Page 7 of Interning For A Billionaire

“Enjoy!” the girl sarcastically said and left.

“Uhm… do you have a spare key?” I called after her.

“Ask Greg,” she called airily after me.

Needless to say, I’d been unable to get hold of Greg all week. His phone kept going to voice mail. After two days of waiting around outside the apartment, I figured out that Brianna, as my new housemate was called, worked shifts at a nearby restaurant. If she was working nights, I had to be at the apartment before she left for work, or I wouldn’t be able to get in. To say she was giving me the cold shoulder, would be an understatement. It was like she was blaming me for Greg moving out and dumping her.

When I arrived at home on Friday after work, I found the door locked. I went to the restaurant where she worked but it was her night off. Desolately, I walked back to the apartment, sitting down on the doorstep and waited. And waited. I must have fallen asleep because suddenly, someone was touching my shoulder and talking to me.

I sat up, startled.

“What?”

A man straightened up and stood back. I saw he had dyed part of his hair an electric blue. “We must be neighbors,” he said, pointing at the place next to ours. “I’m Ty,” he stuck out his hand. “It’s actually Tyler, but everyone calls me Ty.”

I got up, rather stiffly, shook his hand and explained the situation. “Oh, you’ve got to come to ours,” he said, immediately pulling me over into their apartment. “You can’t wait out here, girl!”

Even though I wasn’t keen on socializing, my bum had gone numb from sitting on the floor and it was getting cold. Ty was nice, even with his blue hair, multiple face piercings and interesting shirt. I was too tired to argue anyway. If I was to be murdered by my flamboyant neighbor after my first week in San Francisco, then so be it.

But Ty didn’t kill me. He introduced me to his roommates, Ramón and Julius, who were watching TV when we arrived.

We stood around their kitchen counter, perching on stools and I told them my sad story.

“No way,” said Ramón, shocked. “She’s refusing to give you a key?”

“Talk about a woman scorned,” said Julius. “And you can’t get hold of Greg?”

“He’s a bit of a stoner,” Ty said, giving me a look. “But I know where he hangs out. Problem, is, he’s probably lost his keys already!”

Ty gave me a beer, told me all about his work at an advertising agency.

“Your job sounds like fun,” I said, miserable. “My job was supposed to be fun.”

Ty rummaged through his kitchen looking for something to eat. We ended up sharing a box of Cheerios. “My favorite!” I said with a smile. Ty said, “I’d treat you to some take-out, but I’m totally broke.” He told me he spent all his money over the weekends, going out and drinking with friends.

“Why is your job not fun?” he asked me.

So, I told him about Naked Guy and how he’d taken the situation to a new level.

“So, yesterday, I come to work and there is this file on my desk. It has a post-it note stuck to the front, with URGENT written on top of it. So, I open it, of course,” I say.

“Of course,” Ty responds.

“I thought maybe it was some HR form I had to fill in, because I’m a new employee and all.”

“Makes sense,” agrees Ty.

“But when I open it up, there are no papers to fill out, no forms for me. Oh no, instead, there is one color print-out. A picture really,” I pause for dramatic effect, but I can see I have their attention.

“Okay, what was it?” Julius asks.

“A big photograph of a male penis.”

“What?” The guys start laughing.

“And not just any penis. It’s his penis. Naked Guy’s.”

The guys are hooting with laughter and then they of course want to know how I know it was his, how big it was, how it was shaped, what color it was. I start laughing too now, seeing the lighter side of the whole thing.

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