Chase acts like he owns the couch.
Yes, he paid for it, but Lia didn't force him to. He insisted on paying because apparently, electricians make more money than middle school math teachers - Lia laughed in the man's face when he said that, but sadly he is right. He earns at least thirty-five percent more income than she does. Her salary is shit. This is why she needed a roommate. And perhaps a new job.
Anyway, paying for the couch in a shared apartment doesn't give him a license to use it as he damn pleases.
Like the other day, Lia was sitting on one end of the big three-seater couch, grading papers, and enjoying the peace and quiet. And without as much as a single warning, Chase plopped down right next to her, leaving no space between them. If she had been sitting just one inch to the left, the man would have been sitting on her left thigh.
They sat there thigh to thigh, beefy and muscular arm to softer and thinner arm.
Chase didn't say a word at first. He just stared straight ahead at the blank TV for two solid minutes.
Then, as if he had only just noticed her sitting right next to him, he lifted his right arm - the one that previously stuck to hers - and draped it over the back of the couch behind her. He turned to give her a wink and a casual "Hey,"
Lia blinked at the man and replied with, "Hey, does the concept of personal space so foreign to you?" she said, which was totally lost on him, and moved to sit in the solitary armchair.
She is not bothered not only because he thinks he owns the couch but also because he thinks he owns her when she is on it!
The other Saturday morning, she had just finished her breakfast, and she was relaxing on the big couch. She wasn't taking much space. She was occupying as little as possible actually, sitting at the furthest right, trying to enjoy the morning light that shone through the nearly floor-to-ceiling window behind Chase's TV. Her head was resting against the back of the couch, and her eyes were closed shut. The song of the chirping birds outside were dancing around her head.
Until the man broke that serenity.
He didn't do it by making any noise; she was startled into awareness by the weight of his head on her lap.
Lia opened her eyes and looked down to see that the man was stretched comfortably on the couch. Without a care in the world. To him, she was simply a part of the couch.
"Excuse me?!" she protested. Chase had his eyes shut and was apparently trying to enjoy the Saturday morning, too. "I don't remember giving you permission to use me as a pillow."
The man didn't move, of course, but he cracked one eye open and simply said, "My head hurts. Have a heart," and then went back to relaxing! Seconds later, he even had the audacity to add, "Besides, your soft thighs are made for this."
I could have suffocated him with a throw pillow.
But I didn't.
Mostly because he was lying on top of my left hand and I couldn't wiggle it out from under his back.
Things kept getting weirder on this couch.
For example, last Tuesday night, they were both sitting on the three-seater, but this time on opposite ends.
It wasn't the man's choice, obviously. He wanted to sit next to her, but every time he tried to get close, Lia would keep him away by waving her foot in his direction. As a threat, of sorts.
For a few blissful minutes, she thought it had worked.
But she was wrong. He apparently doesn't mind feet like she does.
Chase even grabbed her foot - the one she was waving around in his face - and said these words, after holding it in both of his hands for a few seconds, "Your feet are ice cold! Let me warm them up for you." And he did! He rubbed her bare cold feet, one at a time, with his large warm hands!
Lia tried to pull away from him, but he insisted on rubbing them. When she was able to slip her foot out of the man's grip and tuck it under her body, he moved closer to her and reached for her foot again.
"Leave my feet alone!" She yelled at him while blushing profusely.
To which he responded with, "Why?" And simply kept on rubbing them, massaging them, and warming them up, seemingly unaware of how much she truly liked it.
And how much it made her blush.
So yes, that was nice of him. But don't let his charm fool you as it did on her.
There was this other night. She had come from work, exhausted and thoroughly spent. She was too tired to get out of her work clothes and make it to her own bed, so she decided that she would just rest her head on the couch for a few minutes, which, of course, turned into a full night's sleep.
She woke up the next morning to the sight of Chase's face, only an arm's length away from hers. He was staring right at her. Intently. He sat cross-legged on the floor by the couch and was looking directly at her face.
"Fuck!" she gasped out in panic and tried to sit up. "Has no one ever told you that it's creepy to stare at a sleeping person?!"
His weird and almost inaudible reply was, "I couldn't help it. You looked so damn adorable."
Lia sat up straighter and asked immediately, "W-what?"
"What?" he parroted, pretending he hadn't said anything.
"What did you just say?" she asked again, narrowing her eyes at him.
Chase narrowed his eyes right back at her and answered with, "I said... you snore like a water buffalo."
The fucking jerk!
She responded to his ridiculousness by leaving the couch and the entire living room ti him, for the rest of the day. She yelled back as she stormed off to her bedroom. "I don't fucking snore, you creep!"
But wait...
There is more...
One time, she was so mad at him - and rightfully so - for refusing to put a shirt on, that she forbade him from sitting on the couch.
And it turned into a little squabble.
Lia was adamant about not letting him sit on the couch without a shirt on. At least not with her on it. And because her strength didn't compare to his, she used her entire body to block off the three-seater couch. She stretched herself on it. Spreading her arms and legs as far as they would go. Basically blocking space so she won't be able to sit on it.
The man looked down at her like she was being a child. "Why is this even bothering you?" he asked.
"Why?!" she yelled back while still taking up as much space as she could, "I don't want you spreading your dead skin cells all over the couch! That's why! Put a shirt on, for Pete's sake!"
Obviously, she was lying through her teeth. She didn't want him to be shirtless because she didn't want to feel like she was going into cardiac arrest while watching the late night show next to Mr. Perfect, who's listening like a tan statue a few inches away from her.
Chase quickly figured out a way around her strength, though.
He lifted her legs up so easily and sat down on the couch, and then lower her legs over his lap and proceeded to watch TV.
She wasn't going to let him win, so she started poking his naked bicep with her feet, trying to push him off the couch. She didn't succeed in moving him, but she did annoy him.
He got up soon after.
And just when Lia thought that she had succeeded, he scooped her up, in one swift movement, carrying her off the big couch like she didn't weigh any more than the trash bags he took out every week, and plopped her down on the small armchair. Her legs were dangling over the chair and she wasn't even facing the TV.
She was facing the man.
For a reason.
He took over the big couch, and to her horror, started rubbing his naked back against the couch's backrest to tease her.
He looked like a stupid bear marking his territory, and she told him so.
It's safe to say, they have not figured out a way of coexist on the couch, yet.
*****