"So, you're living with three guys?" My Aunt Talia asked me the next morning at brunch.

     "Yes ma'am, I am," I said, sipping my mimosa. Was I hungover? Yes, but Aunt Talia insists on a good hair of the dog.

     "And you're dating which one of them?" She raised her eyebrows at me, daring me to deny it.

     "I'm not dating any of them, Aunt Talia." I rolled my eyes and took a bite of my pancakes.

     "It's Zane, right? Damn, that's a good-looking bastard!" She slammed her fork down onto the table. "He's just got a way about him, Mick Jagger had that same thing about him, you know-"

     "I'm not dating Zane!" I exclaimed, cutting her off.

     "Finn? No, he's too grumpy for you, but you know they do say, opposites attract."

     I shook my head and chugged the rest of my mimosa, hoping it would silence her. It didn't.

     "Oh my god, it's Bishop. Of course, it's Bishop! I knew it was him, I just had a feeling."

     I fought my blush. "We're all just friends," I insisted, wiping my mouth off with my napkin to hide a smile. "And roommates, mind you."

     "Whatever you say, I know you can't keep a secret from me," she teased, wiggling her fingers in my face.

     I held it in. Well, at least I tried to. And it worked, for about thirty seconds. "We kissed," I blurted out.

     "I fucking knew it!"

     "It was just once, and we were drunk, and we both said it meant nothing, and it's not going to happen again. We're just friends. And roommates," I emphasized, raising my eyebrows pointedly at her.

     "Whatever you say, girly. But he's cute, very. And sweet. And you guys on stage, oh man, it was electric!"

     "You don't know what you're talking about! We were performing. We were just having fun. We're in a band together, that's it."

     She stared at me for a few seconds, chewing her food slowly. She tilted her head.

     The silence was deafening. "Okay, fine, so what if I have a tiny, itty, bitty crush on him? So what?"

     She stabbed a piece of her omelet and then pointed it at me. "Fucking knew it," she said finally and popped the bite into her mouth.

     After brunch, Aunt Talia took the train back home, and I headed straight to work. The money from the gig was nice, but it didn't get us very far. I still had to work a shit ton in order to be able to pay my rent, but it was better than the prison that they call an Ivy League. It was 8 hours of pouring coffee later that I was finally able to go home, and I was absolutely exhausted from the late night before.

     I crashed through our front door and collapsed on the couch, where the three guys and Valeria were drinking beer and playing cards on the coffee table. "I can deal you in, if you want, Vienna," Finn said, without looking up from the table.

     "Too tired," I whined, pressing my face into the couch. Zane grabbed my pointy tail and pulled it up, forcing me to look up.

     "It's Saturday night, and we're playing a drinking game. He's dealing you in," Zane commanded, before letting my face plop back onto the leather.

     "Ugh bossy," I said, rolling my eyes, but obediently rolling off of the couch and plopping down cross-legged on the floor. "FIne, deal me in." I ruffled my hair and rubbed my eyes, trying to force myself to wake up.

     The game was insanely complicated and had so many rules that it would have seemed like they were just making it up as they went along if the four of them weren't in total agreement of the rules. After about my fifth shot in twenty minutes, I complained, "I still don't fucking get this game!".

     "That's because you suck at it," Finn replied, and Valeria laughed, placing a hand on his arm. I watched him tense up for a second, and then slowly relax.

       "It's not that hard, dude. Look, if I can get it, you can get it," Zane said, reshuffling the deck and dealing out the cards again.

     After I lost yet another round and had to do three more shots, I was feeling very intoxicated. It was my turn to deal, but when I tried to shuffle, the cards spewed up into my face. Everyone laughed at me, and Bishop gathered up the cards for me. "Damn, maybe you should sit out this round," he said, before he and Zane clinked their glasses and took a shot for breaking some rule or another.

     "Nahhh," I drawled. "I'm so fine." I spoke emphatically and looked him deep in the eyes to convince him, nodding the whole time.

     "You're so fine?" Zane asked, teasing me.

     "SO fine," I promised, very seriously.

     "I give her one more round," Finn said, holding up a five-dollar bill.

     "I think she's got two more in her, I got faith!" Valeria exclaimed, shaking Finn's hand.

     I lost the next round, and I lost it bad. I had to take four more shots during that round, while the rest of them only had to take one or two. I'm honestly not even sure if I finished that round.

     "Look at her!" Finn said, pointing at me and smirking.

     "Ugh," Valeria said, before handing him her five dollars.

     He pocketed it and yelled, "Better get a bucket!", just before I sprang off of the floor and sprinted to the bathroom, crashing into both walls along the way.

     I only know this because Valeria relayed it to me later, but apparently, she got up to follow me, but Bishop was already running after me, looking concerned.

     "Water, Ship," Zane said, tossing him a bottle. Bishop turned during his pursuit of me, grabbed the bottle, then went into the bathroom and closed the door after us.

     I was already kneeling over the toilet when he came in, my cheek pressed to the bowl. "Get out Bishop, I don't want me to see you like this," I said, fucking up the order of my words, but hopefully still getting my point across.

     "What? You think I came in here for you? Nah, I just like to sit on the bathroom floor sometimes. It's quite nice this time of year." He sat next to me, his back to the shower and his legs stretched towards the sink.

     "Please leave, I'm sweaty and ugly, and I'm gonna throw up, and I don't want you to see." I dry-heaved a little, and he immediately grabbed my hair and held it back for me.

     "Who cares if I see you like this? We're friends. Besides, you already threw up basically in my lap in the car," he said, shifting a little closer to me. My heart thudded down to my stomach at the friends comment. It made me feel way more nauseous than the alcohol did.

     I cut my eyes over at him. "Why did you have to say that?" I said, miserably, before throwing up the contents of my stomach into the toilet. I threw up for a good, long time, but eventually, I was stable enough to pull my head out of the toilet, lean against the wall, facing Bishop, and wipe my mouth off.

     We sat in silence for a second, before I spoke up. "You can go now, I'm fine." I was bitter, I'll admit that. I was okay with us being just friends, but it definitely did not feel okay hearing it come out of his mouth so nonchalantly.

     He didn't say anything for a minute, just looked at the bathroom tiles. "What did you mean by what you said earlier?" He finally asked, wrenching his eyes off the floor to look at me.

     Now it was my turn to look at the ground. "Just go finish the game," I said, playing with the toilet paper holder.

     "Stop saying that. I'm not fucking leaving right now," he said it harshly, more like Finn than the Bishop I know. There wasn't a trace of a smile on his face, which was far from normal, and I couldn't read him.

     "We're just friends, right? I have nothing to be upset about," I matched his tone, trying to attack him with my eyes.

     "That came out wrong, I just meant," he ran a hand through his brown hair and let it pull at his neck, "Well, I don't know what I meant. But, look, Vienna, there's nothing you could do in front of me that would make me look at you and think you're anything less than absolutely beautiful."

     My eyes widened and my heartbeat sped up, but just as I was opening my mouth to respond (to say what, I'm still not sure), Valeria opened the door and stuck her head in.

     "You feeling okay?" She asked, pursing her lips at me in concern.

     I nodded and tipped my bottle of water at her as if to prove my point.

     "How about we go put you to bed then?" She held out her hand and helped me up, leading me to the door, before thinking better of it and bending back down to bring the trashcan with us. I didn't know what to think about Bishop, so I followed her to my room in silence, only looking back once. He was still sitting on the floor, watching me walk away and looking a bit distressed.

     Valeria helped me into bed and shut the lights, leaving me alone with a fresh bottle of water, the bathroom trashcan, and my own confusion surrounding one particular roommate.