Roomies

“Honey.” Robert stands, rounding his desk to take his husband’s elbow. “Let’s all take a moment to breathe.”

Jeff wheels on him. “You’re not seriously going to let her go through with this.”

Robert throws his hands up. “What do you want me to say?”

“That she needs to undo this immediately?”

I point to my chest. “Hi. Grown woman, standing right here.”

I feel Calvin shift behind me. “I am really sorry that we didn’t involve you in the decision—”

“But it wasn’t up to him,” I interrupt, glancing over my shoulder before looking back at my uncles. “I made it clear Calvin can handle his family, I can handle mine.”

Robert looks up at me, eyes searching. “You’re legally married?”

I nod.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this.” Jeff closes his eyes and takes a calming breath before reaching for his coat and folding it over his arm. “I’m going home to take a bottle of blood pressure medicine and try not to call your mother—my sister—who will want to kill me when she finds out.” Turning to Robert, he adds, “We’ll discuss this when you get home. Which—considering you have a new guitarist—will be early today.”

Robert nods obediently and walks Jeff into the hallway. While he tells him goodbye—speaking too softly for us to hear—Calvin and I share a grimace.

That could have gone better.

With Jeff gone, Robert closes the door and moves to his desk, motioning for us to take the seats opposite him. Hands folded neatly on the chaos of portfolios and résumés in front of him, he looks crankily at each of us in turn. “Okay. You did this, so we may as well deal with it.”

I . . . think we pulled it off?

I mean, Robert is furious with me—with both of us—but I’m not homeless or on a plane back to Des Moines, so I’m calling it a win. Best of all? Calvin has officially been offered the part for Possessed and even if Robert won’t admit outright that he’s ecstatic, he’s droopy with obvious relief. After we’d gone over the details, he called in the rest of the team. He was practically vibrating with creative energy. I did that.

Mission accomplished.

But we aren’t done yet. Despite his anger at all of us, Jeff still forwarded the email he got from Sam Dougherty, his childhood friend who now works at USCIS—US Citizenship and Immigration Services. That’s heartening, at least. But my mood wilts when I count the number of attachments; it feels like there are a thousand forms for us to fill out.

Calvin and I spend the rest of the morning gathering birth certificates and medical records and copying them in triplicate. By that afternoon, the coffee table is stacked with tidy piles of official documents. We haven’t even started the process of filling anything out yet, and my brain is goo.

Calvin finds me blinking into the open kitchen cabinet, staring at the mugs there. I was listening to an audiobook as I put dishes away and boom—surreal slaps me across the face: I see Calvin’s Juilliard mug on the shelf next to the one Davis gave me for Christmas last year that reads WORLD’S MOST OKAYEST SISTER.

“Everything all right?” he asks, eyeing me.

“Just having a momentary freak-out. I’m great now.”

Calvin laughs. “I hear that.” He picks up an apple, absently polishing it with the hem of his T-shirt. I keep my eyes at chin level. Mostly. “Do you think everything with your uncles will be okay? Jeff seemed pissed off.”

I close the cabinet door and turn toward the fridge. We stopped for some groceries on the walk home, and I grab two beers now. I don’t care what time it is, it’s five o’clock somewhere.

“Jeff might take a little longer to calm down, but the great thing about family is they have to forgive me.” I hand Calvin a beer. “I think we both need this.”

We crack them open and head back to the task in the living room. Calvin takes a seat at my side on the couch, stretching his legs out on the table in front of him.

He’s not wearing any shoes, and has these screaming purple argyle socks that I immediately adore. Purple socks, happy trail, electrocution hair. I have this dream man in my apartment, and he is distracting as hell.

I can’t wait to see how tonight’s sex dream plays out.

I reach for my laptop and wake it up with a swipe of my finger across the trackpad. It’s been ages since I’ve looked at this thing, let alone turned it on. The expensive novel-writing software sits in the toolbar with a little book icon reminding me how much I suck.

Ignoring it as usual, I open my email instead. “Jeff’s note said there are forms for each of us. Did you get a link?”

Calvin takes a sip of his beer and sits back to click through to his account. “Form I-485. Check.”

“I’m I-130,” I say. “He has a note that we can file these two concurrently, and fill out the rest of the package for him to send off once we get the initial approval. There’s also another list of things we need to make copies of, and a to-do list.”

Calvin looks over at me and I try to ignore the way the lamp behind him makes the tips of his eyelashes glow. I like seeing him on my couch. I like knowing what color his socks are, and what his sleepy face looks like before he’s had his tea.

He scratches his chin. “A to-do list?”

“You’ll need a medical exam. And until you’re officially on the books, I need to provide pay stubs to show I can support us both.” I let out a hearty guffaw. “Which means Brian will need to give me a raise. If you think he was great today you should hang around for that conversation. It’s going to be a doozy.” I tap my pencil to my lips, reading. “And we’ll need documents that prove our marriage is bona fide. His suggestions are a shared lease—easy enough—joint club memberships . . .” I look over at him. “Do you go to the gym?”

An amused curve shapes his lips and he folds his arms across his chest in that way all guys do when they want to emphasize the guns. “I do. I can add you to my membership, unless you have one of your own and want to add me?”

“Just go ahead and add me to yours,” I say quickly, as if I don’t routinely have a king-size Snickers for lunch and view treadmills as a mindless way to run and never actually get anywhere. “He suggests we have emails and texts between us, so I guess we should do that?”

“Texts like ‘Can you pick up a gallon of milk?’—or like . . . personal?”

I absolutely can’t look at him right now. I fix my gaze on the far wall. “We want to be convincing . . . so a mix of both?”

He pulls out his ChapStick, drawing my attention back to his mouth. He’s only about two feet away from me. I’ve never had the chance to look at his hands close up before. His nails are trimmed—thank God—his fingers long, but not delicate. He’s wearing my ring.

“To be clear,” he says slowly, recapping the lip balm, “so they don’t arrive and scare the hell out of you, we’re talking about I can’t wait to get your kit off kind of personal?”

My heart stands up, waves the white flag.

“Uhhh . . . yeah, I think so.” I immediately return to the safety of my bullet-point list while he picks up his phone, typing something. “What else . . . ? Letters or cards congratulating us on our marriage, bills in both our names like utilities, credit cards, that sort of thing.”