Becoming Us: Where It All Began. Read online

  “A, I love ya, but you hate sports. Just admit it. You’ll feel so much better.”

  “I’ll admit that as soon as you admit you like sushi!” she says, popping her head out the shower door again.

  “For the last time, I don’t like sushi! It’s fishy-tasting, and raw, and terrible. I don’t and won’t ever understand why people like it.”

  Angela rolls her eyes and closes the shower door again. Damn, I love Angela, but I’ve been living with her for four years straight now, and we’ve really learned how to push each other’s buttons. For whatever reason, she is relentless in her quest to get me to admit I like sushi. She gives me shit about it all the time. It’s a ridiculous bit she has continued since freshman year.

  As much as she drives me nuts, we both know we hit the jackpot with randomly paired roommates. A few of the other girls we befriended freshman year got paired with some real doozies. Angela and I had an insta-friendship, even though we were polar opposites.

  Angela was raised in a hard-core political family in the heart of Kansas City. Her father ran for Kansas State Senator when she was in high school. He lost, but he continues working in politics as Chief of Staff for the Governor. They are loaded and live in a mansion near the Plaza. I’ve been there before and about died of shock when a legit butler opened the door to greet me.

  It was very different from my up-bringing on a small acreage in Missouri. Honestly, I don’t even know who my parents voted for in the last presidential election.

  When I met Angela and her parents on moving day, she was prim, proper, and quiet. She was wearing khakis and a button-down blouse. The picture perfect politician’s daughter. I worried my freshman year was going to be a total bore, but as soon as her mother and father kissed her goodbye, she closed our dorm room door, turned around, and said, “Kay, first we need someone to buy us booze, and then we need to befriend someone connected to the party network here. Start drinking water now. If we start hydrating, our hangovers won’t be nearly as bad tomorrow.”

  I knew in that moment, my freshman year was going to be epic.

  Angela says she was cheated a proper high school experience because of her father’s political goals. She attended a private school and was only allowed to go to school-sanctioned events. She didn’t have time for friends because her mother was always carting her from one school activity to the next. She said she was going to use college to make up for it. She still was anal at times and balked at a lot of the crazy dumb stuff that came out of my mouth. But eventually, the shock wore off and she started joining in on my particular brand of crazy.

  “Well, you’ve effectively ruined my LaShae buzz. I’m going to go get ready for work,” I grumble sullenly, annoyed that we went from talking about Jake LaShae to sushi.

  “I love you and your delusions!” she shouts as I close the door behind me.

  “Delusions my ass,” I mumble.

  I walk through the small dining area of our apartment and into my bedroom. Angela and I love the apartment layouts at Wildwood because our bedrooms are on opposite sides of each other when we walk in. Mine is on the left and Angela’s is on the right. Smack in the middle is a grand area with a living room and a galley-style kitchen with a two-tier countertop.

  We decorated it cutely for a couple of college students. A large black leather sofa sits in the center with its back facing the kitchen area. My picture frame collection has spilled out from my bedroom into the living room. Anywhere a picture frame fits, one sits. They are mostly filled with friends from high school and college, and some of my family, including my two nieces, Megan and McKinley. My sister Cadence is ten years older than I am. I was only eleven when she had her first child, so I grew up babysitting and am very attached to those two little girls.

  Angela’s parents gave us five red patent-leather barstools for the long breakfast bar area. Apparently, they were vintage and belonged to Angela’s uncle, but her mother thought they were tacky. So, of course, we love them.

  I close the door to my room and quickly grab my go-to summer clothes: A pair of denim shorts and my purple K-State faculty polo. I finish getting ready, taking a quick look in the mirror, and I’m pleased my aqua eyes seem perkier than earlier. Perhaps this is a Jake LaShae style glow? I tighten my long brown hair into my ponytail, and grab my purse and university lanyard, along with my college ID and keys, and head out the door.

  “See you later, Angela!” I shout and hear a faint reply as the door slams behind me.

  ***

  CHAPTER Three

  “You’re late,” says a voice from behind me as I unlock the lab.

  I swerve around to glance at the same person who beats me to the lab every day.

  “Sorry Parni,” I mumble, and open the door. She storms past me with a huge backpack and a stack of books clasped tightly to her chest.

  “Don’t be sorry. Be on time,” she bites at me with a thick Indian accent. She drops her backpack down to the floor next to the computer she uses everyday.

  Of course, it has to be the desk closest to mine. I sigh, not even considering fighting back with her. It’s not worth it. The girl is wound tighter than a drum. Parni is an exchange student from India currently working on her masters. And she has no problem reminding me of that every time I’m even one minute late. I don’t know how hard getting a masters is, but school has never been that tense for me. Sure, I had moments, most of them during my freshman year. I was an idiot and let some counselor talk me into an 8 a.m. class Monday through Thursday, which almost killed me. I missed way more than I should have, and even if I did show up, I was barely conscious. I was too busy enjoying my newfound freedoms with Angela to care about school.

  But I found Jesus, and He saved me. And by Jesus, I mean coffee. Black—like my soul.

  I boot up my computer that sits on a semi-circular desk to the left of the entrance. Straight in front of me are six long rows of computers, and the opposite wall is floor-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking part of campus.

  Working in a computer lab is about as dull as it sounds. But it pays, and it allows me to get some homework done when idiots aren’t coming up to me asking why the printer isn’t working. Like I know a thing about computers? I’m just a warm body here to ensure the lab doesn’t catch on fire.

  I scored this job last year. This particular computer lab is in the College of Business Administration building. I had only ever taken one class here that was a prerequisite for my marketing degree. My senior year, the majority of my classes will be in the communications and marketing building.

  I unzip my purse and pull out a new book I got in the mail the other day by Marian Keyes. It’s an old one called Watermelon, but I got it used for a penny on Amazon. Can’t beat that!

  Just when I start getting into the book, my phone vibrates from inside my purse. I grab it quickly, and glance at the text.

  Olivia: Party at my pad on the Saturday before school starts. Be there or be ugly.

  I shake my head.

  Me: Ugly is my Go-To. What’s behind Door Number 3?

  Olivia: Huh?

  Me: Angela and I will be there.

  Olivia: Oh, Angela too?

  Me: Yeah, why?

  Olivia: I just thought she’d be busy with Luke.

  Me: He’ll probably come too. Is that a problem?

  Olivia: Yea, whatev. It’s fine. This party is going to be huge. It’s the last one before the students return.

  “Can you please silence your phone? That vibrating is really distracting!” Parni snaps.

  I look up at her incredulously. “Are you joking?”

  “Do I look like a person who jokes?” she asks, scrunching her nose up in disgust.

  “Good point. I’ll silence it for you right away!” I sing at her cheerily after quickly typing a final reply to Olivia. I silence my phone and put it back in my purse. Parni isn’t even worth aggravating. Honestly, when she snaps at me, I just find it really funny.

  I feel slightly annoyed with O
livia’s obvious lack of enthusiasm for Angela coming with me to the party, but I don’t care. Angela and I are a package deal. She can just get over it.

  Back when Angela and I were freshmen, we quickly befriended Olivia because she was an in-the-know upper classman that helped us find all the great parties. She was a bit snotty, and selfish, and always had an arrogance about her. But we tolerated it because we appreciated her connections and when it got down to it, we could find fun with pretty much anyone. And, bonus, she was 21.

  Olivia graduated last year, but continues to live in a house just off of campus with Jen and Phil. Jen and Phil have been going out forever and I like them well enough. They are seniors too, and usually pretty fun to party with. I remember being surprised when she said she was going to continue living there after graduation. I just assumed it would feel strange to continue going to college parties when you’re not a student, but that didn’t matter to Olivia.

  I wonder if Jake will be at Olivia’s. He’s never shown up at any parties at her place before, but summers in Manhattan are different. So many students go home for the summer, so the few that stick around end up finding each other. I wonder if he’ll stop by before then. Maybe I can invite him to the party. That would be a perfect setting to hang out casually, without looking like a lovesick teenager. I just have to figure out which apartment is his first, and then maybe I can stop by and invite him.

  I glance up and see Parni glaring at me.

  “What?” I ask, feeling a bit uncomfortable because I have no idea how long she’s been staring at me.

  She shakes her head. “Even your thoughts are loud and distracting.” Her lips purse up toward her large sloped nose.

  “You gotta get a life, Parni,” I reply, cracking my book open again.

  “No shit,” I hear her quietly mumble.

  Huh. Parni has a soul. Who knew?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  After a long eight hours at the lab, I trudge home, buzzing at the prospect that Jake could be stopping by this week and I might be able to invite him to Olivia’s party.

  I go bounding into my apartment, feeling euphoric. I stumble upon Angela in the throes of a Downward Dog yoga position. Her black hair is fanning wildly around her on the floor.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I ask, fighting a tremor of judgment in my voice.

  “Yoga,” she replies back, calmly.

  “Why?” I ask, and she glances at me from between her legs.

  “Because it’s supposed to be good for you!” she replies. She stands up, placing her foot against the inside of her opposite leg.

  “Says who?” I ask.

  “People, the internet…Justin Bieber.”

  I rip my lanyard over my head dramatically. “If the Biebs says it’s good for you, sign me up!” I say sarcastically and rush over and join her, pressing my palms against each other, attempting to balance on one foot directly across from her. She laughs and loses her pose.

  “Be honest,” I say, staring at her speculatively and dropping my foot to the ground. “Luke told you to do this, didn’t he?”

  “No. I mean, he mentioned it, yes. He says it helps relax your aura and that my aura needs a boost. But I would have tried it regardless,” she argues defensively.

  I shake my head. I can’t help the look of disappointment I’m giving her. Luke grates on my nerves. He has mastered the art of passive-aggressiveness in a ridiculous zen package. Douche, with a capital D—and Angela just takes it.

  “Just don’t, alright?” she frowns at me.

  “Whatever A, I just don’t know how you find these guys that love to boss you around.”

  “This is yoga, Finley! It’s not like he told me I’m fat!” She places her hands on her narrow hips. Angela is petite and short. The thought of her being fat is ridiculous. Her small frame just furthers the extreme differences between us. I’m tall and curvy with an ample booty, and she’s compact and tiny with zero muscle. I call her my little spinner, but I’m really just attempting to hide my jealousy. Angela is the skinniest fat girl I know. She eats horribly, yet doesn’t gain a pound. You’d look at her and think she exercises nonstop to keep up with that tiny frame, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. This Yoga is the most exercise I’ve seen her do…ever.

  She lowers down to her knees and stretches her arms straight in front of her onto the floor, dropping her head between her arms. I flop myself onto the couch in response.

  “What has you in such a cheery mood?” she mumbles against the floor, clearly attempting to deflect our conversation.

  “Olivia is having a party in a couple weeks!” I squeal like a shameless tween.

  She looks up briefly with her brow furrowed and says, “And?”

  “And I wanna invite Jake!” I flash my eyebrows at her shamelessly.

  “Oh, that’s a good idea!” she says, joining in my enthusiasm.

  I nod my head. “It’ll be the last one they have before school starts, so now I just have to run into him again!”

  “Which apartment is his?” she asks.

  I can literally see the wheels turning in her brain. She’s hatching a plan for me. I love this attribute in Angela. She attacks all areas of her life with a well-formulated and completely fearless plan. I just wish she would apply the same great logic to her own romantic relationships.

  “I’m not sure. He said his window looks into mine.”

  “Creeper,” Angela says with a look of disgust.

  “A.”

  “F.”

  I scowl at her. I dubbed ‘A’ as Angela’s nickname freshman year. She tried to give me the nickname ‘F,’ but I put a quick halt to that when we went to a frat party and a big bruiser of a dude heard us using our nicknames with each other. He laughed in that dumb jock chortle that I thought was something invented for TV, but there really are idiots who sound like that in real life.

  The dumb oaf chuckled at us while we were waiting to fill our keg cups. “I get it, she’s the smart ugly one who gets A’s, and you’re the dumb pretty one who gets F’s,” chortle, chortle, grunt, grunt.

  Before I even had a chance to fully absorb his stupidity, Angela released holy hell terror on him. She said, “Hey dick-face! I can always fix ugly, but you’ll never be able to fix the superior complex brand of stupid you’ve inherited from whatever dumb-ass redneck, hillbilly-holler family you come from.”

  She then smacked his beer out of his hand and stormed off. I followed with my tail between my legs, ashamed that I said nothing. The look on that guy’s face was utter shock and stupor. He looked as though he didn’t even understand what she said. The worst part of the whole situation is that Angela is beautiful. Her shiny black hair and striking nearly black eyes are a stunning combination. Her face is sharp and angular and dotted with several beauty marks. It’s one of those extraordinary faces that belong on a runway as a high-end couture model. It’s unique. Only a moron would be blind to the true beauty she is.

  “Don’t call me F,” I reply, pouting slightly.

  She smiles in response. “Let’s go look out your window.” She grabs my hand to haul me off the couch.

  We enter my bedroom and she frowns at the mess of clothes scattered everywhere. She pulls back my black curtains and we peer across the parking lot to the apartment windows on the opposite side. My heart jumps in my chest when I see Jake clear as day, walking toward his apartment—shirtless.

  “Holy shit, that’s him!” I screech. I close the curtain as he wipes his forehead with the balled-up t-shirt in his hand. I press my back to the window and throw my arms out to block Angela’s view.

  “I didn’t get to see!” she says, and bats my arms away to open the curtains. I grab her and rip her away from the window.

  “Don’t! He’ll see you! Oh my God, his body is ridiculous.”

  “What? I have to see now!” she squeals.

  “No! Oh my God, I’ll kill you!” I grab her again and shove her away from the window to block her path to the curta
ins.

  “Didn’t you say he looks at you through his window? What’s so bad about looking at him through yours?” she says, looking at me incredulously.

  “Stop making sense in this scenario. It makes me want to punch you.”

  “We are acting like teenagers, Fin,” she points out while physically trying to pull me out of the way.

  “Angela, I’m not kidding. Don’t! Please!” I look at her seriously, feeling panicky.

  “Jeez, you really like him, huh?” she says, as she turns to sit on my bed. I instantly breathe a sigh of relief and relax my defensive stance.

  “I don’t know. I just…we’ve been doing this silent flirting at Chaz’s for weeks now, and then out of the blue, he talks to me. I don’t want to do anything to screw it up.” I walk over and sit next to her. “I gotta play this right.”

  She smiles and nods her head smugly at me.

  “Don’t give me that look, okay? I’m gonna give it a day or two and if he doesn’t come to me, I’ll consider seeking him out.”

  I want to invite him to Olivia’s party, but all I can do right now is picture a future with this gorgeous man. We’d have beautiful, tall, brunette babies. I already have the perfect picture frame in mind for our first photo together. Jesus, I’m insane. I have to slow my thoughts—or I’m going to enter stalker status.

  “Okay. I can accept that plan. I’ll leave it alone for a day or two,” she says, leaning back and getting comfortable on my bed.

  “Don’t get comfy, I have an assignment coming from Val, and you have yoga to get back to.”

  “Harhar,” she replies, and saunters out of my room.

  I change out of my purple polo and slip into a loose pair of cotton shorts and a cami. I’m physically forcing myself not to peek back out the window to get a better look at shirtless Jake. Mustn’t be a creeper. Mustn’t be a creeper.

  To distract my thoughts, I get comfortable on my bed and crack open my laptop to see if Val has emailed my assignment yet. Val is the creative director for a marketing agency in Kansas City. I had an internship with the company last year and we really hit it off. She’s been hiring me for freelance writing gigs ever since. The money is awesome and I enjoy the work. She’s all but guaranteed me a position at her company when I graduate. My family is really proud of me. Kansas City will be the perfect place to head after graduation—a little close to home, yet still on my own. I’m already working in my field before even having my degree. That’s pretty awesome if I do say so myself.