Oh My God, They Were Roommates

6 | Under Pressure

a/n: Extra chapter for all you quarantined folks 🥺✌️

That night after working, Sora tucked his hair into a baseball cap and waited at the back door of the club for his Uber to swing around and fetch him. Beside him, Charlie just remembered his earrings and stood alongside him, plucking them off with one too many sighs.

"What," Sora huffed.

"Nothing."

"What are you waiting for then?"

"Oh, just for you to ask for a ride," Charlie said.

Sora rolled his eyes. "I'm not asking for a ride when I've already ordered an Uber."

"Just let me drive you to your apartment."

"So you can know where I live? No thank you," Sora said, but more accurately, he didn't want Charlie to find out what his apartment number was. His flat had a window on the street and Charlie would no doubt wait for him to turn on his light. In doing so, it inadvertently gave Charlie permission to hunt his apartment down via sneaking in through the locked front door behind another tenant.

It wasn't that Charlie knowing about his roommate situation bothered Sora—it certainly wasn't that. It was simply a matter of knowing that Charlie was in the market for an apartment of his own, and there was only so much Sora knew he could deal with. Charlie's unresolved sexual tension with the club owner was one of them, and Sora hoped he'd sort it out after living with the guy. Maybe being roommates would stamp out Charlie's horniness for the guy.

I'm glad I don't have to worry about that, Sora thought with a slight grimace, thinking about his own roommate. Sure, de Lucía was cute, but...

"I don't see why I can't bum at your place once in a while," Charlie sighed once again, dramatic and annoyed.

"I've—literally only been moved in for three days."

"Three days I coulda been bumming at yours."

Sora rolled his eyes. His mind was spiraling around de Lucía, though, and his need to scream about it mounted with each passing minute of the day. An entire two-and-a-half days had gone by in silence, and it was all he could do to keep from ripping his hair out from the immense, unfathomable frustration of having been duped on his first lease ever.

"You... can't bum at mine," Sora huffed, brow tense. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Because... I..."

His phone pinged—his driver was here.

Oh, thank God, he thought, mortified. There was no way for Charlie to know where he lived (unless Charlie stalked him), and so there was no way that Charlie would appear unannounced and out his employment status to de Lucía. He imagined a scenario in which Charlie showed up, unannounced, and Ray was forced to hide in the bedroom while Charlie yodeled in the kitchen about a client at the club, and Sora would have to sit there knowing that Ray was listening to every fucking word—

No, stop thinking about it, Sora thought, stuffing his phone into his pocket.

"Well, I'm leaving," he declared.

"Wait, no, what were you gonna say, you whore," Charlie demanded, trying to grab Sora by the jacket. Sora wrestled out of Charlie's grasp, slamming his shoulder into the door and heaving it open. He took off at a half-sprint as Charlie followed him out. The only thing Charlie was waiting for in there was Sora, anyway.

Charlie harassed him all the way to the Uber out on the street, who looked alarmed as Sora swung open the door, being fully attacked and kicked by Charlie. He asked his driver for his name, and when the two matched up, Sora slid in with a sigh and went to close the door.