The Rules of Friendship

I wake up the next morning quite early. Around 6 am. Well, early to me atleast. I usually wake up at 8 am. I roll around, trying to go back to sleep. In the end, I finally give up and decide to get a snack.

I notice the silence almost immediately. I walk downstairs and go straight towards the fridge. Even though my housemates made it pretty clear that I am welcome to eat anything as long as I pitch in for groceries, I still didn't feel comfortable getting food from the fridge without them being aware.

I finally give into my hunger and make a sandwich. I get myself a bottle of water and start marching to my room.

'Goodmorning to you too, Elizar.', I hear a voice call out.

I look around for any sign of life, and give a confusing look... maybe it was just me.

'Fine, don't say anything back', I hear once again. This time I spot a hand waving from the couch.

I walk over to the couch to find walter laying there reading the newspaper.

'Sorry, didn't notice you here.', I say.

'Nice way of telling me that I'm invisible.', Walter said jokingly.

'No I didn't mean-'

'I know Elizar! Geez, I'm 22 not 75, I can take a joke.', he said proceeding to reading the newspaper.

'Wow', I say laughing.

'What?', Walter wonders, still looking at his newspaper.

'You might be the only person left on earth that still reads the news on paper.', I exaggerate.

'First you call me invisible and now you call me old fashioned? Way to start our friendship.' He jokes again.

I laugh. The most I have laughed since I got here.

Walter puts down the newspaper and sits up. He glances at me and pats the seat next to him. Did he really want to be friends? Not like he had a choice, since we are housemates.

'So where are Victoria and Rodger?', I ask.

'Both working.', he answers taking a sip from his coffee.

'And...', I stop at the beginning of my sentence, worried that I might come off as rude to Walter.

Walter looks at me and like if he reads my mind, he finishes off my question...

'And why am I sitting here looking like a lazy slob?', Walter asked raising an eyebrow.

I nod my head and tighten my lips ashamed.

'Well, I got fired from my last job as a cashier, apparently they thought I was stealing money.', he said in an angry and serious tone. 'Which is also why I was looking on the newspaper, for any sign of work', he said.

'Ahh, I see... so how much did you say you stole from them?', I joke. It may have not been the right moment for a joke, but I managed to get a chuckle out of Walter.

'I just hate that my jobs are always minor, unlike Rodger and Victoria who work in offices.', he says serious once again.

I nod in agreement. We stay silent for a few minutes, until Walter breaks the silence.

'So speaking of Victoria... how has it been trying to impress her?', Walter asks.

'Well it's been diff-... wait, how do you know i'm interested in Victoria?!', I ask confused.

'Because, it's almost obvious.', he said glaring at me with a grin.

'It is? Fuck! I fail at hiding my emotions.', I say frusturated with myself.

'You know... I can help you try to make her interested in you.' He said convincingly.

'Really? You would?', I ask with a serious tone.

He nods. 'And today is the perfect day for it.', he said with a devilish look.

'Victoria doesn't work on saturday, which is tomorrow... so we can have a little "Celebration for our new housemate" party with just the 4 of us...', he said.

'I see, but how will that help?' I ask.

'Well, Victoria is a very decent person, but get her to gulp down a few beers and her brain is as useless as a robot's.' he says, once again grinning devilishly.

Even though getting Victoria drunk sounded very evil, it wasn't like if I was going to sexually abuse her, I was just going to tell her how I felt about her.

'Sounds great!', I shout with excitement.

'Good, so it's a plan?', he asks.

'Sure... it's worth a shot.', I say.

I go back to my room with the thought of tonight. How will she react? That was the main question. Hopefully not by throwing a drink on my face.

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16 hours later (10pm)

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'Victoria, I'm attracted to you...'

'Victoria, I like you...'

'Victoria, I have a crush on you...'

'Ugh! The hell with this!', I shout frusturated.

16 hours passed and I still had no idea how I was going to confess my attraction towards Victoria. Perhaps I was more nervous about the thought of Victoria kicking me out of the house. Like an angel kicking me out of heaven.

I walk downstairs to find all 3 of my housemates ready. Rodger was wearing olive green pants and nice black boots. While Walter wore white pants with blue sneakers. My eyes quickly fixed on Victoria, whom was wearing a silky looking dress that defined the form of her breasts.... meanwhile, I was wearing jeans and a flannel... like if it was a casual tuesday.

'So... are you ready housemate?', Victoria asked excitedly.

'Uhh... yeah.', I respond gulping hard from the nerves.

We end up going to a restaurant. We eat, laugh, talk and all that. Unfortunately, Walters plan went down the drain when he asked for beer. Apparently the restaurant was one of those "no alcoholic drinks" kind of restaurants.

After hours of talking, we finally decide to go home. Victoria gets caught up talking to Rodger on our way to the car. I take the chance to talk to Walter.

'Looks like our plan failed', I tell him.

He smirks, 'Not exactly...'

'What do you mean?', I ask curious to know.

'I'm stopping at a liquor store for beers, the night is not over yet.'

I smile at his determination to help me.

We get home with two 8 packs of beer. Which was more than enough for me. We settle down oin the backyatd