Page 8 of The Cuddle Clause

Roman

The thing no one tells you about fake dating your human roommate is how critical throw pillow symmetry becomes.

I was adjusting the chevron-patterned one on the couch for the third time, angling it a smidge to the left so the stripe didn’t fight with the navy one behind it, when I cleared my throat.

“This,” I said, gesturing at the living room with a flourish, “is the official State of the Union: Roommate Edition.”

The couch dented with an audible thump as a pillow—thrown by none other than my fake-girlfriend—hit my arrangement, wrecking it.

“Don’t make it weird, Roman,” Maggie said as she walked down the hall to her bedroom.

She returned less than a minute later with a spiral notebook clutched in one hand. She scribbled across the front in aggressively slanted Sharpie.

“Operation: Fake It,” she announced.

I stared at the sad, undecorated cover. “That’s it? No glitter gel pen? No heart-shaped doodles? How do you expect us to sell this with that attitude?”

She gave me a withering look. “Not everyone lives in a Lisa Frank trapper keeper, Roman.”

“That’s a shame,” I muttered.

She sat cross-legged on the floor, notebook in her lap, and clicked her pen with the finality of a woman about to lay down the law.

“Ground rules,” she said. “No touching unless it’s public. No kissing unless it’s strategic. No spooning unless one of us is dying.”

“That’s aggressive.”

She didn’t blink. “I mean it, Roman.”

I held up my hands. “Respectfully noted.” Then, I asked innocently, “Is me being shirtless in the apartment a problem?”

She looked up, blinking rapidly. Just a beat too quickly, she said, “Nope. Doesn’t bother me.”

“Cool,” I said.

“Totally fine,” she added, suddenly very invested in the spiral binding.

I cleared my throat and tried not to smirk. “So… pet names?”

“No.”

“Hear me out,” I said, inching onto the couch. “Snuggle beast.”

Her eyes narrowed. “If you call me that in public, I’ll smother you in your sleep.”

I pressed my hand to my chest. “Magsie-Pie?”

She hit me with a pillow.

Eventually, we got down to the details. I insisted we have a backstory—something swoony yet believable. I launched into an elaborate tale about a smoothie explosion, accidental hand-holding, and shared emotional trauma over Trader Joe’s being out of cookie butter.

I was presenting myself as cool, calm, and collected, but internally, I was freaking the fuck out.

Faking a relationship with Maggie was just a way to put off the inevitable a little bit.

A Band-Aid of sorts. I planned to find a permanent way out of the damn thing well before the required mating…

I just had no idea what the hell that would be yet.

Maggie chewed on her bottom lip. “How about this? We met, I tolerated you, now I regret everything.”

“Very Hallmark. But I think the audience will want more romantic tension.”

Mid-eye roll, she stilled and tapped her pen slowly against the notebook. “Why me, Roman?” she asked softly. “Why tell your whole pack we’re together?”

My mouth opened, but nothing came out. So I did what I do best: I deflected.

“Because if I had to emotionally blackmail someone into fake love, it was either you or Doris. And Doris hates shifters, so I just don’t think it would work out between us.” I laughed, but inside I was unraveling.

I didn’t want Seraphina back. I didn’t want another arranged match, or some power-hungry she-wolf’s claws in my life.

I didn’t want to feel like a pawn in Lucien’s glitter-coated chess game.

With Maggie, it was… different. She didn’t pretend.

She didn’t perform. It was a nice change.

And I didn’t feel like I had to perform either. That scared the shit out of me.

But I couldn’t say that. So I smiled.

She tilted her head and studied me. “Final rule.”

“Hit me.”

“No falling in love.”

I grinned. “I’ll jot that down. In erasable ink.”

Her eye twitched, and her cheeks flushed. I pretended not to notice. We shook on it. Her hand was so small and warm in mine. I meant to let go quickly, but I didn’t. She tugged out of my grasp a second later, cheeks even redder.

“Your hand is really hot. You should get that checked.”

“Thermal superiority is a known werewolf trait,” I said solemnly.

To cut the tension, I launched into a “couple selfie” session, declaring that lighting was everything and arguing that shirtless pics were more believable. Maggie nailed me in the face with a pillow and told me to shut up before she reported me to the Better Roommate Bureau.

“What’s the deal with Seraphina?” she asked.

I hated talking about Seraphina. Hated remembering what it had been like to feel like a side character in someone else’s fantasy. But Maggie had agreed to this madness, so she deserved the truth.

“Our relationship was political,” I said.

“Her parents are high up in pack hierarchy. Everyone thought we’d be the perfect power match.

And she’s—” I exhaled. “Seraphina is beautiful and smart, but she never actually saw me. She wanted to build a brand, not a relationship. And I was convenient. We started out as roommates and fell into a relationship—at least, that’s what I thought.

She’s ambitious, and I had connections she wanted.

While I was falling for her, she was maneuvering. ”

Maggie nodded as she absorbed that. “So, why’d you take on another roommate? You clearly like being alone.”

I shrugged. “I realized… maybe I’m not going to find the kind of romantic connection I want. So, I thought maybe it’d be better to have someone here who could still give me something. Company. Connection without all the pressure.”

She studied my face for a long time. “Have you ever been in love?”

It took me a second to answer. I sighed. “Her name was Willow. We were kids. Grew up together. She understood me in a way no one else ever has. We were together all through high school, but then her family moved, and our lives… didn’t align after that.”

“And you never got over it.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t need to. Maggie was quiet again. Then, like she needed a way out of the conversation, she grabbed my phone and started scrolling through our selfies.

She snorted and tossed me my phone. “This is going to be a disaster.” Then she disappeared into her room, the door clicking softly behind her.

I stood alone in the middle of our chaotic, shared life, my heart still beating too fast, my hand still warm from hers.

I was kind of looking forward to a disaster.

Feeling accomplished wasn’t exactly my default setting, but I was riding the high.

Yesterday, Maggie and I had successfully navigated the roommate version of a DTR conversation—Define The Relationship, but in our case, fake dating.

And more importantly, she hadn’t stabbed me with a fork or set ground rules that included separate ZIP codes.

I counted that as a win.

She’d disappeared into her room after, probably to design some sleek logo or lay out a magazine spread in Helvetica like it was foreplay.

The door was closed, but I could see the soft glow of her desk lamp under the crack and hear the occasional annoyed sigh.

She made that sound a lot around me. I was starting to like it.

I rolled my neck and stretched out on the living room rug, taking a second to check in with myself.

It’d been days since I’d last shifted, and I hadn’t done so nearly as often as I normally would after the incident when Maggie first moved in.

Maggie had recovered faster than I expected, considering she’d caught me mid-shift like a deleted scene from Teen Wolf: Uncut Edition.

I hadn’t shifted in the apartment since then. It was too risky.

But right now? We were stable. The ground rules were in place.

I let the shift roll over me slowly.

It started as heat blooming low in my core, pushing out through muscle and bone.

My skin rippled. Fingers curled in. Joints popped and reset.

My jaw stretched, spine lengthened, heart rate dipped into that low, ancient rhythm.

My body bowed forward, and then I was on all fours.

Thick black fur covered my skin. Claws clicked lightly on the floor. The wolf.

God, it felt good… this time.

I shook out my coat and padded quietly down the hallway.

The stretch of my limbs, the redistribution of weight, the subtle difference in how the world smelled—it was all grounding.

Real. I circled the kitchen, dug briefly at a corner of the rug because it looked at me funny.

I sniffed the fridge door, lingered a beat too long when I caught a whiff of Greek yogurt.

I rolled onto my back and scratched an itch behind my ear using the wall like a medieval peasant.

Fifteen minutes of bliss.

Then I shifted back, my body naked and damp and rug-burned in places I refused to acknowledge. But the relief in my muscles? Worth it. Always.

I lay on my back, panting softly, hair damp with sweat. “Mags,” I called out, “time for an obligatory emotional recovery cuddle!”

“Give me a minute. I’m on a deadline!” she yelled through her closed door.

And that’s when it happened. Three sharp knocks. Firm. Rhythmic. Judgy.

My stomach hit the floor.

“That’s a landlord knock,” I muttered, shooting upright.

“Mags!” I whisper-shouted down the hall. “Don’t open the door! I’m naked, and there’s wolf hair everywhere!”

Her door cracked open. She stepped out slowly, a pen tucked behind her ear, her expression already halfway to murder. “Why are you naked?”

“I shift naked! What do you want, a werewolf in tearaway pants?”

She blinked. Considered it. Honestly? I think she liked the idea.

More knocking, and then a key turned. Was Doris using her landlord key? She pushed the door open, but the latch lock caught the door before opening farther than three inches.

“What’s going on in there?”

I scrambled for cover. The closest object within arm’s reach was a small potted fern. I snatched it up and clutched it to my groin.

“Stall her!” I hissed. “Distract her! I need five minutes to vacuum and find pants!”

Maggie groaned and stomped toward the door. I pressed myself against the wall behind the coat rack like a man caught in the dumbest possible crime.

She opened the latch lock and cracked the door just enough to wedge her body in the gap.

And there she was. Doris Cranberry. Clipboard in hand. Binoculars hanging around her neck. Cardigan buttoned all the way to the top. She smiled like she’d just caught two teenagers peeing on her prized rhododendron.

“You must be Maggie,” Doris said, eyes narrowing. “Why are you here? Don’t you work?”

“I’m a graphic designer. I work from home,” Maggie chirped, about two octaves higher than usual.

“Mm. You don’t host wild parties, do you?”

“Oh, um, nice to meet you, too. And no. I don’t even like medium parties.”

“Have you seen anything unusual since you’ve been living here? Hairy guests? Growling sounds?”

Maggie threw a glance at me over her shoulder. I mouthed, Distract her more. My knees were turning into Jell-O.

“Um, nope! Just me and my extremely average, completely human roommate… who’s out. Getting groceries. Fully clothed. As usual.”

I tried to sneak behind her, fern still in place. My hip slammed into the end table. Loud. Painful. Obvious.

Maggie fake-laughed so hard. I was sure she was going to give herself an aneurysm. “Old pipes! Very haunted. Super charming, though!”

Doris sniffed. “Is that fur I smell?”

“Nope! Felt! I have a craft side hustle. I make, uh, felted taxidermy.”

I winced. Even I wouldn’t have gone with that one.

“You do know you’re not allowed to harbor animals? I’m extremely allergic to animal fur.”

“Really?” There was a dangerous curiosity in Maggie’s voice. “What happens when you’re around fur?”

Doris hesitated. “Well, it depends on the animal. But typically”—her voice dropped to a whisper—“I get horrible UTIs.”

There was a beat of stunned silence.

“Wait. Are you… are you rubbing the fur on your nether regions? Or how exactly does that happen?”

Even from my hiding place, I felt Doris combust. She straightened her clipboard like she was going to smack someone with it. “I prefer not to discuss my private areas with new tenants. You understand, don’t you, dear?”

Maggie slapped a hand to her ear. “Oh no! Sorry, that’s my boss calling. Zoom time! She has twelve cats and no soul. Gotta go!”

Doris narrowed her eyes and tapped her binoculars like a Bond villain polishing her scope. “Well. I’ll be watching.”

“Oh, I definitely think of you as twenty-four-hour security.”

The door shut. I sagged to the floor, the fern rolling away like it, too, had been traumatized.

“I owe you my life,” I said solemnly. “Also, a new fern.”

“You’re the weirdest man I’ve ever met.”

“And yet…” I gestured around the apartment.

“I haven’t moved out,” she finished for me. “I’m strongly considering it.”

“But you won’t,” I said smugly.

She sighed and took the vacuum out of the closet.

“If Doris finds one hair,” she muttered, “we’re both getting evicted. And I am not explaining your weird ass to my sister when we have to move in with her.”

I reached across the counter and grabbed one of the muffins she’d baked this morning. Blueberry, still soft.

I took a bite and grinned around a mouthful. “Worth it.”