Billy grinned when I said it. "I don't mind if your sister comes," he said. "If it makes you more comfortable."
I glanced at Abigail who gave me a very restrained, pleading expression.
"I'd like for us both to go, if you don't mind."
Billy nodded as if it was fine by him.
"Bye Daniel!" Abigail said. "See ya around."
"Yeah, see ya around," Daniel agreed. "I'll ask my dad what he says about your application," he added.
"Okay, thanks," I said, nodding as I walked the last few feet to Billy's car.
Daniel hesitated, looking for traffic before crossing the street to go back to the hardware store.
"Will I see you around at the gym?" he asked, looking at Billy before he crossed.
"Yeah, I'll be there," Billy said.
Daniel made an excited expression and gesture with his arm before taking off to cross the street.
I opened the passenger's door. The front seat was a bucket seat, so I reached in, shifted the seat forward, and stood back so my sister could climb into the back. She didn't hesitate to oblige. She had seen the way Billy and I were looking at each other. She knew I had been the one invited to go with him.
I was glad she was with me, though. It wasn't that I didn't trust Billy or think I couldn't take care of myself, it was that I hated to leave Abigail at the apartment alone. We hadn't met our neighbor in 202 yet, and I wanted to give her a few days to get settled before we started leaving each other completely alone on the block. I figured, if I got a job at the hardware store, it wouldn't matter since I'd be right next door.
"Are you okay?" I asked, whispering to my sister as she moved to get into the car.
"Yeah, why?" she whispered back.
"I'm just making sure. I didn't know if you were disappointed about leaving Daniel."
"What? Daniel? No. I'm not interested in… he's seventeen. Plus, I heard Billy say he had roommates."
I rode in the front seat next to Billy. We were separated by a small console, but he was close to me, and I was hyper aware of him as a man. I often sat next to men at work or church or in social situations, but I was never ever aware of them like I was with Billy. Everything about him caused my eyes to linger. Everything I saw caused me to feel this warm burn of attraction, the kind where I felt like I might cry if I couldn’t find a way to be next to him. His shoulder, his arm, his hands, his leg—everything. Everything my eyes fell onto was good. It was all attractive to me.
Honestly, I wanted to paint him. I couldn't wait until I was a good enough artist to paint him the way I saw it in my head. The casual way he sat caused certain shadows in his t-shirt, and I wished I could pull out a sketch pad and take a shot at drawing him.
"I moved to Galveston when I was thirteen," Billy said. "It was just my mom and me, but she died when I was sixteen. I've been on my own since then. I live in a big house with four other roommates. All of us just rent our bedrooms, but everybody thinks of it as my house since I've been there the longest. The real owner lives next door."
"Your landlord?" I said.
"Yeah, Matty."
"Oh, the one who's your boss?"
"Yeah."
"What do you do for him?"
"I work part-time doing some construction, but most of the time, he has me doing errands. Personal favors. He treats me good, and my room is cheap. That's how I was able to pay cash for my car."
"Tess paid cash for her car, too," Abigail said. "By working at the pharmacy."
We had already talked about my Beetle at the restaurant so Billy knew what I drove. He glanced at me when Abigail said I paid for it. One corner of his mouth rose in an approving grin.
I could not get enough of his smile. I shrunk down in my seat, feeling shy about all the feelings I was having.
"What do your roommates do?" Abigail asked.
"Different things. Two of them work together at the hospital. Hank's in college, and Albert likes to do as little as possible. He surfs as much as he can and he works at a restaurant as little as he can. He's got a squirrel for a pet. It's in his room. It rides in his pocket sometimes."
"You're kidding," I said. "Hank and Albert?"
Billy nodded.
"And who are the two who work at a hospital?"
"Cricket and Annabeth. They both work at the same hospital. They're nurses. They work the same shift and always hang out together."
"Are they… women?" I asked. I was so surprised that he would have women roommates that I had gotten stuck on their names and not heard much of what else he had said.
Billy let out a little laugh at my confusion. "Yes."
"Oh, you live with women," I said. I glanced over my shoulder at my sister. It was the first time I doubted myself for going to his house with him.
"It's nineteen-sixty-eight," Billy said. "A guy and girl can live under the same roof and be roommates. They're great tenants. I wasn't going to turn them down just because they're women. If anything, the place is better with them around."
"Have you ever kissed one of them?" Abigail asked.
"Abigail," I said, turning to face my sister. But secretly, I liked that she was asking.
"I actually have," Billy answered, causing me to experience instant nausea. "But it was a long time ago. Before she ever moved in. We went to the same high school. Nothing's happened since she moved in. She has a boyfriend. You might meet them. They were at the house when I left this morning."
I was unjustifiably jealous.
I wished Billy had never kissed anyone in his whole life.
I was fuming, and I tilted the side window to let the wind hit me as we drove.
We parked in a driveway and I looked up at the house that was closest to us, which was blue with white trim. It was a big, Victorian style wooden home like just about all of the others in this area. It was a good color next to his amber colored car.
I tried not to think about his female roommates or the fact that I was jealous of them. I tried not to care about Billy. I would think of this visit as just having fun and getting to know new people in Galveston. There was no need to latch onto the first guy who caught my eye. Surely, there had to be some wonderful, decent, available gentleman who didn't beat people up for a living or live with other women.
But in spite of my best efforts to not fall for Billy, I could feel myself doing just that. It was extremely easy to have a crush on him. Physically, he was everything I liked in a man. He had dark hair and eyes, and a wide smile that was confident and laidback.
Abigail and I spent a few hours at his house. It was a lot of fun. His room was upstairs, and it had a little wooden deck. It didn't have a table and chairs, but we stood out there and looked over the balcony at all the colorful homes. Billy played records in his room, and Abigail and I went back and forth from the balcony to sitting on the floor with him. A few times, one of his roommates would come in and talk for a minute, but mostly, it was just the three of us.
I was intrigued by his personality. It wasn't just that he didn't care about impressing me. Billy didn't care about impressing anyone. He was quiet, but when he needed to speak, he was direct and honest. He was funny, but in a serious way. He didn't laugh a lot but he came up with witty responses that made other people laugh.