It had started after basic training, those five a.m. mornings had stayed with me and even when I was up late the night before, I could never really manage to sleep in longer than seven or eight in the morning, still fairly early by civilian standards. That should have been a good thing, but I didn't want to be up at five in the morning. For once I didn't have to be.
I had expected the jetlag to last longer, but I hadn't really been feeling it too bad. I faded in and out for a while, figuring I might as well make the most of it. I wasn't going to spend the whole summer doing this; I had to go back to school at some point. I wasn't technically a dropout until I decided for sure that I wasn't going to go back to get my degree.
To be honest, I wasn't feeling that stressed about it. Football had been the thing I had come to college to do. Since I was a year older and hadn't practiced in so long, I was more worried about making up for lost time than my half-finished business degree.
When I opened my eyes again after drifting off for a second, I had to take a couple seconds to notice that the thing I was looking at was a person, standing by the bed. Tiffany slowly came into focus, looking down at me with her hands on her hips.
"Get out of my room," I said to her.
"This hasn't been your room for five years. You get out."
"Shut up, I just got back home," I said, laying on my back so I could look up at her.
"What kind of twenty-two-year-old man still lives with his dad?" she teased.
"You still live here," I said.
"I'm a girl, it's different."
"How?"
"I'm younger than you."
"So what? You need to get out there and experience the real world," I said, teasing her back.
She still lived at home, but she was right, it was a little different. She wasn't freeloading. She worked part time when she was going to class and full time when she wasn't. She ran errands and went shopping, things that like to help since she wasn't paying rent to her own landlord. It probably helped that she was a girl and was the youngest. Dad wouldn't kick her out. I was glad she still lived at home and was actually a little worried about what would happen when she graduated. If she wanted to move out, he'd live alone.
Mom had been gone for a long time, but if I wasn't here and Tiff wasn't, either, he'd be completely on his own. I didn't really like thinking of him that way. It was good knowing that he wasn't alone in this house.
"Dad likes me. He just wants you to leave," she said.
"But I just got back," I complained jokingly.
"It's been two days. Plenty of time. Get up, we have places to go."
"Where?"
"You need to move out, my friend. You're too old to still come home to your pops every night,"
"You’re gonna put me up somewhere?" I asked her.
"We're finding you a house," she announced. I laughed a little. Same old Tiff.
Our mom dying hit us both in different ways. I became protective of her, but then she became the person who tried to make sure everything was going smoothly. It had kicked whatever latent house-manager skills she had inside her into high gear. If losing Mom had made me cautious about who she hung out with, it had made her feel like making sure everyone was happy was her job.
"How are you going to do that?"
"I'm not doing anything, we're doing it together. And the first thing you need to do is get your ass downstairs. Hurry up, you're driving," she said, leaving with a smirk.
She definitely wasn't wrong about me needing to leave. I was used to having my own space, and I didn't need to be staying here. Dad was just nice enough to let me. I had had a couple down days, but it wasn't going to last, being in my own place, probably somewhere closer to campus since I'd be going back soon was a good idea.
Also, I was way too old to not be able to bring girls home because I lived in my dad's place – I wasn't going to argue with her there. I was dressed in ten minutes, and we were out the door in twenty.
I drove while she read out the addresses and features of the properties we were going to visit. The first place was an open house. It was big, so I knew already that I didn't want it. Tiff still insisted that we at least look at it. It had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a backyard. The real estate agent mentioned family and the school district enough times for me to let him know we weren't a couple. People made that mistake sometimes. After that, he flirted shamelessly with Tiff until we left.
The next one was being rented out by the owners, an older couple who lived one house down. It was better; still too big, but in my budget. Too bad it was almost all the way out in Richmond Heights. Trying to get to school from there just wouldn't be worth it. It was lunch by the time we had finished seeing and rejecting house number three for much the same reason. We stopped at a cafe before heading to the last one.
Even though the whole morning had been unsuccessful, it had been nice having someone to do this with. Tiff talked about school, her job managing a restaurant when she wasn't in class, asked me what I was doing next now that I was back. I noticed she never brought Veronica up, and I left it alone this time.