Between You and Me

Chapter 2

"Who even is this guy?"

"Relax sis, it's my homie."

"That means nothing to me. You've only been at Ranken a few months, you never told me about this guy. Is it someone you're seeing?"

Her sister means mugged her. "Now you know-"

Her sister came out to her as a lesbian just a year ago. No one else in the family knew unless they could tell by the way she dressed and carried herself. She was more on the soft stud side, not dressing in boy's clothes, but not dressing in girly things either. Never a dress or skirt, no make-up, and wore her hair cut low in a fro.

She scored her first tattoo at sixteen and had not stopped getting them on both her arms and on her back. Johanna was afraid of getting tattoos. Needles made her want to pass out. Even getting a shot would make her woozy. The sight of blood was ick.

"But how do you know him? I mean, do you really know him? He's a stranger! You want a strange man in our house...living under the same roof as us?"

"That's the point. Look, lil homie chills with me a time a two on the yard during breaks and shit. You know Ranken is not like your university or anything. We are in one class, or workshop all day. We have lunch and breaks and that's when I hit up lil homie."

"So he's in an auto repair program?"

"No! Duh, there are other programs there. He's studying maintenance-type stuff. He fixes things."

"Oh." That would be good to have around. Her uncle fixed the hot water, temporarily he stated. They used the money their grandmother left them for a brand new range stove, fridge, washer, and dryer.  Then Uncle Billy made a list of things the new handyman/roommate could repair.

"He's on his way over any minute."

She still was unsure about this, but the least she could do was meet with the boy. If her sister trusted him, he could not be that bad.

Before the doorbell even rang, her phone notified her someone was at the door with the camera. The added safety was a blessing. She looked at the person standing there as he rang the doorbell and showed the phone to her sister sitting beside her on the sofa.

"Is this him?"

"Yeah."

"I'll get him." She rushed to open the door to greet the guy.

What she saw she was not expecting. By Zee calling him "lil homie," she suspected a little guy, not the giant, big, hulky guy standing in front of her. He was tall, she did not even know how tall, just really tall and big. Not skinny, but muscled in build. He was fair-skinned, a light honey brown, and he wore a fitted Cardinals baseball cap on his head, but she could see he had long hair pulled back in a ponytail.

But his face. The man was gorgeous. He left her speechless. Dark brown eyes, nice, thick lips, even skin tone with a goatee perfectly trimmed. She had never seen someone so mesmerizing in her life.

"Yo, wazzup, Zee here?"

"Huh?" What did he say? He could have said the sky was pink and she would agree and want to stare at it with him.

"Zee here?" he asked again.

"Uh..."

"Yo, wazzup homie!" Zee near pushed her aside as she dapped up the guy.

This could not be "lil homie." There was no way she could live with a guy she wanted to stare at all day.

This reminded her of her high school days when all she did with the guys she liked was stare and wish she could say something to them. Even "Hello," or "How are you?" but instead, she said nothing. She spent four miserable years of high school daydreaming about talking to a boy, or at least one noticing her.