With Friends Like These by Dawn Cook Read Free Book Online

With Friends Like These
     
    Dawn Cook
     
    Greg peered into the fridge, not seeing the smeared takeout boxes and stale bagels any more. Bending to the lowest shelf, he grabbed two of his room-mate’s juice bottles. The smoked glass clinked as he stood and shut the fridge, having to give it that backward kick so it wouldn’t drift open again. Joe’s music was cranked, the classical music vibrating the silverware in the rusted sink. He’d tell him to turn it down, but the only time his room-mate played the 1812 Overture was when he was trying to impress his latest girlfriend.
    Smiling faintly, Greg ran a hand over his late-night stubble and turned to the living room. Night had made the two large windows with their broken blinds into black mirrors. Shuffling to the couch, Greg twisted the cap off the first bottle and took a swig of the tomato juice/body-building protein drink before falling back into the worn leather. The smell of the puke of Joe’s girlfriend from last week puffed up, and he shifted down without a pause. Setting the second bottle on the scratched glass table, he stared at the big, blank flat-screen TV, wondering if it was worth the effort to get up and find the game controller. Though the rest of the apartment sucked, Joe had the latest and best when it came to gaming. No one could say Joe didn’t have his priorities in order.
    The music from Joe’s room started to build, right along with the feminine gasping moan, and Greg reached for the remote, turned on the TV and hit the volume to try to drown it out. Damn, he didn’t know how the guy got the girls like that. It had to be his rep because he wasn’t much to look at, thin from his running despite the high-energy protein he slammed down. Greg stood almost a foot taller than him, muscles defined from the running track in the corner, and still, when they went to the bar it was Joe who got the hot girl and he was left with her ugly room-mate.
    TV blaring, Greg wedged his steel-toed boots off and kicked them to the side where they lay, the heavy dark mud from the September rains caking off to add to yesterday’s dried clay. His gaze wandered over the pizza boxes from two weeks ago, the mismatched furniture and the bare, cold walls devoid of anything soft or clean.
    The upstairs, two-room apartment had seen too many college parties and slipshod landlords to be considered anything but a place to crash for four years and forget about. A mishmash of styles from previous tenants had left their mark. A dusty beaded lampshade from the sixties dangled over the linoleum table. Beside the corded wall phone, a fuzzy print of Elvis was scrawled with the phone numbers of girls long since having gained their diploma, fifteen pounds, a mortgage and two-point-five kids. The matted shag carpet with an ocean of sand underneath was wall-to-wall ugliness, worn to nothing by the door. This wasn’t where he was going to be for ever. It was temporary.
    Yeah, temporary, he thought, sitting up in the flabby leather cushions when the buzz from the drink began to hit him. He’d moved in with Joe almost a year ago, a fight between him and his girlfriend over “World of Warcraft” forcing the move. He had offered to make her an avatar so they could kill pigs together in the woods, but she kicked him out after one too many gaming parties with the guys. He hadn’t seen any of his old friends for months. Between classes and work, it was all Greg could do to remember to eat. Thank God for energy drinks, he thought, lifting the bottle in a silent salute.
    The moaning from Joe’s room was reaching a desperate crescendo, climaxing in time with the music – cannons, drums, horns and one frantic woman going off all at once. Greg couldn’t help his smirk. The guy had talent.
    Greg was mindlessly channel surfing when the door to Joe’s room was flung open, hitting the wall to make the dent just a little deeper. “Hey,” the lanky guy said as he crossed the living room to get to the