I think, understanding two chapters of astronomy, so once Derek’s settled on the floor with his back against my locker again, I go ahead and say it: “You should take photos of people wearing your stuff. It’d sell better.”
    He scratches his neck. “What, like a guy holding up his shirt so you can see his belt?”
    “Maybe not the belts.”
    “Pulling a wallet out of his pocket?”
    “The other stuff,” I say. I know he’s just fucking with me.
    He says, “Ah.”
    The beer can’s denting a little under my fingers, but I’ve gone this far. “The chest harness, at least,” I say. “It just looks like spaghetti lying there on the poster board or whatever.”
    His eyebrows lift.
    “Chuck had your eBay seller name. His tutor knows you or something.”
    “So you all had a good look, huh?” He pushes to his feet, sliding back up the locker just like he’d slid down.
    I shrug a little, feeling like an asshole. Not like I’ve been an asshole, but how he could see it as I’ve been an asshole. “It’s just stuff,” I say. “He just showed us the screen, and then we went on talking about something else.” I hit surer footing there. “That’s one thing about Chuck—he doesn’t stay on any one subject more than a minute. Anyway, it was before you told me you made that stuff, so I didn’t even know if it was really true. That it was you, I mean. It could have been anybody’s account.”
    Derek crushes his empty can and says, “Well, back to work. See you in another hour.”
    “I’m supposed to be buying a round, right?” I lean forward, looking into Derek’s area.
    “You can buy the next six-pack.”
    “You’ll have to use your connection.”
    “Not a problem,” he says.
    “Thanks.”
    “Get to work.”
    * * * *
    At the next break, he pours his beer into a plastic cup, running it down the inside so it doesn’t foam. He has an unlit cigarette between his teeth instead of a toothpick. Getting out of the room for a few minutes sounds like a fine idea to me, so I swallow the last of the water at the bottom of my Richland Rockets cup and fill it with beer.
    The evening had turned dark. Only a few stars bother to twinkle through the clouds. The air has a chill to it, but it feels good after being cooped up inside. We’re technically standing off campus, but just.
    “So,” I say, “did you really luck out and get a room to yourself? Before I showed up, that is.”
    He taps ash off his cigarette. “I was supposed to have a roommate, but he never