Angel looked up from his book at his roommate, wondering for the bazillionth time how he had ended up with her, of all people. "Sorry," he said. "But it's kind of out of my control."

"Well, can't you just put on some sunglasses and let me open the curtains?"

"That Ray-Bans commercial isn't exactly true to life," he said, unconsciously rolling his dark eyes. "I'm not looking forward to bursting into flames."

"Yeah, I bet that's not on your list of things to do before you turn 300," Cordelia said, going into the kitchen.

Angel looked over to the clock on the wall. Three o'clock. He prayed that Cordelia had not actually spent the last two hours making herself up. But he knew better than to ask. He turned back to his book.

"Oh, ew!"

Cordelia returned a moment later, standing at the doorway to the kitchen. "One of your packets of blood leaked in the fridge. I am not cleaning that one up," she told him.

"I'll do it," Angel conceded. That one was his fault, after all. And Cordelia had been pretty generous about the "food thing," as she had called it- at least once Angel explained that the smell of unrefrigerated, stale blood would probably have the neighbors asking questions. So the refrigeration now actually had a line of red tape down the middle of it, dividing it in half. One side was for Angel's blood, the other was for Cordelia's normal food.

Angel cleaned up the mess and returned to his chair in the living room, where he found Cordelia sitting on the sofa, the remote in her hand.

"What's this?" he asked her.

"House of Style," she responded. "It's worth checking out. You could learn something."

Angel wondered if her putdowns were intentional or if she got so much practice in on Xander that she didn't even realize she did it anymore. He ignored the comment. "Remind me why we need cable?" he said, sitting.

"Because I'm paying the bill. Besides, it's not like we have premium channels or anything," she said, the tiniest note of bitterness seeping into her voice. "And you shouldn't talk. I caught you watching Farscape last week."

"So?" he asked, a little defensively.

"Oh, nothing. I watch it too sometimes. But if you don't want cable, then bye bye, Sci Fi channel. Or you could start paying the bill.. Oh, wait, for that you needed a job," Cordelia said.

"I'm paying my share of the rent," Angel protested. "I pay my half of the utilities, and the dry cleaning bill. Which is actually more than I should be considering that most of it is yours."

"And whose leather pants are there right now?" she countered.

"I'm not doing bad moneywise," he went on. "After all, this is my couch you're sitting on. My TV you're watching."

"My cable," Cordelia repeated. "Don't you get bored, though? I mean, the only saving grace of actually having my job is that it gets me out. You're up almost all day, and then all night... What do you do all that time?"

"Brooding is my hobby," he said, and opened his book again.

She never even let him get to it. "That's not a hobby. That's unhealthy."

"So what kind of job should I get?" he asked, humouring her.

Cordelia thought about it for a minute. "You could work for the sanitation department," she suggested. "You'd be in the sewers, so you could work during the day. But then you come home and I have to live with that smell. Okay, forget that. You could be like a security guy at night. With those fangs, they wouldn't even have to give you a gun." She paused. "Wait. I saw Nightwatch. That doesn't work."

"Nightwatch?" Angel asked, trying to think about what she was talking about.

"Ewan McGregor as a night watchman... Kind of creepy. So no. Psychic hotlines are open 24 hours a day-"

"Don't strain yourself thinking about it, Cordelia."

She glared at him for a second, then sat back and turned her attention back to the show, leaving Angel to go back to his book. When credits started rolling, though, she stood. "I need to go shopping," she said. "It would be nice if I could eat something that didn't have to be thrown away due to blood contamination. Do you want me to pick up a movie on the way?"

"Why not?" he said.

"What kind?"

"I don't. No vampire movies, though."

Cordelia smiled. "Don't tell me you didn't have fun picking apart Interview with a Vampire last time," she said.

Angel wasn't going to admit that to her. "With you drooling over Antonio Banderas the whole time?"

"Hey, I wasn't the one fast forwarding to the part where Tom Cruise died?"

"I've never been a fan of his."

She sighed. "Okay, no vampire movies."

"Or monster movies of any kind," Angel added.

"Do you want to go pick up the damn video yourself?" Cordelia said.

"At 3:30 in the afternoon?"

"Then shut up. I'll find something. How do I look?"

Angel frowned. "You'll only be gone for about half an hour," he said slowly. "Why do you care what you look like?"

"Because you never know who you might run into," she said. "How do I look?"

"You look fine."

She stayed completely still for a moment, eyebrows raised, staring at him.

"You look wonderful," he corrected himself.

Cordelia brightened. "Great," she said, and grabbed her purse from the hall closet. "Later."

Angel watched the door close behind her, and seriously considered having the locks changed. close behind her, and seriously considered having the locks changed.