Raif had been busy that day. Classes had been more demanding than he’d expected, and afterward, he had to go grocery shopping.

At seven-thirty that evening, he sat at the kitchen table in Wyn’s apartment eating an oversized sandwich he bought at the deli. Wyn was watching TV in her room. He could hear the laugh track through the door.

He wasn’t lonely. Actually, he was delighted. So far, her arrangement suited him just fine.

He got out his phone and composed an email to her where he thanked her for the bun, apologized for not putting away the plate of sliced fruit, which was no longer on the table, and told her he would be more than happy to go along with her plan. He emphasized that he wanted to be a good roommate and would stay out of her way as much as possible. He sent the email and felt like a saint.

With nothing to do, but finish his sandwich, he glanced at the jar that remained on the table. Curiosity bit him. He opened the jar and pulled out one of the scrolls.

It was on blue paper and when he unrolled it, there was a blue flower print on the inside. He was impressed she had used two-sided paper on the project. Then he read the request.

Bring me a glass of ice water that is filled with ice first and water second.

He looked around the room like it had to be a joke. Adult women did not ask for glasses of water. They asked for nothing and got ticked off when they got it. A woman asking for something directly was unheard of and very curious.

All he had to do to get Wyn to talk to him was get her a glass of water? Well, he didn’t know if he had anything to say to her, but here was a woman saying exactly what she wanted and he would be damned if he wasn’t going to give it to her.

He put down his sandwich, went to the freezer, and popped it open. There were ice cube trays, but they were empty. In that case, a glass of ice water was a little trickier to procure than he’d originally thought. He filled the trays, but they wouldn’t be ready for hours, and he needed ice now.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Raif put on his shoes and left the apartment. He tapped on Trevor’s door, but no one answered.

The nearest grocery store was ten blocks away and he’d already been there that night. The closest convenience store was two blocks away, but expensive.

He was about to give up when he thought of the request the girl made. It was small. Under normal circumstances, it would have been nothing.

He cringed. He’d already seen the note. He couldn’t ignore it.

He smacked his back pocket to make sure his wallet was still there and then hoofed it to the convenience store to buy ice.

By the time he made it back, his sandwich had melted, meaning the green peppers and dressing had oozed out, but he didn’t even look at it. Instead, he went to the cupboard, examined all of Wyn’s cups until he found the one he considered to be the prettiest, and pulled it out. He filled it with ice, then water, added a detail, and took it to her room.

He lightly tapped on the door.

Wyn heard his knock and answered it.

He handed her the water with the note skewered like a cocktail umbrella on top.

“Thank you,” she said, a little dumbfounded. Somewhere in her mind, she thought that he wouldn’t follow the instructions on any of her notes. She took a sip. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Nothing,” he said with a dazzling smile before he returned to the kitchen.

She followed him, vexed and disappointed. “What do you mean, ‘nothing’?”

He put the leftover ice in the freezer, sat back down at the table, and tried to salvage the remains of his sandwich by rolling it back up in the wax paper it had been sold to him in.

“Why did you pick a wish out if you didn’t want to talk to me?” she persisted.

“Because I wanted to know what kind of requests they were, and then it seemed unkind to ignore your request on the first day we’re living together. I told you, I want to be a good roommate. Finding another roommate strikes me as exhausting and stupid. It’s a really bad time of year to find someone new to live with. You’ll give me a chance, won’t you?”

She looked at him for a moment, clearly as uncomfortable as she’d been the day before with no improvement. “Let’s take turns buying toilet paper,” she said, not answering his question directly, but skirting it. “Obviously, I’m going first. It’s your job to notice when we need our next pack and to buy it.”

He nodded.

She went back to her room.