[Status: Incomplete. Expected word count: 65,000. Publisher: Still looking.]

Ben Jameson staggered into his dark apartment, pulling his shirt over his head as he kicked the door shut. He didn’t turn on the light. He didn’t have to. He tossed his keys on the counter and headed straight for the bedroom, dropping his wallet, his cell phone, and his pager on the bedside table. He kicked off his shoes, shucked off his pants, threw his dirty clothes in the hamper, and stood before his neatly-made queen-sized bed in his black boxer briefs. In the moonlight, his white pillows gleamed and beckoned him to him like a mother’s bosom.

He was so goddamn tired.

He dove face-first into the pillows and promptly fell asleep on top of the covers.

***

“Wake up, Jameson. Wake up!”

Ben lifted his head though it weighed a ton. Someone was in the bed with him, shaking his shoulder. All traces of sleep left his body and he was instantly awake. He grabbed the Mag-Lite under his bed, rolled himself over, and shone a beam of light at the intruder’s face. The creature hissed and flung its arms to cover its face.

“Goddamn it, Ben, shut that thing off!”

Ben recognized the voice immediately and groaned, shutting off the flashlight and flicking on the bedside lamp. Julie Snell, the bane of his existence, sat on the bed next to him with her legs tucked under her body, reeking of cigarettes and beer. She was dressed in a dark blue UCSD zip-up hoodie, a short plaid skirt, and black fishnet stockings. Her shoulder-length black hair was tied back in a ponytail and her mouth, slathered in deep red lipstick, was twisted in a smirk. She flicked her hazel eyes over him and grinned lasciviously.

“Nice,” she said. “How much?”

Ben remembered he was wearing only boxer briefs and sat up, covering the lower portion of his anatomy with a pillow. “What are you doing here, Julie? It’s, what—” He picked up the digital alarm clock to look at the time. “—three A.M! Damn it, I’ve only been asleep for twenty minutes. Did you know I just came off of a thirty-hour shift?”

“I’m sorry, Jameson, jeez! Sue me for wanting to see my best bud and thinking I could come over to hang out with him.” She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. “What the hell kind of job demands shitty hours like that, anyway?”

“Medicine.” Ben ran a hand through his hair and sighed. If he hadn’t known the woman since junior high, he would have called the cops already. Hell, he might still do it. She deserved it for waking him up. “How did you get in?”

“You didn’t lock your door, dude. A psycho killer could have come in while you were sleeping and slit your throat.” She jumped off of his bed and straightened out her skirt. “I know you live in a nice neighborhood and all, but this isn’t Kansas, Toto. What do you have in your fridge? I’m hungry. Do you think it’s too late to order pizza?”

She had already walked out of his bedroom by the time he processed anything she said. Abandoning all hopes of getting a few hours of shut-eye before he returned to work, he grabbed the neatly folded pajama pants bottoms at the foot of his bed as well as a white t-shirt from the dresser. He quickly put them on and followed her, hoping she hadn’t done anything that would make it impossible for him to get back his thousand-dollar deposit on the apartment.

He reached the living room and stopped. At his front door were two large suitcases, a box of books, a basket of shoes, and a large Winnie the Pooh stuffed toy slumped pathetically over one of the suitcases. He shut his eyes for a moment, counted to ten, and took a deep breath. He was not going to strangle her. He was not even going to yell at her. He could be an adult about this.

When he got to the kitchen, she was studiously spreading a thick slab of peanut butter on a piece of rye bread with a butter knife. Another piece of bread was saturated with honey and laying on a paper towel on the counter. A glass of milk and an open bag of dried apple chips sat in front of her. She looked up, the corner of her lips tilting in a half-smile.

“Hey, roomie!” She slapped the two pieces of bread together and took a giant bite, while casually checking him out over the counter. “Ah, you covered up the goods. Looking good, B. You been working out?”

Ben dragged a hand down his face. “What are you doing here, Julie? Did you get kicked out of your place?”

She shrugged and shoved a handful of apple chips into her mouth.

“What, did you get in a fight with your roommate? You couldn’t pay the rent?” Ben prodded when she continued not to say anything.

She brought the glass of milk to her lips and downed half of it before setting it down. After letting out a burp, she politely excused herself and dabbed at her lips lightly with a paper towel. “Slugged my boss for grabbing my ass, so he fired me. When I told Casey, she and I got in a huge fight and she kicked me out.”

Ben could only gape at her as she picked up her peanut butter and honey sandwich again and took a bite that would have choked a rhino. She finished the sandwich in three more bites and proceeded to make herself another one. Ben shoved his hair out of his face. “All right, whatever. I’m too tired for this shit. We can talk about this after I’ve had several hours of sleep. There are some blankets and pillows in the linen closet. You can bed down on the couch. Clean up when you’re done. I don’t want cockroaches.”

“Whoa, wait… I can’t sleep on the couch. I’ve got a bad back!” She made a face and placed both hands on her lower back. “I’m not as young as I used to be, you know.”

Ben stared at her in disbelief. “Julie, are you expecting me to give up my bed to you? You barge in here in the middle of the night when I haven’t heard from you in weeks, interrupt my sleep, eat my food… and you expect me to give up my bed?”

“Calm down, Jameson. Take a deep breath, all right? That vein in your forehead looks ready to pop.”

Ben casually touched his forehead, but didn’t say a word. He watched silently as she secured the loaf of bread with a twisty and returned it to the bread box. After putting away the rest of the food and wiping down the counter, she turned to face him.

With a shrug, she said, “We can share the bed, right? It’s a queen. Sure, you’re a big guy, but I’m little. I don’t take up much room.”

Ben opened his mouth to reply, thought better of it, then closed his mouth again. Julie propped her hands on her hips and looked up expectantly at him, tapping one combat boot on the linoleum. “Julie, I have a girlfriend. It wouldn’t be right.”

She stared at him for a moment and burst out laughing. “Are you joking? You’re like a brother to me, Jameson! Your virtue is safe with me, I swear.”

Ben gritted his teeth and glanced at the digital clock display on the microwave. Three-thirty. Ten hours and thirty minutes until he had to go back to work for a twenty-four hour shift. It was enough to make him want to punch something. But he was too tired and his eyes were starting to water from the effort to keep them open. Julie flashed him a hey-I’m-harmless smile and he scowled at her in return. “Sleep where you want, I don’t care. Just… don’t bother me.”

Julie rolled her eyes. “I’ll try to restrain myself.” She snatched a little bag and a change of clothes from her pile of stuff and pushed past him to get to the bathroom, closing the door with a resounding click.

A moment later, Ben heard the shower running. Good. At least she wouldn’t smell like cigarettes. And if he were lucky, he’d be deep, deep asleep by the time she got out of the bathroom. Dragging a hand through his hair, he strode to the bedroom and yanked off the covers from the bed. A queen-sized bed and he had to share it. He could never sleep very well with another person lying next to him, not even with Alison. He just always felt… crowded.

He raised his hands to the waistband of his sweatpants and paused. An off-key, high-pitched wailing that couldn’t have come from a human shattered the silence of his otherwise quiet apartment. Julie was, for lack of a better word, singing. About a genie in a bottle. He pressed the butt of his palm to his forehead and took a deep breath. God, he hoped none of his neighbors called the cops.

With a sigh, he dropped his body on the bed and his head on a pillow. He did not move for a moment and merely stared at the ceiling, his hands resting on his stomach. In the dark, he listened to Julie’s off-key singing and his own breathing until his eyes began to drift shut. Soon enough, the water was shut off and there was a squeak and a bang of the shower door opening and closing. It was followed by a faint buzzing—probably an electric toothbrush—and another squeak as the bathroom door opened. Ben turned on his side and pulled the covers over his head.

The other side of the bed, the one closest to the window, dipped as Julie sat down smelling like his soap and some kind of flowery scent. He felt her lift the covers. In another moment, she was lying next to him, her body just inches from his.

Ben had never felt more aware of anyone in his entire life. Because his head was under the covers, her scent permeated his senses. She smelled… nice. And clean. He could feel her breathing, could hear the little noises she made as she tried to make herself comfortable. He wanted to yell at her to stop moving and to shut the hell up. He surfaced from the mountain of covers that threatened to suffocate him and took a few cleansing breaths before burying his head under his own pillow.

The tips of her fingers grazing his shoulders almost made him leap out of the bed.

“Ben,” she whispered.

He grunted, but didn’t say anything.

“Thank you for letting me stay. Good night.”

He felt her shift again and realized she had turned towards the window. He sighed, resigning himself to getting zero sleep before he had to return to work. He waited until her breathing became even and rhythmic, then pulled his head from under the pillow and sat up. Grabbing a blanket, he trudged out of the bedroom and headed for the living room.

He lowered his frame on the sofa, set his head down on a throw pillow, and covered himself with the blanket. Within seconds, he was fast asleep.