My girlfriend and I had just moved into our new apartment in an 'up and coming' neighborhood. That is to say, it wasn't great, but it was near a nice neighborhood. Not quite bars on the windows, but you should probably lock your doors at night.
We had just got home from shopping and bags of food and other items. "Where should I put all this toilet paper, Jen?" I said, overwhelmed by the fact that our new one-bedroom apartment was seriously bereft of storage. "Evan," she sighed, "please don't worry about that right now. Just put away the stuff you can find a home for. We'll deal with the rest later," and she disappeared into the other "wing" of the apartment.
I met Jen a couple of years ago at, of all places, the gym. She was always there, long blonde hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, sports bra hiding what would turn out to be a nice set of little ski slopes that improbably defied gravity, and spandex shorts. She was the kind of gym girl you see on all the little influencer videos of chicks trying to look hot. But she was the real deal. I couldn't keep my eyes off her especially when she was doing her hip thrusts working on that spectacular ass of hers. I couldn't help just watching her mound rise and fall; I was hypnotized. I never got the courage to talk to her because that has become an act of self-destruction for men who quickly get labeled as creeps.
However, one day after a set of hip thrusts, I had turned to do a set of triceps on a cable machine and the next thing I know, she was at my shoulder. "Hey," she said, and it was the first time I had seen her smile. Holy fuck, I was done.
"Oh, hi," I tried to utter calmly, but failed.
The corner of her mouth turned up a little and her eyes narrowed, "you've been checking me out know for months," then she paused for affect. My face flushed what I am sure what an unholy color of guilty red. "Why haven't you talked to me?"
I stammered and stuttered, eventually indicating I was basically a coward. She just chuckled at me and handed me a little bit of paper with her number on it. "Call me?" she said raising her eyebrows, then turned to go back to her hip thrusts. And I watched her walk away with that amazing ass. I raised my eyes to the mirror in front of her to see her smiling back at me. Busted again.
And that was that. The rest is history and now she was mine. And we were moving in together.
I fiddled around putting shit in the fridge for a few more minutes and I heard the back door open. I went around to see what was going on and was surprised by two large young black men standing in the doorway. The first guy was about 6'2" with dreadlocks. The other guy was probably 6' and wearing a hoody. "What the fu----," I uttered partially when captain dreadlocks stepped forward and punched me square in the face. My response was quick and decisive, I fell straight over backward and landed in a heap. He stood over me as I tried to regain my senses and said, "shut the fuck up and hand over all your fucking cash, white boy."
My adrenaline was pumping hard, and the sting of my eye swelling shut started to produce a bit of sea sickness, and I felt like I was going to throw up on his shoes. "I don't have any cash," I managed to utter. He grabbed me by the hair and jerked my head back, "boy, do you want another one? Don't fuck with me." I put my hand up to shield my face, "woah, woah, woah, I'm..." just as Jen rounded the corner to take in the scene. "What the hell?" she yelled.