“Shower buddies” –The showers are side-by-side, so two men that have never seen each other end up singing together every morning.
*
A. “Did you know that every morning he gets up to take a shower at seven in the morning and sing with his neighbor? Shower buddies, he called it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It blew my mind for some reason. I’m okay with it now, but at first it seemed so weird.”
*
B. It freaked him out at first. One minute singing alone, the next in chorus with the guy from the neighboring apartment.
And then it was kind of cool.
In the mornings as he lathered up, he’d sing along with his neighbor, songs he never would have shared with anyone else.
B1. It was romantic, but in a nonsexual way. This was his singing buddy. This was his beautiful friend whose face he never wanted to see.
How horrible was that?
But he’d been hurt before. He’d fallen out of love with plenty of people when he *got* to see how they truly lived.
His step-sister had delighted in taking all of the magic out of his world when he’d been twelve years old. It was the one stark memory of his childhood that he maintained: that monstrous figure looming over him. He’d thought she’d been demonically possessed.
Always so quiet and still, she’d leaped out of her chair and begun screaming out answers to every question he’d interrupted her with all night. Bulging eyes and raging mouth; he’d been completely terrified. And ever since then, his every bogeyman-moment was tied to that fear. (He wished he hadn’t posted his worst fear in his profile. It would have been better if he’d made something up.)
He couldn’t handle it if his singing buddy was horrible to look at. Not for any mean reason, but because he’d built up a fantasy in his head and he didn’t want to find out that the guy was the opposite of everything he’d expected. [B1-1] It would ruin the one good thing that he had.
Things hadn’t been going that great in his life of late. His happiness levels had gone way down.
So there was something uplifting about starting each day with a song.
It felt good. It got him energized on even the most blah of days.
He was able to deal with his coworkers without losing his shit. They were related to the owners, so he had to put up with their laziness while he did all the work. [B1-2] And starting the day off with a song enabled him to keep his mind focused on work and not on how horrible his coworkers were.
Having a shower singing buddy was a bright spot to his day.
*
B1-1. He hadn’t wanted to arrange the meet up with Candby, but his online friend had insisted. And it was awkward as hell. They’d just stood around, LOOKING at each other for ten minutes. Then her friend group had dropped in and they never got the chance to get over the weirdness. They went skating instead. And things had never been the same between them even when they went to online only friendship.
He wondered sometimes if she’d known that he didn’t have very many friends, and how freaked out he would be around so many strangers. He kinda got the feeling that her friends had been the ones pushing for the meetup. But it had still happened. And it had SUCKED.
She’d been his platonic friend Candby one day. Then she’d been that strange experience he’d once had where a group of lunatics had friendtested him and he’d failed the test. He hadn’t liked her enough to accept her friend group.
Though it was where he’d met Charlie Marks. So that was good.
*
B1-2. They were a tightknit group of friends. They did whatever they had to do to stay awesome. Which meant there were times when they had to leave work to help Steve, who had a job as a bike messenger. And part time weed provider; though not when he was on the clock for Giovanni’s, which usually led to trouble. [B1-3]
“You’ll watch after things until we get back, right Office Guy?” Ben asked. Hannah scoffed in the background but didn’t say anything. “We’ve got some business to handle and we’ll try to be right back.”
“Sure,” Office Guy said.
“Thanks OG.”
He led out his group of friends and didn’t see Hannah wave to the Office Guy, whose name was NOT Office Guy.
*
B1-3. When some people wanted their weed, they asked for it, even when he was in uniform. And even when they took things with coolness and respect, sometimes their friends were NOT cool.
He’d got into a whole lot of heat when his friend’s straight edged neighbor started spreading it around that he delivered drugs right to people’s doors. His friends had had to step in and smooth things over with the neighborhood. It had been awful, but Hannah was cute in her “Smart Girl clothes,” which involved a lot of plaid and some little round glasses he recognized from her old Harry Potter collection. They’d saved his ass.
Which explained why he stayed friends with them even when he had no words to defend their actions. Steve had been asked more than a couple of times why he hung around with them.
