26

Ryan

A Glittery, Fucking Nightmare

The door swung open and I restrained the anticipation. While Kassie went hunting for her book, I wanted to scan the dorm and get all the information I could out of it. This was better than the memory packet. A grin crossed my face as the door creaked and bumped against the wall.

The grin disappeared. I held out a hand and stopped the door from swinging back at me.

"What the hell?" I muttered under my breath, stepping inside.

This place is a fucking nightmare.

The locker rooms, the lounges at the training center, my own dorm, were all things I prided myself on for being presentable. It was part of keeping everything together. It was part of being one of the top football teams in the nation and part of how we would win the Birchwood Bowl.

Their dorm was about as far as you could get from that.

Zariah sat at the kitchen bar with her laptop. She leaned over the column to look at me. "Hey, Ryan! Welcome to hell."

There wasn't a better description.

Stuffed animals hung off the tallest part of the wall, halfway held up by nails as long as my thumb. Rusty stop signs and road signs were tacked on the other side, lopsided. Every electronic device either flickered or made a noise it shouldn't have been. The door to the guest bathroom had a huge, gaping hole punched into it where a door knob used to be, a slight burning smell was emitting from the TV with half of a black screen, and a unicycle was propped up against it with its tire blown out.

Beyond that was the paint. Paint everywhere. Paint tossed on the walls, splattered on any of the thousands of things that'd been taped up, paint sloshed out to the floor and dried over time. And the papers. The fucking papers all over the place, stuffed in every crevice imaginable.

"Kassie and I are innocent," Zariah told me while I walked into the kitchen.

The sink had two enormous tubs of what looked like clothes getting dyed. Every cabinet hung open on broken hinges. Empty. Not even dust in there. The fridge light sputtered when I opened it but the only things inside were boxes of craft supplies.

"It's month-to-month rent," Zariah tried to explain. "New people come in all the time and fuck it up. We tried to keep up with it but Kassie was working so much and I'm not taking my dad's money right now. We've given up. But the rent's cheap."

One of the drawers was named ‘knives' and when I tugged it open, it crashed to the ground, empty. I glanced up at Zariah, beyond words.

She winced. "Don't touch the ‘knives' drawers. That's our code. That means they're not working right."

Seven of the fucking drawers were ‘knives' drawers.

"Jesus fucking Christ," I muttered, taking a wide sweep of the room. Everywhere I looked was a new shock to my system. The clutter. The fucking clutter.

"I think they took my art history book again," Kassie swore, emerging out of her bedroom, and crossed to the separate bedrooms on the other side of the living room. She gave me a quick glance and groaned. "Oh my god, Ryan. Can't you just wait outside?"

Slowly, I shook my head, and Kassie sighed, heading off to search.

There were so many papers around, it wasn't hard to find a clean one and a ballpoint pen, stuffed in a broken umbrella stand. I walked over to Zariah and held them out. "What are you doing?"

"Right now?" She glanced down at her laptop. "RA interview prep?"

I gave her the paper and pen and slid over a hard book from the microwave to use as a clipboard. I needed my hands free for the phone call.

Miles picked up on the third ring. "What's up?"

"Are you the one with my toolbox?"

I had a professional grade toolbox from my dad after he retired but I passed it around the football team for anyone that needed it. Miles was damn handy, but he still needed to pick up his own tools from back home, and I was pretty sure he'd been using mine.

"Yeah. Do you need it?"

"Can you do a full check?"

There was some rustling and it took a minute for Miles to return to the conversation. "You want to know what's missing?"

"Yeah."

Inevitably, shit disappeared. But it never bothered me. As long as the guys got some use out of it, I'd keep it around.

"The adjustable wrench is missing."

"Got it." I motioned to Zariah. "Adjustable wrench." When she cocked her head at me, confused, I tapped the paper. "Adjustable wrench."

Zariah jotted it down.

"You have the ten-inch but you need the eight-inch pliers."

"Eight-inch pliers," I told Zariah. I nodded along, listening intently. "Spare blades for the utility knife. What size putty knives are left? I need a four-inch." Walking over to the fridge, I pressed my knuckles against the button for the ice dispenser. Nothing. "Zariah, turn the paper over. Write ice dispenser at the top."

"Understood, Mr. Intense."

I opened the fridge again, frowning. "Write groceries at the bottom."

"Heard loud and clear."

"Garbage disposal isn't working," I continued, flipping the switch back and forth. "Miles, have you fixed one of those?"

"Depends on what the problem is," he replied. "It could be jammed or could be a faulty motor. Flywheel could be stuck. What about the sink itself? Have you checked underneath?"

I crouched down and opened the cabinet doors. "Fuck. The bottom of the sink is missing most of the washers—there's just fucking duct tape down here."

"Ryan, where are you?" Miles asked, mystified.

"I'm in hell. And it's held up by duct tape."

Footsteps came back from the other bedrooms while I inspected the drawers, pulling them out one by one. "Z, what is he doing?"

"I think he's hosting a home improvement show."

I frowned, sliding my hand along the side of the drawer. "I need wood glue, Zariah. I don't have wood glue."

"Ryan, you have things to do. Let's skedaddle," Kassie said. In reality, she was telling me that I needed to get out of her dorm.

Walking back to the wall, I counted the holes and the random, protruding nails. "Miles, have you done drywall before?"

"Yeah."

"Are you free Sunday?"

" Ryan ." Kassie stood in front of me and fished out her phone. "Look."

I ignored her, still counting the holes in the wall.

"I have this whole plan for fixing this place," she insisted. "I just got paid, and I had to pay off some credit card bills, but I'm getting paid next Thursday and—"

"Art girl," I interrupted, "have you used joint compound before?"

"Joint what?"

"How many ice machines have you fixed?"

"None, but—"

"Do you know what you need to buy to repair those drawers?"

A flush crept up her neck. "I—uh—no, but—"

"Thank you. Your help isn't needed." I stepped away from my stunned girlfriend and spoke into the phone. "Miles, what time can you make it on Sunday? I won't lie to you. This'll take a couple of Sundays."

"Cleo has an early-morning meeting," Miles replied.

"Good, I'll call King. We fixed up his mom's shed together."

Turning back, I could clearly see Kassie trying to work through this new project of figuring out how to stop me. But that wasn't happening. They could keep all the art crap, I didn't care, but the exposed wires, damaged appliances, and fucked-up shit couldn't hang around any longer. Without a doubt, I knew I was coming back to this dorm. I wouldn't do it, grimacing the entire time and carefully stepping around to avoid getting electrocuted.

"Do you want to see the shower?" Zariah asked from the counter and Kassie whipped back so fast, her braids flew behind her.

"No, he does not ."

"Ryan, you need to see the shower."

"You're dead to me." Kassie scowled at her roommate.

"I'll get over it. I want the shower fixed."

I glanced between both of the girls. "What about the shower?"

"Nope." Kassie shook her head. She tossed her sketchbook to the kitchen counter and backed up to the door that led to the only bathroom in their hazard of a living space. "This is where I draw the line."

"What's in there, art girl?"

"Not a thing. It's an empty room."

"He wants to do free labor," Zariah huffed. "Let the man!"

"Kassie, what's wrong with the shower? "

I walked over to the door and pushed it open behind her. There wasn't even a door handle. Kassie couldn't hope to keep me out of it. I nudged her aside and stepped into a bathroom filled with art and glitter and stickers, but it was the fucking shower that made my mouth fall open.

"What the fuck? " I demanded.

The shower knob was gone. The only thing left was a pressure balancing valve, moved simply by a pair of rusty pliers. A pair of rusty pliers? What if someone dropped the pliers and Kassie scratched herself with them? I left the bathroom as soon as I stepped in, overwhelmed with the idea of Kassie getting hurt inside her own dorm. Where I couldn't keep an eye on her.

"Kassandra Rager," I breathed through my nose. "What were you thinking? "

Slowly, her eyes flashed between me and Zariah. "Did you…just call me Kassandra?"

"This is unacceptable." I strode up to her, and she watched me, surprised. "What if someone dropped them—what if you dropped them? What if you scratched yourself with them? What if you got hurt?" I crossed the distance between us. I needed her to understand how serious this was. "In the shower, Kassie? Where you're—" Naked. Completely fucking naked. "—without clothes. Goddamn, what were you thinking? "

For once, she had nothing to say. In fact, the irritation swept away. Kassie gazed up at me. Quiet.

"I should've known about this before," I said. "You should've told me."

Her breathing slowed.

"I would've fixed this on the first day, " I finished, bringing the phone back to my ear. "Miles, we're not doing this Sunday. We'll start tomorrow. And I'll be here tonight."

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Kassie break out of the frozen stature and grab her roommate, dragging her over to the bathroom.

"Just to be clear, I consider this all your fault."

"Girl, be realistic." Zariah sighed. "I'm tired of the pliers."

Kassie and Zariah continued bickering while I took a long look at the shopping list on the counter, next to Kassie's sketchbook. Miles added to the list and I scribbled down the last of it, half-listening to the argument in the bathroom.

My girlfriend wouldn't be living in a place like this. No fucking way.

"Because it'll cost him money! That's why!" I could hear Kassie snap.

"If he wants to blow a stack, let him! You're barely in the dorm anyway!"

I focused on Miles, talking about the possible ways to fix the garbage disposal. My eyes wandered over to Kassie's sketchbook, the only thing she would be taking because she couldn't find the art history book.

A paper poked out from the others. I didn't hesitate. I flipped it open.

Kassie .

She must've drawn it while looking at a mirror. The paper was covered in little sketches of Kassie trying out different expressions, scrawling notes in the corner. The one at the bottom was the one I focused on. It was Kassie with her hair down. It tumbled over her shoulder in dark waves. Her face was soft. Her lips parted. The description said neutral but my fingers curled into my palms, gazing down at it.

"Ryan?" Miles's voice cut through the haze.

"Yeah?" I pulled the loose paper from the sketchbook and folded it, slipping it into my back pocket. "Sorry, what did you say?"

"I said I'm available tomorrow."

"Good to hear." I ended the phone call just as Kassie walked up to the kitchen counter. She wasn't irritated anymore. Her eyes kept flickering back to me, reluctantly defeated in the fight against upgrading her dorm.

"Oh my god, Ryan." She frowned. "You have my book ."

Kassie was right. The one I'd passed over to Zariah to use as a clipboard was her art history book. "It was in the microwave."

"Christ," Kassie muttered, taking it from me. She held the front door open for me. And we did have to go.

"If there's any more surprises, I want to hear them," I reminded her.

She didn't say anything. In the elevator, Kassie rocked back on her sneakers. She stole a look at me and turned just as quickly when she saw me, gazing at her too.

"I have to pay for something," she finally insisted. "I can't let you pay for all of this."

The answer was easy. "No."

"Compromise, Ryan. The thing you're working on."

I shifted back, thinking it over. I wouldn't accept her money. As hard as she wanted to fight about it, it wasn't happening. But I could take something else from her. "You're going to start calling me baby."

Kassie didn't say anything but I could feel her surprise in the cramped space.

"It'll sound better for the cameras," I informed her and stepped out of the elevator.