My roommate and I have an arrangement. He does my laundry, and in exchange I get a little wiggle room on the rent. We don't talk about the underwear that goes missing between loads. It gets back to me eventually, and, well, my job has been cutting a lot of shifts. It's just not realistic for me to pay on time every month at this point.
Evan and I are a little more than roommates. Not just because of the deal, but also because we've known each other since we were kids. Our dads have worked at the same company for ages, and we went to the same grade schools. We'd been in the same friend group, to the same sleepovers and birthday parties, although we didn't really hang out one-on-one much.
We didn't keep in touch in college though, not having much other than proximity to keep us together. We had been growing apart anyways; one glance could tell you our life trajectories were different. I was a sports fiend and always had something going on on the weekends; he was definitely on the nerdy side, more of a mathlete I guess you could say. I "blossomed," as my mom put it, into a broad-shouldered medium-tall guy who had no issues getting girls, as long as I kept my back hair in check. He never quite outgrew the weediness of his teen years, staying lanky into his twenties, although he didn't look bad: his features were delicate and gave him a sort of princely look. He went to technical school and quickly found a job at some nondescript government contractor. Meanwhile, not knowing what I wanted to do with my life, I went to college for business, got into sales, rapidly developed suicidal thoughts, and quit to become a bartender. (My ex was not happy with this turn of events and of course dumped me when I said I'd be moving in with my parents.)
The fact we both ended up back in our hometown was sort of funny to me. He was never an adventurous or social guy, and it was just like him to work from home out of his childhood bedroom, saving up his paycheck for god knows what. I guess he felt a little cramped there, because I had just arrived back at my own parents' place with my tail between my legs, when I saw that he had posted a request for roommates on his little-used social media.
After a few DMs, we moved into a small condo together, not far from the local university so we were surrounded by students. I quickly got a job at a rowdy college bar, and he set up his office in the dining room. For the first few weeks, we rarely saw each other, him having a nine to five and me working nights. I was depressed and spent most of my free time dicking around on the internet or dispiritedly jerking off. My room was predictably a sty. Laundry piled up quick. Evan quietly did a lot of chores around the house, that didn't go unnoticed. I thanked him whenever I could and asked how I could pick up the slack - but he refused, just waving me off. I wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
It was a bit of a low point when I asked if he could just go ahead and do my laundry, but in my defense I was out of quarters. I may have also recently seen that my ex got into med school and been mulling about that. Either way, I didn't have a ton of clothes so it was basically just more of the same. Whatever. No big deal. Anyway, I didn't notice anything was missing for a decent while, like weeks. And when it did start, obviously I didn't really think anything of it. Maybe dude's underwear is just the same color. Navy blue boxers aren't exactly a revolutionary fashion statement.
But it was happening so regularly, with so many different varieties of undie, that it was a slim chance it was just a coincidence. Every color and pattern went missing at some point. I knew it was on purpose when even the lime green ones my mom got me that one time went missing.
So the arrangement was never something we talked about explicitly, but the first time I asked for an extension on rent, he was handing me back a basket of laundry, and I glanced down at it pointedly. He turned a little red when he said it was fine.
I guess Evan was gay, but honestly I thought gay dudes had way more fun than that. I knew a couple gay guys in college who partied way more than me, and had the most insane sex stories. Evan never had people over and went out just once a week on Sunday night. Based on what my parents said (and guilted me over, since I rarely saw them despite living a short drive a way) he was eating dinner at his parents' house. The rest of the time he did god knows what in his room.
He was really the ideal roommate, so I guess I could chalk that up to some kind of attraction to me. I kind of avoided thinking about it if I could, but it wasn't exactly hard to put two and two together.
That had all been simmering in the back of my head the night it all got weird. My ex was dating a new guy according to her social media, and I had indulged way too much at work. After closing out the bar, I spent another couple hours at a college party with a regular, downing more shots than was probably wise. It was messy, I was messy, whatever, all you need to know is I was home around sunrise, a phenomenon I pretty much never saw at that point in my life, and starting to sober up. I was looking forward to going home, eating a hot pocket, and immediately falling into bed.
