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Chapter Three

Jay

I was so fucking excited to inhale this pizza in bed while I watched my shows. I had decided to stop by the pizza place on the way back to my dorm, needing a cheesy emotional support slice after the trauma I’d just been through. I had to wake up early anyway and hand out flyers for a protest I heard was happening this week. It was against a local representative trying to cancel Drag Queen story hours.

Redpine Global? Fucking seriously?

I should have stayed at the party and turned it into a protest. Maybe the message would have gotten across if it was delivered directly to the CEO’s spoiled and annoyingly hot son, with his big arms and thousand-watt smile and mesmerizing green eyes.

Activism and change was all about thinking outside of the box. It was about having the courage to swim against the tide, even when that tide was being tainted by various oil spills and fracking incidents and kegs of cheap beer.

I reached my dorm and unlocked the door, pushing it open. I was surprised to see the lights still on. I always turned everything off before I left a room. Hm, maybe I was in such a rush… wait a second. Whose suitcase was that?

“Hello?”

I seriously wasn’t expecting an answer. I’d been living in this dorm by myself for the past couple of weeks, ever since the semester started. The RA told me that I’d likely end up having the room to myself for the rest of the semester.

Guess I shouldn’t have gotten too used to it.

Whatever. Maybe my new roommate would be a good way of finding a new group of friends. That’d be nice.

And then I saw my new roommate.

And then I thought, Oh, hell fuck no .

“Jay.”

“Ryan?!”

The pizza fell.

Splat.

Fuuuuuck.

“Jay.”

“What the… Ryan? What are you doing in my dorm?”

He gave an innocent little smile and a shrug. “I thought you wanted to hang out some more after tonight.”

I blinked through my shock. This had to be some kind of hallucination. Or was it a prank? If it was, it was the least funny prank known to mankind. I wasn’t laughing. Not even a chuckle.

“My dorm flooded,” he explained, his smile fading. He got down on his knees and started to pick up the slices of pizza that had fallen out of the box. He got back up and handed it to me with an apologetic grin on his annoyingly smug face. Why was this guy always smiling? He was probably a stoner.

And why was that smile so damn… nice? I half expected him to grin and have his pearly white teeth covered in a slick layer of toxic oil and sludge. Just like the poor animals living in the habitats his family actively destroyed.

“Sorry about the pizza,” he said as I took the box back. “I’ll order us a new one.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I put the pizza down on the desk at the foot of my bed. “You can stay here. I’m going to see if I can get reassigned.”

His jaw dropped, confusion making his bushy dark brows inch together. “Reassigned… why?”

“Um, because I don’t want to be rooming with you? That’s why.”

“But—we just met, and I thought you were really cool.”

That pulled a scoff out of my chest. I started to pack up my book bag with the couple of textbooks I had out. Environmental Sciences. Statistics. Microbiology. All of them went into the bag. I started to throw in clothes from my drawers too.

“And I think you’re associated with a company that I’ve made it my life’s mission to fight against, sooooo .”

More confusion slashed across his face before he must have realized what I meant. “Wait, you’re talking about my dad’s company? But how did you know? I never even brought it up.”

“It’s not exactly a hard fact to find. I’m sure I could Google your name, and you’d show up on Wikipedia.”

Ryan cocked his head and smirked. “Not the only website I’d show up on,” he answered with a wink.

I rolled my eyes. “What’s the other one? Neopets? ”

“Oh shiiit, you remember those? But no, I was more talking about Pornhub.” Ryan sat down on the bare blue mattress. The springs squealed under his weight. The guy was definitely big, in one of those ways that made me think how nice it’d be to have his thighs crush me to death. His snake tattoo was on full display, the black ink appearing to slither and twitch as if it were the real thing.

I tried to ignore how fucking hot it was. I couldn’t let my guard down. This guy was the enemy, and I had to make sure I was ready to fight, not to fuck.

No matter how badly I wanted to do the latter.

“Whatever… are you really on Pornhub?” I waved my hands in the air before he answered. “Nope, nope. Doesn’t fucking matter. I’m out.”

“Okay, okay, hold up.” Ryan got up from the bed, the wood frame creaking loudly, and stood in front of me. Damn, he was tall. And he smelled good. Rich . Like cologne that was way too expensive to ever be on one of my shelves. “Do you really hate my dad’s company that much?”

My jaw dropped as my head pushed forward. “You know what, don’t worry about it.”

It was no use wasting my breath.

Ryan shut his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. It was slightly crooked, but not in a way that ruined the symmetry of his face. Somehow, it seemed to enhance it.

Even a broken nose didn’t hold him back from being rich and beautiful. “Alright, fine, I get it, I’ll give you space.” He rubbed the back of his neck. The sleeve of his FU shirt fell back, a dark tuft of armpit hair sneaking out.

I tried reaaallllly hard not to imagine my face buried there .

I failed.

“So this isn’t some sick joke?”

He chuckled and went over to his suitcase. Of course, it was a Louis Vuitton. “Nope. It’s all real.”

I started to admit defeat. I wasn’t going to get a room transfer, not unless I had a stronger reason than my principles being challenged by this dumb jock’s presence in my space. I also didn’t want to rock the boat too much. Not after the shit I went through at my last school. The fewer reasons I gave the administration to look my way, the better. At least until I got around to organizing my next protest. That’s when I’d want all the eyes on me.

A question popped into my head. “Hold up. What are you even doing in a dorm? Shouldn’t you be living in some beachside mansion off campus somewhere?” Ryan started to unpack his underwear. All white and black Tom Ford briefs.

Not that I was taking notes or anything.

“I’m telling you, I’m not who you think I am.”

“So you’re not the son of Christopher Redpine? One of the richest business owners in America?”

He sucked his bottom lip. “Alright, so maybe I’m a little bit of who you think I am. But there’s way more to me than that.”

“That’s really all I need to know.” I forgot about the pizza and kicked off my shoes. I went to the bathroom so I could brush my teeth and get into bed.

All of a sudden, Ryan appeared in the bathroom with me. The space was tight. We were practically shoulder to shoulder in the skinny mirror. I stepped to the side, pushing myself against the wall.

“Well, there’s a lot more about me that you should know,” he said, looking at me through the mirror. “Starting with the fact that I’m not big on leeching off my parents. Yeah, they offered a place for me to stay, but I wanted the full college experience. So I decided to stick to the dorms.”

“So you paid for that suitcase and expensive underwear all your self?”

“You were looking at my underwear?” he said, smirking at me.

“I, uh… no. I wasn’t.”

“ Riggght.” He chuckled. “Don’t worry. I barely wear them. I like free-balling it.”

Heat rushed up my chest. I ignored it as best I could.

He put his little toothbrush stand opposite mine, taking out a beaten-up tube of toothpaste that looked to be begging to be put out of its misery. “If you want to borrow a pair, let me know. Used or new. I don’t care.”

I nearly choked on my saliva. “No, I don’t want to wear your sweaty underwear.”

Was that convincing enough?

I brushed my teeth as quickly as I could and left the bathroom, going straight to my bed. This was all way too much for me right now. I couldn’t really believe it, but then again, crazier shit had happened to me in my life. This was one more thing to throw in the bucket.

Ryan came back out of the bathroom a couple of minutes later. He quickly made his bed and got his side of the nightstand set up with a phone charger. I laid in my bed as if it were a coffin, arms at my side and eyes staring straight up at the popcorn ceiling. At least he’d probably be moved back to his dorm once the flooding damage was fixed. How long could that possibly take? A week? Two—at most? I could survive that.

“Mind if I sleep in my boxers?” Ryan asked, already taking off his shirt.

“I thought you go commando?”

“I’m trying to be respectful here.” He winked at me. “I could be the complete opposite if you ask nicely.”

I rolled my eyes. “Sleep however you want,” I said. He pulled off his shirt and neatly folded it onto the pale wooden chair in front of his desk.

I glanced over and nearly rolled off my bed. His back was… majestic. Holy shit. Muscular and ripped, broad shoulders, with those two little dips of muscle that pointed down toward his ass. There was even a row of light brown freckles making a constellation between his shoulder blades.

Then he turned around, and it was truly game over.

I needed the Jaws of Life to pry my eyes off his perfect six-pack and firm chest. His dark little happy trail seared itself into my brain. I heard him unzip his shorts and drop them to the floor. It was like Pavlov’s dog, except instead of being conditioned to drool at the sound of a bell, I was conditioned to get hard at the sound of pants dropping. Especially when they belonged to a ripped jock with a sunshine-bright smile and emerald-green eyes.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

This was going to be way harder than I thought.

“Good night, roomie.” He got into his bed and turned off the lights.

“Night,” I said, palming my erection under the sheets and wondering how the hell I was going to get out of this while keeping all of my morals intact.