8. Torvald

This is Torvald. You thought he was too pretty. "No guys who have better hair than I do," you said to yourself at the deli, watching him place his sandwich order. (BLT, rye, toasted, no mayo. Not that you were paying attention.) "Definitely no guys who wear pants that cost more than mine," you said as he stepped away from the crush of lunch-eaters and you could get a look below the neck. "Excuse me?" he said, because you hadn't even realized you were talking out loud. It turned out his pants weren't actually that fancy — they ripped when you were tearing them off later that night — but, yes, the bathroom had not one but two flatirons. The next month was surreal: he wrote a song for your cat, made you eggs when you slept over, listened sympathetically when you complained about, well, whatever it was you were complaining about those days. (Your mother? Your roommate?)

One night when you were making out on the futon a key turned in the front door and in spilled a man and a woman and a tumble of suitcases. Turns out this wasn't actually, his apartment — he was just crashing here while his friend was in Europe. Turns out he didn't actually have a job — but he knew a guy who was going to get him into a studio and make something happen. Turns out one of the flatirons in the bathroom wasn't his. Thank god for that, at least.

(Image: Landon Pigg, via)