Page 3 of Shared by My Roommate

Because feeling awkward about the two guys beside me is so much easier than crying about the one who just let me go.

2

Nolan

Finn dies on screen for the fourth time in a row, and this time he laughs about it, tipping his head back against the couch. The lamplight catches his face, and he looks almost like himself again, cheeks tinted pink, eyes bright instead of welling with tears.

When he came through the door earlier, he looked like someone had scooped him out and left the shell. I’ve lived with him for almost two years and seen him stressed, hungover, angry, coming down with the flu. I have never seen him look like that. And he lied to me about it, smooth as anything, and I let him have the lie because pushing would have broken him right there in the doorway.

But now I’m done waiting. I want to know what’s going on.

“That’s three wipes in a row, man.” Sawyer drops his controller onto the coffee table and stretches his arms over his head until his shoulders pop. “Need a break to recover my dignity.”

“What’s the excuse this time?”

“It’s the controller again, obviously.”

“Obviously.” I chuckle, untangling my leg from where it’s been hooked over the arm of the couch, and stand, working the stiffness out of my back. “I’m getting drinks. Who wants what?”

“Beer,” Sawyer says.

“Finn?”

He’s still slumped against the cushions, controller loose in his lap, and he blinks up at me like he’s coming back from somewhere far away. “Um. Whatever’s cold. Not beer.”

“Diet soda,” I say, already knowing.

In the kitchen, I pull the fridge open and stand in the cold air for a second. Sawyer follows me in, which he always does. In the few years we’ve been friends, he has never once acted like a guest here, treating this apartment like a second home.

“You see the Knox thing?” he asks, leaning his hip against the counter while I line up two beers and a can of soda.

“As in Connor Knox, the Knights receiver?”

He nods.

“What about him?”

Sawyer pulls his phone out of his pocket and turns the screen toward me. The headline is splashed across a sports site in the kind of font they reserve for tragedies and scandals. Connor Knox and Adrian Vega: Secret Relationship? Photos of them leaving the same hotel in different cities, timestamps matched against away-game schedules. Somebody clearly did their homework.

“Knox plays for New York,” Sawyer says. “Vega’s a corner for Miami. They’ve been lining up against each other twice a season and going home together after.”

“Holy shit.”

“Right? It’s everywhere. Some outlet got the scoop, and now every site’s running it.” He scrolls with his thumb. “They’re saying it’s been going on since last season.”

“Think it’s real?”

“There’s a photo of Vega’s hand on Knox’s back at some restaurant in DC. It looks real, but who knows?” He pockets the phone. “If it is, though, the league’s gonna lose its mind. Half the comment sections already have.”

I crack one of the beers and hand it to him. “Good for them, honestly. Sneaking around for a year across two rival rosters? That’s commitment.”

Sawyer huffs a laugh. “Can you imagine anyone on our team pulling that off? The group chat would leak it in an hour.”

I grab Finn’s soda, and we head back into the living room, which has gone quiet. Finn’s sitting with his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them, staring at the paused screen without seeing it. The better version of him from five minutes ago has drained out again, and whatever’s underneath is back at the surface.

I hand him the soda and drop onto the couch beside him. Sawyer takes the other end.

“So, tomorrow,” I say, trying to keep my tone light. “Sunday. We’ve got nothing, right, Lawson? No practice, no game. I’m thinking we do absolutely nothing productive.”