diff --git a/google-cloud-clients/google-cloud-contrib/google-cloud-nio/src/test/java/com/google/cloud/storage/contrib/nio/it/ITGcsNio.java b/google-cloud-clients/google-cloud-contrib/google-cloud-nio/src/test/java/com/google/cloud/storage/contrib/nio/it/ITGcsNio.java
index 08e75c1137fe..ad2b06067767 100644
--- a/google-cloud-clients/google-cloud-contrib/google-cloud-nio/src/test/java/com/google/cloud/storage/contrib/nio/it/ITGcsNio.java
+++ b/google-cloud-clients/google-cloud-contrib/google-cloud-nio/src/test/java/com/google/cloud/storage/contrib/nio/it/ITGcsNio.java
@@ -54,6 +54,7 @@
 import java.nio.file.Files;
 import java.nio.file.NoSuchFileException;
 import java.nio.file.Path;
+import java.nio.file.Paths;
 import java.nio.file.SimpleFileVisitor;
 import java.nio.file.StandardCopyOption;
 import java.nio.file.StandardOpenOption;
@@ -615,11 +616,17 @@ public void testListFilesInRootDirectory() throws IOException {
     // test absolute path, relative path.
     for (String check : new String[]{".", "/", ""}) {
       Path rootPath = fs.getPath(check);
-      List<String> objectNames = new ArrayList<>();
+      List<Path> pathsFound = new ArrayList<>();
       for (Path path : Files.newDirectoryStream(rootPath)) {
-        objectNames.add(path.toString());
+        // The returned paths will match the absolute-ness of the root path
+        // (this matches the behavior of the built-in UNIX file system).
+        assertWithMessage("Absolute/relative for " + check + ": ")
+            .that(path.isAbsolute()).isEqualTo(rootPath.isAbsolute());
+        // To simplify the check that we found our files, we normalize here.
+        pathsFound.add(path.toAbsolutePath());
       }
-      assertWithMessage("Listing " + check + ": ").that(objectNames).containsExactly(BIG_FILE, SML_FILE);
+      assertWithMessage("Listing " + check + ": ").that(pathsFound).containsExactly(
+          fs.getPath(BIG_FILE).toAbsolutePath(), fs.getPath(SML_FILE).toAbsolutePath());
     }
   }