Room-maid(10)

Frederica had sent me a link to an old listing of Tyler’s penthouse that had pictures of all the rooms. She had included a link to Tyler’s Instagram account, too, which I had clicked on quite a bit since she’d sent it. My hope was that I could somehow inoculate myself to his pretty, make myself immune to his charms.

So far it wasn’t working.

“Here.” I handed her my phone. She needed to see for herself how nice the apartment was. “Just click on that link and you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

Shay let out a strangled sound. “Are you kidding me with this? Way to bury the lede! Great googly moogly! Someday, when I tell this tale to my grandchildren, I will tell them my ovaries grew three sizes that day.”

“What are you talking about—” It was then that I realized that she’d clicked on the second link instead of the first and was now ogling Tyler.

“Suddenly you wanting to move in with him makes so much more sense.”

“That’s a tall drink of wow.” I looked up to see Delia standing behind Shay, peering over her shoulder.

“Madison’s going to live with him,” Shay gleefully informed her. The last time I’d seen her this giddy was when one of our fellow teachers, Owen James, poured coffee on himself before the first bell.

“Good for you!” Delia grinned at me as she took the empty chair next to Shay. “I’m really out of the loop. I didn’t even know you were dating anyone.”

I detected the slightest note of hurt in her voice. “No, we’re not dating or anything. I’m his new roommate.”

“And his maid,” Shay couldn’t help but add.

At Delia’s shocked expression, I hurried to fill her in on everything I’d told Shay so far, adding, “I thought you had recess duty today or else I would have waited for you.”

“I switched with Amanda. I have to help Jayden with one of his perspective art projects after school and so I’m going to stay late.”

“You are like a human granola bar,” Shay told her. “You’re too nice.”

“That’s kind of a weird insult,” she replied. “But my niceness is not what we’re discussing. Like shouldn’t we talk about the problematic implications of what Madison’s doing?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She shrugged. “You cleaning up his apartment is really playing into those traditional gender and economic roles.”

“Except for the fact that I can’t be conforming to a gender role because I have no idea how to clean.”

“Good point,” she said, lifting up her cup of peppermint tea to take a quick sip.

And during all this, Shay had continued to stare at Tyler’s picture on my phone with a goofy grin on her face. An inclination I understood, but it was starting to make me a little uneasy. Possibly jealous as well.

Shay turned the phone screen toward Delia. “Did you see his dog, too? Men are a hundred times hotter when they love dogs. That’s legit math. From a math teacher.”

I couldn’t help but brag about him a little, because it was one of the facts I knew from my Tyler brain file. “He rescued that dog, Pigeon, from an abusive home. I mean, I guess it was actually the shelter who rescued her and then Tyler adopted her, but still.”

Shay nodded. “I was wrong in my calculations. He is now ten thousand times hotter.”

“He’s like a real-life Captain America,” Delia agreed. “He should have his own ticker-tape parade.”

“I’ll be grand marshal,” Shay said.

“I think the fact that we’re all so gaga over him means we should probably be dating more,” I said.

Shay shook her head, disagreeing with me. “I date plenty.”

“I mean guys you go out on more than one date with.”

She rolled her eyes at me and in apparent retaliation announced, “I feel like Tyler Roth is in need of a deep dive.”

I said, “No,” and reached for my phone, but she ignored me. Delia grabbed her own phone and started tapping on it. “He hasn’t posted anything on Facebook in years. No account on Twitter that I can find.”

Shay showed her my phone. “But look at the stuff he’s posted on Insta. He not only adopted his dog from that shelter, but he volunteers there, too. Speaking of volunteering, he’s involved with this coffee company that donates its profits to building homes in Guatemala. He actually flew out there and helped build them. He really is Captain America.” She hesitated slightly to suck in a deep breath of appreciation. “Oh, look, he does the cutest thing. He takes pictures with his dog and Photoshops famous sites behind them. Like the Eiffel Tower, Colosseum, the Statue of Liberty. He says she’s too nervous to fly but he wishes he could show her the world. That is the cutest thing ever. And he hashtags them all with #ohtheplacesyoullgo.”

“That’s enough,” I said, reaching for my phone.

Shay tapped the screen thoughtfully, ignoring my hand. “Maybe he’s too kind.”

“Too kind?” I repeated. Was that even possible?

“Yeah. You know the type that’s so nice and helpful that he winds up being taken advantage of.”

I didn’t know him well enough to know whether or not that was true. It could be. But he seemed so strong and confident and sure of himself that I had a hard time imagining it.