Page 63 of The Temporary Roomie: Extended Edition

“NO!!! You might startle it, and it will lunge at me! Oh my gosh, it’s going to bite me while I’m exposed and naked. This is going to traumatize me, and I’ll never be able to be naked again!” That would be a tragedy. I can’t let that happen.

“Everything okay in there?” Richard calls from outside the open bathroom door.

“We heard screaming,” says Henry in a worried tone.

“Oh,super.The gang’s all here,” Jessie says, sounding like she’s close to hysterics. “Does the rest of the neighborhood want to come in and see me naked too?”

“No one but me is going to see you naked.”Ever again.“I’ll make sure they don’t come in.” I hold a hand out toward Jessie. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“WHERE WOULD I GO?!”

I turn around and peek my head out at Richard. “Uh—so, we’ve got a snake problem in here.”

“AHHHHH! IT’S GETTING CLOSER. DREWWWW.”

“Oh heavens!” Henry says, sounding like a 1950s housewife who’s never heard a swear word. His hands are balled up under his chin and his face is contorted into full panic.

I give him a reassuring head shake, because I’m slightly worried for his blood pressure. “It’s just a garter snake, but I’m going to need a pillowcase, please.”

Henry runs to the bed and tears one off before throwing it at me. I nod my thanks and go back into the bathroom. Richard asks if I need his help, but then Jessie screeches again that no one but me is allowed to come in there, so he just smiles and nods like I’m going into war. Luckily, when I was a kid I loved catching garter snakes, so this will not be a first for me.

Back inside the bathroom, I keep my eyes on the snake—but let’s be real, I can tell Jessie is still in the corner using her hands to cover everything she deems unseeable. It’s adorable, and I’m crazy about her.

“Don’t look—I mean it!” she warns for the hundredth time.

“Are you talking to me or the snake?”

“Ha-ha, you’re so funny!” She does not think I’m funny. “Please, just hurry! That creepy tongue of his keeps sticking out like I’m lunch.”

I cup my hand over the side of my face, cutting Jessie out of my peripheral vision, and slowly approach the shower.

“Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh,” Jessie chants in a high-pitched voice with every step I take. I don’t want to move too quickly and startle the snake for fear that it would then startle Jessie and make her slip and fall.

So, I move in slowly and whisper, “Will you be quiet?”

“Don’t tell me what to do! I’m the one being held hostage by a snake. You’re not peeking, are you?”

“If you don’t zip your lips, I’m going to turn and look fully at you.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“I would. So hush until I have this snake in the bag.”

I hear her gulp, but she doesn’t say a thing as I approach. Moving nice and slow, I set the pillowcase down and open afew inches in front of the snake. It starts hissing, and Jessie whimpers. Finally, using her curling wand that I found on the counter, I wave it toward the back of the snake, getting it to startle and slither into the bag. As soon as it’s inside, I pick up the pillowcase and cinch the top closed with my fist. The snake throws a fit inside the bag and Jessie immediately lurches forward, grabs the shower curtain, and pastes it to her body like a scandalous dress.

I finally make eye contact with her and smile. Her cheeks are bright red, whether from the hot shower, the embarrassment, or the snake, I don’t know. Either way, she’s beautiful.

“Thank you,” she says in a snooty, wobbly voice, then points toward the door. “Now get out.”

I shut the bathroom door behind me, and Henry apologizes profusely like he had something to do with a snake somehow making it into his house. Richard thanks me for removing it. I laugh the whole way down to the dock, where I let it go near the lake.

Once the snake is taken care of, I sit down on the edge of the dock, still laughing over the sight of Jessie squealing with a snake hissing at her, and I wait. I know she will come find me, and I’m right. I hear her feet shuffling over the dock, and I look over my shoulder to see her wearing jean shorts and a lavender top. Her hair is wet, and her arms are crossed tightly over her chest, shoulders bunched up to her ears.

“Are you seriously still laughing at me?”

“Yes,” I say, not bothering to hide my amusement.

“You’re a jerk.”

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