[1:3] Lavender Valley

Josh’s apartment was a dude’s oasis in a desert of femininity. You thought it might just have been yours but  apparently all the apartments were painted a very faint pink with a darker almost rosy color of trim and molding. The kitchens were white with hinges and hardware inlaid with delicate flowers and winding vines. The bathrooms had a large vanity and those makeup mirrors rimmed by lightbulbs. 

But Josh wasn’t content with living amongst all the estrogen inducing furnishings. He had two shadow boxes on the wall with signed jerseys above his well used brown leather couch. Which faced a TV far too large for the space and a soundbar big enough to rattle windows in the next county over. 

“Come in! Come in! Welcome to Casa de Josh. Make yourself at home!” he said with a bright smile and guiding you in with the hand not holding the beer. 

There were a few pairs of shoes, one dirty pair of hiking boots and some office loafers kicked into a pile the moment he got home. The living room rug was wrinkled from when he pushed his scuffed coffee table which was marred with the rings of hundred sweaty cans and had some old paperwork and mail. 

“You can drop your jacket on the very expensive coat rack,” he said as he gestured toward a treadmill near the door. There were already several coats and hoodies draped over it. 

“We got pizza staying warm in the oven. I didn’t know what you liked so I got a few. Except for pineapple, naturally. Got some beer. I got a case of the cheap stuff that gets the job done but - are you a beer guy? There’s some great small label brands out there from microbreweries upstate. A few years ago my buddies and I did a whole bachelor party tour and hit up all these super trendy spots. They were great. I thought I’d hate it because of the pretentious beer guys who all look like they play in Mumford and Sons but they were cool. But yeah, I got some of those in there. A sampling that you’re more than welcome to ” he said as he made his way to the kitchen and started rooting around in his fridge. 

“I also got the streaming sports package. So we got the Rockets game and the Celtics are up against the Bucks. I’m not really a Celtics fan but my dad is so I keep up with it. You know. If you’d rather watch football I’d be down for that but I’m mostly a basketball guy. Ever since Jordan was with the Bulls in the 90’s. So what about you? Who’s your team?”

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1. ) The Sporting Life. “Dude, my older brother was all about the Jordan era. Had the jerseys and I remember him driving my parents up the wall begging for these inflatable shoes that he swore would make him able to dunk. They were happy my sport was baseball. Played through high school, and got good enough to get into college on a partial scholarship but two years in I tore my meniscus and, well, yeah that was that.”

• +10 Coordination; -10 Brains +5 Masculine

• Gain Background Trait: Career Ending Injury

2.) Gods of Rock. “Sports was never my thing. My brother was the super fan in the family and it drove my parents nuts. He was obsessed. Nah, my friends and I found music. We were the kids in middle school with the long dirty hair and hand-me-down Nirvana shirts badly playing every track off Superunknown in my buddy Dougie’s gross basement. We were going to be the next grunge superstars. Problem was it was the 2000’s at that point and let’s just say the crowds weren’t flocking to see some amateurs in a piss water bar. Then someone gets a girlfriend, someone else gets a job, practice goes from 4 nights a week to 2 to 3 then once a month then…yeah. Life gets in the way. But hey, it was fun while it lasted.”

• +10 Brains, -10 Resolve

• Gain Background Trait: Musician 

3.) Ladies Man. “I gotta confess. I’m not the biggest sports fan in the world. My brother got all the “dude genes” and was into all that. He and his friends were nuts for all that. Growing up I was that dude who had girlfriends, as in girls who were friends. Sports wasn’t a hot topic in that crowd. But hey, if you want to know outdated celebrity gossip I am tragically an encyclopedia about all things Brangelina or Bennifer or whatever I can also paint a mean toenail if push comes to shove.” 

• -10 Coordination; +10 Cunning; +5 Feminine.

• Gain Background Trait: One of the Girls