Page 9 of Derivation

And it shouldn’t have been a big deal to Gabi because they hardly knew each other – one fun weekend about eleven years ago didn’t mean that they were ready to be roommates – but it was a little odd that Sarai was so put off by the idea. Gabi thought they’d had a connection back then. In fact, leaving Amsterdam had been hard for her when the weekend had come to an end because of that connection, but she supposed that it hadn’t been as hard for Sarai to let her go as Gabi had thought for all these years.

“Yeah, sure,” Arlowe replied. “We weren’t going to find anyone else to live here anyway. We were planning on splitting the rent into three instead of four and just figuring out what to do with the extra room, but it would be nice to still split it four ways and save a little more money.”

“How soon do you need to know?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a week. By then, Sarai will have hung a dry-erase board in there, or Enya will have made it a room that she can pace in when she’s learning yet another language.”

“Okay. I’ll let you know.”

“The game is starting!” Mitchell yelled from the living room.

“Want to go outside?” Sarai asked. “I can get you that sweater.”

“Actually, can I grab some food and go watch the game?”

“Sure. Drinks are in the fridge,” Sarai replied, and she and Arlowe walked into the living room.

Gabi grabbed herself a plate, filled it with some snacks because she was starving, and opted for a can of soda as her drink instead of risking a beer because she didn’t know how long she’d be staying. By the time she got to the living room, though, all the couches had already been taken. Mitchell and Laura were on one, along with Clay. Stella and Violet were on the other, with Enya sitting next to them, looking down at her phone. Arlowe was sitting on the floor in front of the couch with Mitchell on it, and Sarai was sitting on the floor in front of Violet. Gabi didn’t know where to sit, but Sarai looked up at her and nodded to the floor next to herself, while Arlowe’s eyes were glued to the screen, so Gabi went with her. She sat down and held out her plate.

“Carrot? You seem to like them.”

Sarai laughed and replied, “No thanks. I’m good.”

Sarai then leaned back on her hands, and Gabi had to look away from the skin that had been revealed to her when Sarai’s shirt lifted a little. She picked up one of the carrots to distract herself, took a bite, and turned her attention to the TV.

CHAPTER 3

“Morning,” Arlowe greeted, walking into the kitchen.

“Hey,” Sarai said without enthusiasm.

“Are you okay?” Arlowe asked and sat down in her chair at the table.

Enya had left out a couple of different kinds of cereal for them after her own breakfast, along with the half-gallon of milk and clean bowls, so Arlowe grabbed her favorite and poured it into the remaining bowl before closing the lid and setting the stuff back where she got it.

“I’m fine. Why?” she asked, looking up from her own bowl of corn flakes.

“You don’t seem fine. Did you sleep like shit or something?”

“I slept fine. Thanks,” she replied.

“Hey, Violet is running behind by about ten minutes,” Enya said when she walked into the kitchen from the garage. “She wants to know if she could be thirty minutes late instead and get us all coffee on the way.”

“I could go for a latte,” Arlowe replied.

“Me too,” Sarai said and gave Enya a smile. “Thanks for setting out the breakfast stuff for us.”

“No problem. I’ll text her to grab coffee.”

Enya started typing and turned around to go back into the garage without another word.

“You know Vi is only late because they were having sex, right?” Arlowe asked and poured milk into her cereal before she grabbed one of the spoons that Enya had also been kind enough to leave out for them.

“Well, they’re living together, and they love each other, so I imagine sex is part of–”

“Sarai, what is your problem today?”

“I don’t have one, Arlowe. What is yours?” she asked and took a bite of her cereal.