Chapter 5: The Double Arrival
The elevator at 4D was slower than it had any right to be.
I stood in the industrial lobby, watching the floor indicator crawl upward, when I heard footsteps behind me. Quick clicks on concrete, slightly uneven—someone moving fast while carrying something awkward.
"Oh!" A voice behind me, startled and slightly breathless. "Are you—? I mean, is this—?"
I turned.
Jessica Day stood three feet away, polka-dot dress bright against the gray lobby, bangs slightly windswept, eyes red-rimmed from recent crying. She was holding a cardboard box that appeared to contain a disturbing amount of glitter-based craft supplies. A printed email poked out of her purse—the same Craigslist response format I'd printed myself.
Exactly like the show. Exactly like I'd imagined. Except in person, the red-rimmed eyes were rawer, and the forced cheerfulness underneath them was more obviously fragile.
"Roommate interview?" I asked, keeping my voice neutral.
Her smile flickered—grateful and embarrassed simultaneously. "Yeah! Yes. I'm Jess. Jessica. Most people call me Jess." She shifted the box to offer a handshake, which resulted in a minor glitter avalanche onto her shoes. "Sorry, I'm—it's been a day. Week. Life, actually. Life has been a life."
I shook her hand. "Chase. And yeah, same interview."
"Oh." She processed this, her eyebrows doing complicated things. "So we're... competing? For the room? That's—that makes sense. Normal. Very normal competitive housing situation." She laughed, high-pitched and slightly manic. "May the best roommate win!"
The elevator arrived with a grinding complaint. We stepped in together.
"You okay?" I asked, because not asking would have been weirder than asking.
Jess's jaw tightened. "I'm great! I'm fantastic. I just caught my boyfriend sleeping with someone else, and now I'm trying to move into an apartment with strangers because my life is exactly where I thought it would be at twenty-eight." She blinked rapidly. "Sorry. Too much information. You definitely didn't need that. I'm just going to... stand here. Quietly. Being normal."
"Sounds rough," I said carefully.
"It's fine. It's totally fine. I'm going to be fine." She said it like she was trying to convince both of us. "Do you have a boyfriend who cheated on you? Is that why you're here?"
"No. Just needed a new place."
"Right. Normal reasons. Unlike my very specific heartbreak-related housing search." She managed a watery smile. "I'm nervous. Can you tell? I make jokes when I'm nervous. Bad jokes. Schmidt jokes, my best friend calls them—not that you know who Schmidt is, because I don't know who Schmidt is, because that's presumably one of the roommates we're about to meet." She paused. "I'm going to stop talking now."
"Take your time."
The elevator opened on the fourth floor. We walked down a hallway that smelled faintly of industrial cleaner and someone's attempt at ethnic cuisine. Apartment 4D was at the end, the door slightly ajar, voices audible from inside.
"—told you we shouldn't have posted that ad. Now we've got two people showing up at the same time, and—"
"Nick, relax. Options are good. We assess, we evaluate, we select the optimal candidate—"
"You're not selecting anything, Schmidt. This is a democracy."
"A democracy where my name is on the lease and I pay the most rent."
Jess knocked on the door frame. The voices stopped.
Schmidt appeared first—exactly as I remembered from the screen, but more dimensional somehow. The hair product was visible in person, the calculation behind his smile more apparent. His eyes went to Jess immediately, cataloguing, assessing, already positioning.
"Welcome," he said, in a voice designed to project warmth while revealing nothing. "I'm Schmidt. You must be our applicants."
"Applicant singular," Nick's voice came from deeper in the apartment. He emerged from the kitchen holding a beer, his expression already skeptical. "We only advertised for one room."
"And yet here we are," I said. "Two applicants. Scheduling confusion, maybe."
Nick's eyes met mine. The bullshit detector was clearly active—I could practically see it scanning for threats. "Confusion. Right."
Jess stepped forward with aggressive cheerfulness. "I'm Jess! That's Chase—we met in the elevator. We're both totally normal and definitely not weirdos, despite what the ad suggested you were trying to avoid."
A third figure appeared from the hallway—Coach, tall and solid, radiating personal trainer energy even in casual clothes. His assessment was more physical than Schmidt's, sizing me up like a potential gym client.
"Coach," he said by way of introduction. "Nick, you want to explain why there's two of them?"
"I don't know, Coach. Maybe because Schmidt wrote the ad and didn't include basic screening criteria?"
"The ad was efficient," Schmidt protested. "No weirdos. Simple, clear, effective."
"And yet," Nick gestured at us, "here we are."
The interview that followed was chaotic in a way that felt simultaneously improvised and rehearsed—like they'd done this before, or something close enough to muscle memory. Schmidt asked about my employment situation; I delivered the temp-agency-registered-freelancer story smoothly. Nick asked why I left my last place; I gave him the "situation didn't work out" non-answer that invited no follow-up questions. Coach asked if I worked out; I said I was getting into it.
Jess, meanwhile, was being aggressively herself. She talked about teaching, about crafts, about her "very recent personal development opportunity" involving relationship reevaluation. She sang a brief impromptu song about roommate compatibility that made Nick visibly uncomfortable and Schmidt visibly interested.
"So," Nick said eventually, arms crossed. "Two people. One room. What's the plan here?"
"Maybe we could—" Jess started.
"Rock paper scissors," Coach suggested.
"Bidding war," Schmidt countered. "Highest rent offer wins."
My Luck Stat pulsed—not activated, just available. I could feel the probability field responding to my focused intention: both applicants accepted. Both staying. The outcome I needed but couldn't force.
"Actually," Schmidt said slowly, something occurring to him. "The storage space. Past the bathroom. We've been using it for Winston's old stuff, but there's a floor plan that technically designates it as a fifth room."
Nick frowned. "That's barely a closet."
"It's livable. Cozy. Efficient."
"It's not a real bedroom."
"It could be," Schmidt pressed. "With minimal renovation. The landlord's been wanting us to consolidate the storage anyway—something about fire codes."
As if on cue, a phone buzzed. Schmidt checked it, his expression shifting to something that might have been surprise if I believed he was capable of genuine surprise.
"Email from the building manager," he said. "They're confirming that the storage conversion has been approved. Retroactively, apparently. Something about an earlier request that just processed."
Coincidence. Or luck. The line blurred exactly as I'd come to expect.
Nick's eyes narrowed. "That's convenient."
"That's real estate," Schmidt countered smoothly. "Markets move. Opportunities arise. Two new roommates means two new rent contributions—"
"I'll take the small room," I said, before anyone could object. "Whatever the storage space converts to. I don't need much space."
Jess looked at me with something like gratitude. "Are you sure? I don't want to be the person who takes the bigger room just because—"
"I'm sure. Smaller room, smaller commitment. Works for me."
Nick studied me for a long moment. The bullshit detector was still active, but something in my willingness to take the worse option seemed to satisfy some internal criterion. "Fine. Whatever. We'll try this. Both of you. One month trial."
"Three months," Schmidt corrected.
"Two weeks," Nick countered.
"One month," Coach mediated. "Then we reassess."
Handshakes happened. Keys were distributed. The transaction was complete.
I stood in my new room—a converted storage space barely larger than a walk-in closet, with a single window that looked out on an air shaft and walls that had clearly been added as an afterthought. The floor was clean enough. The door closed properly. It was mine.
Through the wall, I could hear Jess singing quietly to herself as she unpacked. Something about new beginnings, improvised melody, slightly off-key.
The loft sounded different now. Two new variables in an ecosystem that had been closed for years. Whatever came next wouldn't match the show exactly—it couldn't, not with me here, not with the dual arrival instead of just Jess.
But that was the point. I wasn't here to watch the story. I was here to live in it.
The singing continued. I sat on the floor of my tiny room and let myself feel the weight of what I'd accomplished.
I was inside the loft.
Support the Story on Patreon
If you are enjoying the series and would like to read ahead, I offer an early access schedule on Patreon. I upload 7 new chapters every 10 days.
Tiers are available that provide a 7, 14, or 21-chapter head start over the public release. Your support helps me maintain this consistent update pace.
Patreon.com/TransmigratingwithWishes