“Private island when?! Let’s goooooooooo!”

This was Alejandro, who seconds after shouting this at the top of his lungs was doubled over and throwing up over their apartment’s balcony.

Alejandro was Tom’s roommate, a Stanford drop-out from Winter Park, Florida whose claim to fame was a now defunct app that used AI to make books in the public domain “less boring.”

The idea, while ambitious, had some problems.

They shut down (or rather were shut down) shortly after a mishap involving Huckleberry Finn found its way to the attention of a certain internet culture reporter, who Alejandro notoriously loved to troll on Twitter.

The following year was tough and led to Alejandro’s next big idea: investing the entirety of his net worth in Ethereum. He was now over-the-moon that it had “gone to Mars,” the refrain of the evening.

Claire noticed that Alejandro was drunk that special way only college freshmen could get drunk, despite being 28, despite only having had three shots.

She crinkled her nose, “Is he okay?”

And before Tom could answer her in the affirmative, Alejandro shot up again, as though he had risen from the dead, screaming—“THIRTEEN HUNDRED, LET’S GOOOOOOO.”

Tom smiled at her, reassured her that even if he fell off the balcony, there was netting to catch his fall.

(Apparently there had been an incident November of 2000 that had forever scarred the landlord.)

Tom's apartment blew Claire away. To her, it was almost a caricature: a San Francisco she had never gotten to know.

She didn't understand why he had roommates, but Tom explained to her that living with friends was a hell of a lot better than living alone.

It was all so weird to her, at once a perfection manifestation of luxury, the yuppie script, and self-expression.

Tom's bedroom looked like a dorm room with a $2,000 bed.

"You really like LED lights, huh?"

Tom took out his phone, "What time were you born? I know city and date."

"Are you gonna read my chart?" she laughed. "10:34 AM."

The lights changed to mellow pink.

"This is the optimal lighting for you based on your sign," he flopped on the bed, "Another Alejandro idea."