Housemates (boyxboy)

Chapter 4

"Peace up, A-Town down."

Shit.

"Yeah! Okay. Usher, Usher, Usher."

"Lil' Jon," I groaned as Usher's song, "Yeah!" played through my cellphone's alarm system at seven in the morning after a few days had passed. I'd chosen it years ago in hopes it'd keep me pumped up in the morning and have neglected to change it since. And there hadn't been a single day in which that song had succeeded at defeating my morning grogginess.

I reached over to the nightstand beside my bed with my eyes still closed, and fumbled to grasp my cellphone as Usher's song continued to blast through the speaker. My fingers touched the screen as I began to drag it off of the stand before I lost hold of it and it fell to the ground. I cursed again.

Bang.

My door hit the wall hard as one of my housemates decided to walk into my room.

"Next thing I knew, she was all up on me screaming," Vincent's voice sounded as I opened my eyes, glancing over at him as he began to dance ridiculously in the doorway.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah," Vincent sang with Usher and I couldn't hold back the grin that appeared as I watched him create dance moves I'd never seen before.

Reaching over the side of my bed, I picked up my cellphone and finally turned off the song.

"Vinny," I said, pushing myself up in my bed. "You're up early."

Vincent's dark-red hair was tossed around as he'd just awoken and his large t-shirt hung off one of his shoulders. He released a yawn, causing me to do the same, and stretched his arms high above his head.

"You've seemed to have forgotten that my bedroom is right next to yours," he told me. "And the walls are quite thin. You're not the only one who wakes up to Usher every morning, you know."

I snickered at him, unaware that my alarm had been waking him up so early on the days I had to go to work.

"I normally wiggle around in bed but I decided to give you a little show this morning," Vincent told me.

"I appreciate it," I said as he grinned back at me before taking his leave. I assumed he plopped right back into his bed after his show since he probably didn't have anywhere to be.

You see, he was a twenty-one-year-old unemployed college student taking just two days of classes a week. He had a tendency to be lazy and at this rate, he'd be lucky to finish his four year degree in six years.

He was the complete opposite of Alec—a twenty-two-year-old college graduate with a degree in business management. And yet, he chose to work at the same company as me despite the fact that having a degree wasn't a requirement.

It baffled me why he got it in the first place. But well, I admired how he was financially stable on his own and determined in life.

Which led me to Zion—a twenty-four-year-old tattoo artist with no college degree. He rarely expressed concern for the future and lived each day as it passed. Like I said, he was mysterious and never talked about his troubles. It made me think he didn't have any but I knew that wasn't the case. He was the type of person to bottle everything inside and bear the burden himself.

And then there was me.

I was the same age as Vinny and was currently pursuing a degree in business like Alec. That was how we met—in a class we shared around two years ago. And from there, I got to know him.

Which was how we began to rent this house. Alec knew Vincent and Zion before moving in and the four of us agreed to living together.

Though, that was enough introduction for now. I wasn't to good at it.

———

I arrived at work around an hour after I'd awoken to Usher and plopped down in my usual seat beside Marcy. She was giddy and glanced around every so often as if she was waiting for someone.

"Are you okay?" I asked her, raising an eyebrow. It was becoming difficult to work beside her with the amount of distractions she was doing.

"Huh?" she said, tucking a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "Oh, yeah. I'm just waiting for Alec to arrive."

I frowned. "Why?"

She hid her face in her hands as her cheeks became flushed like a rose and I narrowed my eyes.

"Don't tell me you've already fallen for him," I said as she reached up quickly, trying to silence me.

She was a piece of work. Each time there was a new hire at the office, she seemed to take a liking to them. It was no wonder Alec became her next target.

But it also made me wonder why I was never one of them. By the looks of things though, it was better that I wasn't.

Anyway, I continued sorting through the many files on my desk when my eyes instantly fell on Alec as he walked into the office. His dark hair was combed back with product and his light eyes shined brightly as he smiled at everyone, walking over to his desk.

"What's this?" I heard him say and I spun around.

A nicely wrapped gift was placed onto his desk and I sighed at the audacity of the women at my workplace.

Marcy's face hardened in jealously which allowed me to conclude she wasn't the source behind the present. It just meant Alec had another admirer somewhere in the office despite working here just a few days.

I turned back around as Alec began opening the gift when a ball of paper landed on my desk. Alec's bad habit of throwing things unfortunately followed him into the office.

"What?" I mumbled with my back toward him.

"I'm guessing this present is from you," he replied.

My mouth dropped open at his absurd assumption and Marcy turned toward me, her eyes wide.

"Cade," she said softly. "Are you interested in him too?"

I wasn't aware someone could be so deranged.

"I'm not," I said through gritted teeth. "He knows it's not from me."

Alec flipped over the card attached to the present and read it.

"Cade," he said and I turned around.

"It says it's from you though."

———
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