Chapter Six

Lia has been decided. She will cut to the chase... she can't gracefully handle this new living situation she's been in.

She is overwhelmed.

It's not her first time sharing an apartment with someone. She actually never lived alone. She always had to share an apartment with one or two persons. But her new roommate is not someone she would call as an 'ordinary man' by any definition.

And living with this man is stressful for her.

She was once walk into the living room the other day and see that the man had just comeback from work, and at her surprise, Chase started to strip on his way to the living room couch. Yes, he stripped. All the way to his underwear and thankfully, he kept hat one on. Then he threw her a casual wink when he passed by her before he planted his rear end in front of the TV and proceeded to watch a basketball match. He did it like it was the most natural thing to do when you have a roommate.

Every time Chase initiates a conversation with her, he happens to be shirtless and too close for comfort. It's almost like he's doing it on purpose, just to mess with her. It's not Lia's fault though that they haven't had much in the way of conversation for the first week and a half she has been in the apartment. It's also not her fault that she found herself in need to search for excuses to flee away from the man.

The man is too good-looking to actually look at.

She constantly feel the wind knocked out of her lungs every freaking time he walks into the room. She is still not get over at how good-looking Chase is.

And she don't want to feel this flustered, she definitely don't. But she couldn't help it.

She is not proud to admit this, but she actually tried to time her departure from the apartment each morning just to avoid running into him. She is a biology teacher at a middle school. She doesn't need any additional stress and frustration in her life. She may be able to handle having breakfast near a shirtless, ripped, stubbled man, who by the way makes protein shakes each morning and does a couple of hundred push-ups on the living room carpet, spreading his masculine musk around the place, but she can't.

It's too much to deal with every freaking morning.

And he's a freaking electrician.

She was genuinely surprise by that fact.

Chase is not a model nor a personal trainer - and not a Greek god either - but an electrician. With a toolbox, a hard hat, safety clothes, and everything. He doesn't have a uniform though, which is something Lia is very thankful for because it would just tragically multiply her sexual frustration.

Yes, she thinks that she is painfully attracted to the man.

She would have to be dead inside not to be. Even a plank of wood would find Chase attractive. It's the least that she told herself to stop feeling like a complete loser and be able to sleep at night.

And despite their lack of cordial communication, the man greets her every time he sees her. He would also ask how is she doing and sometimes Lia muster up a mumbled response, avoiding the man's shirtless pecs.

Chase also likes to wink at her all damn time. And she find it unfair because they are like mini heart attacks to her.

In conclusion, the man is clearly stressing her out.

But it's not like she was going to do anything about her attraction towards the man. She is disturbingly awkward when it comes to things involving her heart. She is also absurdly evasive around attractive people. She doesn't know how to act around them, much less live with them.

Yet, here she is, sharing an apartment with probably one of the country's hottest electrician.

They have been living together for about two weeks and while she is still an awkward potato around him, the man acts with no shame and no discomfort towards her. And she can't avoid him forever.

She keep on telling herself that there will be times when she will need him. As a roommate. Like if the fridge breaks or the toilet starts leaking.

Or like the situation they found themselves in a couple of days ago, with the freaking neighbors. The situation required her to approach Chase, and so she did. Because she have to limit to how much discomfort she is willing to live with.

The situation was the upstairs neighbors were having a loud and wild sex that was disturbing their lives - her life, especially.

It started as a quiet and peaceful afternoon, the kind of serenity that makes you wonder if all the city birds migrated or if the air conditioning actually broke down. She was in the living room, sorting through their mail - mostly Chase's - when she heard the lewdest sex noises coming directly from the ceiling.

And good great heavens! They were lewd.

People may think Lia is a prude - she is - and that everything fazes her - everything actually does - but this was seriously hardcore stuff. Not even most porn actors would be able to compete with the moans of their upstairs neighbors. It was that bad.

She was frozen in place, with her eyes bulging out and her mouth agape - her new default pose, apparently. She jumped when the doorknob to Chase's room turned and the man walked out, trying to investigate the sounds as well.

So there they are, eyes locked awkwardly. Listening to the wanton moans and the sounds of the furniture banging against the walls accompanied by the scraping of wooden floorboards.

He broke the eye contact first to look up at the ceiling. Lia was just standing there, embarrassed to the core, her ears radiating with heat. When she looked at Chase again, she expected him to be equally scandalized, but of course, he wasn't.

She is clearly the only prude in the entire building.

They stood there for a few long seconds, forced to continue to listen to those lewd sounds. Lia was the most embarrassed she has ever been and she wasn't even the one having all the wild and hot sex.

"Uh..." she began before realizing that she had raise her voice to be heard over the neighbor's sex. "YOU... SHOULD GO... AND... TALK TO THEM!" she then gestured dramatically at the man, and the ceiling for emphasis.

Chase gave her a smirk which kind of amuses her because how the fuck was that situation amusing for him? And then he responded with an annoying remark.

"Why should I?"

"Because you have lived here longer than I am!" Lia argues with the man, her hands are curled into fists by her sides. "They would probably recognize you!" Somehow the sex above us got louder before she could even finish her rebuke. "Please, for heaven's sake, just go!" Lia had to restrained herself from throwing her hands up in the in out of frustrations because it would have been the kind of drama that can entertain Chase.

Chase, as she should have expected, took the opportunity to tease her and chuckle at how annoyed she was. "Alright, I hear you... but let's be fair here, we got to flip a coin for it," and to her total amazement, the man actually went to the couch to retrieve a stray of coin from between the cushions. "If it comes out heads, I will talk to the neighbors, if it's tails, you will have to do it... deal?" the man then looked at her as if he was doing her a great service.

She rolled her eyes in frustration crossed her arms, signaling for him to go ahead, although there was no way in hell she was going to talk to those pervert animals upstairs.

"Tails," Chase announced a second later, having already flipped the coin. "It looks like you got to go and talk to them," he then shrugged and gave me a half smile like it was out of his hands.

Lia almost pouted. Almost. But she checked herself and glared at the man instead.

She tightened her crossed arms in objection, refusing to go and confront who essentially were her perverted neighbors. This kind of bullshit was definitely the man's responsibility.

Meanwhile, the couple above them were still going at it as they talk.

"I got another idea," Chase said looking more serious, but still a little smug. Lia should have known better than expect anything useful to come out of the man's mouth but she was desperate for a solution.

When the man didn't elaborate any further, she took the bait, narrowed her eyes, and suspiciously asked him.

"What's your another idea?"

"I say..." Chase leaned closer and lowered his voice, making Lia want to mirror his movements. "We can make our own sex noises, that way we ill make them aware of what they are doing," the man looked so serious about his ridiculous suggestion that she had to hold herself back from slapping him hard. "You could start sighing, and I could start groaning, we can even use the furniture for sound effects!" And then to her horror, Chase started mimicking what it would look like.

Lia immediately took an action. She grabbed the nearest throw pillow from he couch and smacked the man square in his handsome face. She then stormed off to her own bedroom and locked the door shut behind her - she just got installed a lock for her bedroom the other couple of days to keep the pervert out."

Living with the man is going to be more difficult than she thought.

*****