The apartment had one bathroom. One. Maya and I had split rent for two years with a color-coded shower schedule that worked fine — until Sloane started staying weekends.
Sloane was Maya’s girlfriend. Twenty-nine. Satin robes, shower boots, a habit of “accidentally” using my shower slot. The first time it happened, I complained. The fourth time, I stopped complaining. The seventh time, I started leaving the door unlocked.
This morning was a Sunday. Maya had worked late and was dead asleep. My slot: 7 AM. I’d finished, wrapped my hair in a turban, pulled on my sleep shirt, and sat on the tub edge to lotion my legs. Sloane had walked in wearing the black satin robe — Maya’s gift, ironically — and shut the door behind her.
“We have one bathroom,” I whispered, one ear tuned to the hallway. “Your girlfriend is asleep in our room — my roommate, your girlfriend, the woman whose robe you’re wearing. The water just stopped running. The mirror is still fogged. And your hand is on my knee, not the shower handle. You’re supposed to be waiting your turn. Not standing in front of me. Not between my legs. Not watching me like that—”
Sloane didn’t speak. She just leaned in, her cheek brushing my jaw, her hand sliding higher up my damp leg — slow, deliberate, completely unhurried, as if the bathroom were hers and the schedule were a suggestion and Maya were a rumor.
“If she wakes up and hears the water stop,” I breathed, my voice barely above the dripping faucet, “she’ll walk in on us. She’ll see me on the tub and you between my legs and the robe open and the mirror still fogged and the two toothbrushes — hers and mine — standing side by side in the cup, and she’ll know why the hot water keeps running out on Sundays. She’ll know exactly why—”
She turned my face toward her with a hand on my jaw. Her mouth found mine. Slow. Domestic. A kiss that tasted like mint toothpaste and a secret with nowhere left to hide.
Then the bedroom door creaked. Footsteps. Maya’s voice, sleepy: “Sloane? Bathroom?”
Sloane pulled back exactly one inch and raised her voice, easy as Sunday morning: “Water heater’s acting up again, babe. Taking forever to warm up.”
“Oh. Okay. I’ll go back to bed.”
The footsteps retreated. Sloane looked at me — towel turban askew, sleep shirt wrinkled, completely compromised.
“Tell her the water heater broke,” she whispered, fixing my turban with ridiculous tenderness. “And that you’re taking cold showers from now on. Every morning. With me.”
We got caught three months later. Not in the bathroom — in the kitchen, at midnight, with Maya standing in the doorway holding a glass of water and a face I will never forget.
Maya moved out. Sloane moved in. We got a two-bathroom place.
She still steals my shower slot. Every morning. And I still leave the door unlocked.
The water heater works fine, by the way. It always did.
