“Get your lazy ass off the floor!”

I rolled over, putting my face in the pillow and pulling the blanket up over my head.

Wait. Pillow? Blanket? The last thing I remembered was talking to Kisten about my new novel and… “Kisten!” I jerked upright as I gasped his name, and nearly cracked my head against the one hovering above me.

“Shit, Joe, what do you think you’re doing?” Elizabeth frowned at me, raking her auburn waves back from her face, where they’d fallen when she jerked back to avoid the collision. “I’ve been trying to wake you up for twenty minutes and all you can say is the name of that kid who lives across the hall from you?”

I sat up, leaning against my bean bag chair and rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. “Well, it was Kisten who was here last night when I fell asleep. Apparently. I don’t really remember.”

“Hold on, are you saying you actually let Kisten into your apartment?” Elizabeth’s eyebrows rose into her hairline. “You’ve gotta be shitting me. It took you a year and a half to answer the phone for me, and you let that kid into your apartment without a qualm? Are you insane?”

“That depends on who you ask,” I said lightly.

Elizabeth looked shell-shocked. “Did you just… did you just tell a joke?”

“Am I not allowed to do that?” I asked defensively, pulling my blanket closer around me.

“N-no, that’s not it at all!” Elizabeth shook her head, raising her hands. “It’s just… not something I’m used to. That Kisten isn’t such a bad seed then, if he can have you telling jokes.”

“Bad seed?”

“Aw shit, I shouldn’t have said anything,” Elizabeth muttered, rubbing the back of her neck. “If you like this kid, I don’t want to ruin it for you.”

I snorted at the ridiculous statement. “I don’t like him. He’s annoying and noisy and he keeps forcing his way into my life. You know, the only reason I let him over was because he bribed me?”

“Wait, he bribed you?” Elizabeth leaned forward, eyes shining; girls, what was it about girls and gossip? “Don’t you make enough money off your books?”

“Tch. As if I could be bribed with money,” I waved it away. rolling my eyes. “He said the building manager owes him, and he’d pull in that favor and help me stay if I socialized with him instead of going to the community nights.”

“No shit,” she breathed, eyes wide. “Kisten Jones is doing you a favor?”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “How do you know his full name?”

She laughed nervously, dropping her gaze. “Oh, you know, I’ve met him in the hallway a few times.” She brushed her hair behind her ear, a sure sign she was lying.

“Elizabeth…” I nearly growled her name, and she drew back into the table along the chalkboard wall.

“Well, it’s not really my place to say… but... “ She looked around like there was somebody that could overhear us. In my apartment. With its four locks. I wanted to smack her, but then I’d have to touch her, and even thinking about it sent a shiver of fear down my spine. “They say he’s the abandoned illegitimate heir of a business mogul.”

I stared at her for a second, unable to believe it. Then I started to laugh, and I found I couldn’t stop, not even when I was bent over myself with tears wetting my cheeks.

“What the hell is so funny?” Elizabeth asked, her huffy tone telling me how offended she was.

But I just couldn’t stop laughing. “And he said I’m the stereotype,” I gasped, clutching at my aching stomach. “Mister ‘you’re the perfect uke’, turns out to be the rich boys whose parents don’t pay enough attention to him. I bet he’s a player too!”

Elizabeth watched me, wide-eyed with her jaw on the floor, while I laughed so hard there were tears in my eyes. It shouldn’t have been as funny as it was. But, there was just something about the situation that I couldn’t stop laughing about. God, we were like a trashy yaoi manga.

Wait. What the heck? My laughter cut off abruptly. Did I really just think that? The kid was putting notions in my head that didn’t need to be there. My usual scowl was quickly back in place, and I straightened up.

No way was I considering that kid my love interest. That was not the way these stories worked- at least, not the way mine did, because I was not going to be his uke in a trashy manga story. I’d rather eat my hands off.

“That’s illegal, anyways,” I muttered to myself, feeling proud of myself for finding another reason to avoid the kid.

“Joe!” Elizabeth gasped. “You’re not thinking…”

I looked up at her, confused for a moment, before horror widened my eyes. “God no! I would never… how could you think… Elizabeth, no!” I protested, before she could get any ideas in her head.

“That’s what you say now,” Elizabeth said with a slight smirk.

I groaned, dropping my head into my hands. The protest had come too late. Elizabeth was getting that look in her eyes, the one that meant she was getting an idea I wouldn’t like at all.

“Gods, I can just imagine. You’d be so cute with him, Joe! Oh my god, you better make him take your last name when you get married. Joe Jones, can you imagine?”

“Dang it, Elizabeth, knock it off!” I stood up, offended, glaring at her with my hands on my hips.

Something about it made her giggle even more. “Oh yeah, I can see what he means. He may be the bad boy, the rich player with the ulterior motives. But you’re the perfect injured little boy whose heart he can heal.”

“I’m twenty-six years old, Elizabeth!” I snapped, ready to kick her out of my apartment.

She raised an eyebrow at me, a chesire grin on her face. “And? He’s already almost eighteen. He’ll be legal in a few months, and none of it will matter. I mean… unless you can’t wait that long?”

“Screw you both,” I sniffed, turning on a heel and leaving her laughing in my writing room.

It was Kisten’s fault. That’s who I was going to blame it on. The upstart brat coming into my apartment, asking all kinds of questions, letting me fall asleep while he was still there. I bet he’d been a picture, coming out of my apartment with rumpled hair when Elizabeth showed up. My face turned red just thinking about it.

“Not in a million years!” I declared, yanking the fridge open so hard that I had to dive for the ketchup bottle when it toppled out.

Elizabeth leaned against the wall, her fey smile still in place. She ran a hand through her auburn waves, pushing them back from her face, taking deep breaths to calm herself down. I ignored her, starting coffee brewing and fixing breakfast. Sitting down, I set her plate across from me at the table; unlike me, the heathen liked plain cream cheese on plain bagels, instead of the strawberry. And the orange juice- seeing the stuff in my fridge made me want to gag.

“Are you done?” I asked acidically, glaring at her over my mug.

She waved her hand in the air. “Yeah, for now. We have more important stuff to talk about. Like your next deadline.”

“Hey now, it’s in a month-”

She glared me down, and I sighed, knowing I was in for at least an hour’s worth of lecturing. At least I’d made breakfast first, and I sat back to eat it while I listened to her rant.