Page 2 of Shared by My Roommate

“I’m really not hungry. I think I’ll just go to bed.”

But he’s not letting me go. “One round. That’s it. You eat a slice, you shoot some bad guys, and if you still want to go brood in your room after that, I won’t stop you.” He pauses. “But you’re being weird, and weird people don’t get to be alone. House rule.”

“That’s not a house rule.”

“It is now. I just made it. I’m very powerful.”

Behind him, Sawyer snorts. “I bet you’ve been waiting all night to use that line.”

“Shut up, Lawson.”

Every part of me wants to say no, go to bed, press my face into a pillow, and cry. But saying no means admitting something is wrong, and admitting something is wrong means questions, and questions mean I’ll be sobbing on my roommate’s shoulder within two minutes, and I can’t. Not in front of Sawyer. I have one thin membrane of composure left, and I’m using all of it to stay upright.

“One round,” I say finally.

Nolan’s mouth twitches, but he doesn’t smile. He knows something’s off. I can see it in the way his eyes stay on mine a beat too long. But he lets it go, and the relief that floods through me almost buckles my knees.

“One round,” he agrees.

“Let me just take a quick shower and change.”

He nods. “We’ll save you the good slices.” I step around him, but his voice stops me in my tracks. “And Finn?”

“Yeah?”

“If you’re not back here in fifteen, I’ll come drag you out of the shower.”

The image of my roommate stepping into my shower while I’m naked and wet flashes through my mind, and my face heats. I shake my head to get rid of it and escape down the hallway.

The shower takes forever to heat up. Our building is old, and the pipes knock in the walls as if they’re trying to get out. I strip, leave my clothes in a heap on the floor, and stand there waiting, arms wrapped around myself, staring at the fog creeping across the mirror.

I showered earlier today, right before I left for Drew’s. I shaved, trimmed, and used the body wash Drew liked. I even prepped myself, my heart thudding in anticipation, because we had plans, the sexy kind. But it turns out I spent two hours getting ready for a guy who was practicing his breakup speech.

The water finally runs hot, and I step in and let it hit the top of my head. I wash thoroughly, scrubbing until my skin is pink, working the washcloth over my chest, my arms, my stomach, as if I can scour the last few hours off me. I use a different body wash, the cheap one from the drugstore, and its smell, plain and clean, settles the chaos in my chest.

After the shower, I dry off and pull on the softest things I own: an ancient PCU t-shirt and a pair of worn shorts. I drag my fingers through my wet hair and give the mirror one last look. Passable. Dim lighting will do the rest.

When I come back down the hallway, the living room is filled with gunfire and shouting again. Sawyer sees me first. He shifts from the middle cushion to the far end of the couch, leaving a space open between him and Nolan. Then he grabs the third controller off the coffee table and holds it out to me.

“You’re taking Grant’s spot,” he says. “He’s been hogging the sniper all night, so now he’s stuck with the shotgun.”

“Dude, I’ve been carrying you all night!”

“I’m obviously the one carrying. Finn, tell him.”

I take the controller, and my hand brushes Sawyer’s, his fingers warm and callused. “I have no idea what’s happening.”

“Perfect,” Sawyer says. “You’ll fit right in.”

The couch dips under me as I sit. The space he’s left is exactly my size, and I’m wedged between the two of them, my shoulder pressing against Sawyer’s arm when I settle back and my knee bumping Nolan’s. They’re both radiating warmth the way big guys do, all that muscle throwing off heat like furnaces.

This is not even close to how I expected to spend tonight, wedged between my roommate and his best friend. The ache in my chest hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s sitting right under my ribs, waiting for me to be alone so it can finish what it started in the car. And every time the game goes quiet between rounds, Drew’s voice slips back in.

I just need to figure some things out.

But the game doesn’t go quiet much. Nolan swears at the screen, Sawyer tells me which button reloads for the third time without a hint of impatience, and one of them, I’m too immersed in the game to notice who, slides a plate of pepperoni onto my knees.

I’m hyperaware of how little space there is between us, but neither of them seems to notice. They’re two straight guys who’ve spent half their lives tackling other men in the mud, so of course they don’t. This kind of closeness means nothing to them, and I’m the only one on this couch flustered by it. But I fight the urge to bolt for my room and stay where I am, sore and out of place but grateful.