Lisa Jo Girodat

“Life is not a list of checkboxes that we have to tick off sequentially one after another. Got a degree? Tick. Booked a house under my name? Tick. Got married? Tick. Had Children? Tick. All this sound too cliché, too depressing. These are acts which people do under the influence of peer pressure, mimicking each other, and not willingly as a genuine choice of their own.”
― Abhaidev, That Thing About You

“Live in the present, make the most of it, it's all you've got.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“The craziest thing about parenting must be that it’s this huge experiment and you have no idea whether it’s successful until, like, decades later.”
― Christina Lauren, My Favorite Half-Night Stand

“Calvin clears his throat. “Do you have anything to drink?”

Booze. Right. This is the perfect situation for some booze. I jump up, and he laughs, awkwardly. “I should have thought to get champagne or something.”

“You bought the dinner,” I remind him. “Obviously the champagne was on my list and I dropped the ball.”

Pulling a bottle of vodka from the freezer, I set it on the counter and then realize I have nothing to mix it with. And I finished the last beer the other night.

“I have vodka.”

He smiles valiantly. “Straight-up vodka it is.”

“It’s Stoli.”

“Straight-up mediocre vodka it is,” he amends with a cheeky wink.

His phone buzzes, and it sets off a weird, giddy reaction in my chest. We both have full lives beyond this apartment, which remain complete mysteries to each other. One difference between us is that Calvin likely doesn’t care about my life outside of this. Yet I care intensely about his. Having him here feels like finding the key to unlock a mysterious chest that’s been sitting in the corner of my bedroom for a year.

Buzz. Buzz.

Looking up, I meet his eyes. They’re wide, almost as if he’s not sure whether to answer.

“You can get it,” I assure him. “It’s okay.”

His face darkens with a flush. “I . . . don’t think I should.”

“It’s your phone! Of course it’s okay to answer it.”

“It’s not . . .”

Buzz. Buzz.

Unless, maybe, it’s some Mafia drug lord and if he answers his ruse is up and I’ll kick him out. Or—gasp—maybe it’s a girlfriend calling?

Why had this not occurred to me?

Buzz. Buzz.

“Oh my God. Do you have a girlfriend?”

He looks horrified. “What? Of course not.”

Buzz. Buzz.

Holy shit, how long until his voicemail puts us out of our misery?

“. . . Boyfriend?”

“I don’t—” he starts, smiling through a wince. “It’s not.”

“ ‘Not’?”

“My phone isn’t ringing.”

I stare at him, bewildered.

His blush deepens. “It’s not a phone.”

When he says this, I know he’s right. It doesn’t have the right rhythm to be a phone.

I lift the vodka to my lips and chug straight from the bottle. The buzzing has the exact rhythm of my vibrator . . . the one I tucked beneath that cushion on the couch days ago.

I’m going to need to be pretty drunk to deal with this.”
― Christina Lauren, Roomies