Derek’s always been a force-of-habit kind of guy. When he was little, this meant having the same breakfast every morning: Cheerios, two spoonfuls of Laura’s Honey Nut mixed in for flavor, and a perfectly ripe banana sliced on top before the milk was poured in. The milk would preferably be 2%, although he did accept 1% when they ran out and his mom was too tired to drive to the store.
When he was a teenager getting used to the new dynamics in high school, he volunteered to make shopping runs, and carried his habits over to his lunches. He carefully assembled his sandwiches each night, since he would’ve had to get up at the crack of dawn to avoid the jostling – and attempts to sneak extra treats into his lunchbag – that would inevitably happen once his mom and sisters were in the kitchen. Derek had never been much of a morning person.
That didn’t change in college, even when he got stuck with 8 AM classes his freshman year, rolling bleary-eyed out of bed to the shower and then down the hill to the history building, eating a banana or a granola bar on the way.
By his second year, he’s ironed out a new routine. He’s arranged his classes for the afternoons and evenings, and talked the housing office into letting him and Boyd keep their room. He’s gotten used to the showers – they’re some of the better ones on campus, according to friends who live in buildings with shittier rooms but nicer views or more convenient access to the student union. He’s lucked out, too, with the laundry room, which is newly renovated, thanks to a guy named Greenberg who’d had some sort of mental breakdown two years earlier, deciding to express his existential despair by systematically flooding all the washing machines and then trying to light his books on fire in the dryers.
And Boyd’s a pretty great roommate, as they go. Derek had worried a little about sharing a room with someone – it’d taken some trips to the hardware store and two rows of slide-locks to keep his nosy sisters out of his room – but Boyd’s on the quieter side, respecting Derek’s space and demonstrating a subtle, wry sort of humor that Derek appreciates.
Derek’s carefully mapped out schedule includes waking up a couple hours after Boyd, getting in some reading and finishing up homework assignments, if necessary, or spending that time working out if he’s all caught up, then slipping into a towel and his shower shoes and padding down the hall to what he’s come to think of as his stall.
He’s always there at roughly the same time of day – that sweet spot between morning and afternoon classes, when most of his floor’s already cleared out, or scrambling to grab lunch before running to their lecture halls. The bathroom’s on the larger end, with a line of tiled, curtained off showers and a row of chrome sinks bolted to the opposite wall. He prefers the stall at the far end of the room; it tends to stay cleaner for longer, probably because the other guys are generally too lazy to walk the few extra steps from the door.
That trend had held true for most of his first year, anyway. The part of Derek that’s always thrown off-kilter by changes should’ve expected something to shove a wrench into his plans.
Shower Boyfriends
Published
shealwaysreads 