The guys and Joy have stayed up talking, eating lasagna and drinking beer. A couple are at the table, and the others are in the living room. Dirty plates and napkins litter the tables, along with empty beer bottles.

I can’t help it but I am a little jealous. Would I have had this if I would have remained friends with the classmates I graduated with from Baxter? Would I share my apartment with them instead of two bitches and Mary?

“Where is Dylan, anyway?” Sean asks.

“Took his laptop and said he needed a change of scenery to work.”

“Novel,” Christian and Zach say at the same time.

“If he’s working on a piece for a newspaper, he does that in his room or at the table,” Alex explains. “When he’s working on his novel, he sometimes goes to an all-night diner or coffee shop.”

“What kind of novel?” I ask.

The guys share a look and shrug. “No idea. He doesn’t talk about it.” Alex takes a swig of his beer.

“Be right back.” Joy jumps from her chair and runs for the stairs. “I need to look at the tattoo.” A minute later we hear a squeal. “It’s perfect!” she calls down. I can hear her feet pound down the stairs. “That’s why you’re my favorite, Alex.”

“You just said Dylan was your favorite,” Sean points out.

“That’s when she was shoving lasagna in her face,” corrects Zach. “I’m sure as soon as you paint her apartment or something, you’ll be her favorite.”

Sean narrows his eyes on her. “Don’t tell me…”

“Nope.” She smiles. “I’m all good.”

“Like painting would make a difference,” Ryan says. “With all those plants in the window, you don’t get any sunlight in your dinky apartment.”

The front door opens and we all look. Dylan strides in then stops. He looks around the room, from one face to the next, then at the tables and floor. “What the hell is this?”

Zach spreads his arms out. “Pretty obvious, I think.”

Dylan hangs his messenger bag on a hook by the door and starts picking up dirty plates while kicking shoes out of the way. He stops on his way to the kitchen and looks at me. “Instead of one Oscar Madison, I’m stuck living with five. I’ve not even been gone twelve hours and they’ve trashed the place.”

What’s he talking about? “Who is Oscar Madison?”

The guys burst out laughing. “Odd Couple?”

That sounds vaguely familiar but I’m still not making the connection.

“Neil Simon play,” Zach says. “Our senior year, your junior.” He grins. “I played Dylan,” he yells.

Then it starts to come back to me. “The two divorced guys living together. One was a slob and the other OCPD.”

“I thought it was OCD,” Joy says.

“Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, is a fixation on tidiness, usually,” I answer.

“I am not OCD or OCPD,” Dylan yells from the kitchen.

My face heats. Shit, I didn’t mean to upset him.

“Convince someone that doesn’t live with you,” Alex calls back with a laugh.

“Okay, fine, I’m OCPD,” he says as he comes back into the dining room carrying a beer. “I just prefer order, which you usually find on this floor of the house, or the second.”

“Not the rest?” I ask.

“They,” he points to all the guys except Alex. “all have rooms above me and I hope whatever might be living or growing up there doesn’t find its way down the stairs.

Alex finishes bandaging up Joy’s tattoo and takes his kit into the kitchen.

“At least Alex cleans up after himself.”

“Like I’m given a choice,” he mumbles and then winks at me.

Joy pulls her shirt on and then looks at the guys. “Who am I sleeping with?”

She is way more comfortable with these guys than I could ever be. Then again, after a few minutes into the tattooing I completely forgot she was just in her jeans and bra. But, I’m a girl. I doubt any of the guys forgot.

“Come along, sweetheart,” Zach pulls himself from the couch. “I need to get my face washed, and moisturized, and turn in myself.”

I stand and stretch. “Well, I guess I should be going so you guys can sleep.”

Alex grabs me from inside the kitchen. I’m not sure how, but his arm is around my waist in a heartbeat. “We are not riding the subway at 3:00 in the morning.”

“I can’t sleep here again.”

“Yes you can and you will.” Then he grins at me. “We slept together before, and it worked out just fine.”

I did like sleeping with him, but you can only sleep with a guy so much, especially if there is a relationship of some sorts, before he wants to do more than sleep. But, I did tell him I had no intention of having sex with him. I just hope I don’t have to remind him again.

Besides, nobody wants to be on the subway at this hour, and I’ve never been comfortable calling a car. I don’t care how much these people are screened. There are still strange people picking you up and dropping you off. There’s got to be a few crazies driving around New York, and with my luck, I’d get one of them.

“You’re staying?” It may be phrased in a question, but the tone was all but ordering.

“I’ll stay,” I say as I roll my eyes.