Page 9 of Dear Roomie (Classic City Romance #1)

James

“ J amie, how the hell could you not tell us about Morgan?” Chelsea ambushes me as I join her and Evelyn at our normal table in the dining hall.

A groan threatens to escape my lips. I should have known they would want to talk about him.

Heaven forbid I have a single moment where Morgan fucking Hall isn’t at the forefront of my mind.

He’s like a fungus slowly infesting my home and my mind.

How am I supposed to stop thinking about him when his shoes are by the door and his dishes lay unwashed in the sink?

He’s everywhere, and now he’s spread his spores to infect my friends too. It’s beyond infuriating.

“I was hoping he would be gone before I had to,” I tell them with a bitter tone.

“Gone? Why?” Evelyn asks. “He seemed nice.” Her full cheeks grow pink as she drops her eyes to the table.

“Oh, I’m sure he did,” Chelsea teases and pokes her elbow into our friend’s ribs. “I saw the fuck-me eyes you were giving him all night.”

“I wasn’t giving him you-know-what eyes,” she mumbles, her face growing even brighter.

For a brief moment, a flash of something ugly rears up inside me.

In the three years I’ve known Evelyn, never once has she shown an interest in anyone, but here she is, crushing on my…

I struggle to find the right word for Morgan.

My roommate? My nemesis? I’m not sure, but something in me has laid claim.

I fo rce it back into the dark, where I can’t see it. Morgan Hall isn’t mine in any capacity.

“You’re one to talk, Chels. When I left, it looked like you were seconds away from sticking your tongue down Nathan’s throat.”

Her face breaks into a goofy grin as I bring up Morgan’s friend.

How did he manage to make friends that quickly? I floundered through my whole freshman year without finding anyone I clicked with. I didn’t even meet Chelsea and Evelyn until my sophomore year, but somehow, Morgan found a whole group within a few days. I don’t get it. He isn’t that great.

“Where did you run off to?” Chelsea questions.

“Don’t change the subject. I want to hear all the details.” And I don’t want to talk about Morgan; it’s bad enough I can’t stop thinking about him.

“Well, I went home with him,” Chelsea hedges, and her whole face shines with love-drunk adoration.

“Chels,” Evelyn gasps.

“Does he fuck as good as he flirts?” I ask.

“That’s the thing, we didn’t even fool around. Sure, we made out for a bit, but we stayed up for hours talking until we both fell asleep on his couch. Then this morning, he made me breakfast before driving me home.” She bites on her lower lip to hold back her growing smile.

“So do you plan to see him again?” Evelyn asks.

She nods, and the grin breaks free. “He asked to take me out tomorrow.”

“That’s great, Chels,” I tell her. At least one good thing came out of running into my mistake. Although, this probably means I’ll be running into him more too.

“I really like him,” she confesses.

I don’t get a chance to respond before my phone rings. They roll their eyes when they hear the familiar sound—Tanner’s special ringtone. It’s been set that way since eleventh grade when he broke up with me for a week after I missed his calls while I was on vacation with my dad .

I haven’t missed one since.

His behavior yesterday makes me want to break that streak. White-hot anger still burns through my veins at the mere memory of how he spoke to me, and my finger hovers to decline the call, but a twinge of guilt holds me back.

“I gotta take this,” I tell the girls as I excuse myself from the table.

I swipe to answer but don’t say anything as the line connects. If Tanner comes at me with the same attitude he had yesterday, I’m going to hang up.

“Ophie, are you there?” he asks after several seconds of dead air. An edge of desperation distorts his voice, making it more gruff than usual. Hearing it only makes my anger boil closer to the surface.

“Yes.” I keep my answer terse, or I’ll lose my shit.

“O, baby, I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“Yelling at you. Accusing you of bullshit. All of it. I fucked up.” He lets out a heavy sigh.

“Yeah, you did.”

“Can you forgive me, baby?” he pleads. I can practically hear his pout through the phone. “It will never happen again. I promise.”

“Okay.” I sigh and lock away all the growing bitter feelings. “Just don’t do that shit again.”

“Thank you, Ophie.” He sounds more like himself again in an instant. “I did want to talk about the roommate, though.”

Here we go again .

My eyes roll as I brace myself for what’s coming. Maybe this time, he’ll be able to talk things through without making an ass of himself.

“I want to meet him.”

“What? Why?”

From the tone of his voice, I can already tell how this is going to play out.

He’s going to show up and do the whole alpha-posturing thing to show Morgan that he owns me.

It will be a one-man pissing contest as my boyfriend does everything he can to mark me as his territory.

I might as well let him piss on my leg to get it over and done with.

“Is it really that strange that I want to meet the man who’s trying to fuck my girlfriend?”

“What the fuck, Tanner? You literally just said you weren’t going to be a dick. Morgan isn’t trying to fuck me.”

“Yet. He hasn’t tried to fuck you yet , but he will.”

“Do you even hear yourself right now? You sound like a crazy person. I thought things were too busy with work for you to come up.”

“I’ll make time.”

His words cut through my heart like a sharpened blade. He couldn’t find the time to come visit me, but somehow, he has all the time in the world to come intimidate my roommate. The fight leaves my body on a sagging breath. What’s the fucking point? He will probably cancel on me again anyway.

“When are you coming?” My voice takes on a dull, hollow tone.

“I’ll be there in two weeks. I have stuff I need to take care of this weekend. His tone is too chipper. He’s either missed my change in attitude or is willfully ignoring it. I’m not sure which is worse.

“Okay, I guess I’ll see you then.” I start to ask about the girls, but he cuts me off before I can get the words out of my mouth.

“I gotta run. I’ll talk to you soon. I love you, O.”

“I love you too,” I try to respond, but the line is already dead.

My head falls back as I let out a groan of frustration. My life has become a steaming pile of shit over the past few days.

“Everything good?” Evelyn asks as I rejoin them at the table.

“Everything is great,” I lie, plastering on my best plastic smile. “Tanner just wanted to iron out the details of his next visit.”

Chelsea gives me a skeptical look but doesn’t push any further.

Thankfully, the girls relent as I steer the conversation away from the guys.

That doesn’t keep the thoughts of Tanner and Morgan from ripping through my head in a cyclone of rage and confusion, though.

I can’t focus on a word that comes out of my friends’ mouths.

Not when I can still hear Tanner’s harsh accusations, and every time my mind wanders, I see images of Morgan’s elusive smile and flashes of the sculpted lines of his naked body.

I excuse myself earlier than I normally would, making a bullshit excuse about pre-semester reading when what I really need is to wipe the last forty-eight hours from my memory.

The whole walk home, my fingers dance along my thigh, itching to purge the storm of emotion the only way they know how. The growing ball of tension only lessens once I step foot into my bedroom.

My room is my oasis. It’s the one place I have complete control.

Everything is decorated in matching shades of gray and peach, and, more importantly, everything is kept exactly where it belongs—well, almost everything.

My art corner, with its easel by the window, is the one blip of utter chaos in my otherwise immaculate space.

No matter what I try, I can never get it to fall in line like the rest of my belongings.

I change into ratty clothes and grab my headphones, putting on my most chaotic playlist to match my mood.

Muscle memory kicks in as I set my workstation up with a fresh canvas and an array of paints, the familiarity soothing some of my fraying nerves.

I don’t think about what I’m going to paint.

My hands simply go, moving of their own accord as they take my tangled mess of emotions and make them into something beautiful on the canvas.

I fall into a state of zen while I work, and all my worries temporarily melt away. Something starts to take shape from the swirling swaths of color, and my heart drops into my stomach as I recognize it. Immortalized in thick, messy strokes is Morgan Hall and that heart-stopping fucking smile.