Chapter 3
Before
“Hey, Wesley!” A voice calls from behind me, where I’m waiting against Nate’s truck. I don’t turn my head, assuming it’s one of the members of the football team calling for my brother.
I don’t acknowledge the voice until he’s right in front of me.
Up close, number seventeen, Jason, isn’t that much bigger than me, even though he seems like he is on the field. He’s maybe an inch taller, but muscular enough to be intimidating.
He’s been watching me.
I’ve been to three practices in a row, mostly to confirm my suspicions. That I hadn’t made it up in my head, some weird attempt at finding someone like me in this town.
But no matter how I try to spin it, Jason Barnett, the captain of the Rosehill Rams, has been watching me.
“Um. Hi.”
Now
I recruited Nate to help me move in, so naturally, Iris is helping too. Which means I spend the drive over feeling significantly less looming dread, and more disgusted by how in love they are.
But it helps. Even though I act like they drive me crazy, being around them makes me feel safe. I know they won’t let anything happen to me.
We’ve got the truck loaded up with the boxes I packed this morning and the new mattress we picked up. I’ve been trying not to think too hard about what I’m doing. I’m not moving in with the hottest person that ever lived, who may or may not also sleep with men.
What would Nate be thinking? I keep asking myself. What would he be doing right now? Not freaking out. Not landing himself in another situation to get hurt.
Iris has her feet up on the dashboard, and she’s singing along to some Taylor Swift that Nate’s pretending to hate, but I know he’s got a soft spot for. I’ve tuned them out from the backseat, leaning my head against the window.
It’s fine. This is fine. I’m moving into a house with someone who isn’t a stalker. Isn’t going to steal my stuff. This is a major upgrade, hot roommate aside.
Nate slows down when the house comes into view, leaning over the steering wheel to look at it with a whistle. “Nice place.”
“I told you it was.”
“You didn’t tell me shit. You said I’m moving and hung up.”
When we pull into the driveway, Iris is already reaching for the door handle, and I’m about to do the same when I see Mike.
He’s on the front porch, leaning against the railing with a cigarette between his fingers, squinting in the morning light. And if I thought he looked good when he’d just woken up—
That was nothing compared to this.
He’s wearing a black band tee, cut-off sleeves that show his toned arms, and dark jeans. His hair is pulled back from his face today, and rings on his fingers reflect the sun when he waves, drawing my attention to his tattooed knuckles.
“That’s your roommate?” Nate asks from the driver’s seat.
“Yep.”
“Shit,” he laughs, unaware that I’m freaking out on the inside. “Dude looks like he would’ve been your best friend in high school.”
“We’re not friends.” I open the door, unable to take another second of this conversation, and it hasn’t even started. I can feel Nate looking at me, but I don’t look back.
I’m already moving to the truck bed, doing the mental math of how many trips this is going to take and how long I can reasonably spend unpacking before I have to see him.
But that was pointless to think about, because Mike comes down off the porch, cigarette between his fingers, smiling like he’s pleased to see us. Happy to have a roommate. “Hey! You came!”
“I said I would.”
He looks past me at Nate, coming around from the other side of the truck. “And, you brought help. Sweet.”
“This is Nate,” I say. “And Iris.”
“Thanks for taking him in,” Iris says, giving him a warm smile, patting me on the back.
Mike laughs, and it’s a good laugh, exactly how I remembered.
I start moving boxes around before I have to hear it again. “Happy to have him. You guys want coffee? I made a pot.”
“We’re good.”
“I’d love some,” Iris says at the same time.
She doesn’t even drink coffee.
I look at her.
She looks back with an expression that says she has no idea what I’m annoyed about, and that annoys me even more. She’s my family, and she’s being all buddy-buddy with the enemy.
“Come on,” Mike says. “It’s in the kitchen.” He disappears inside with Iris following behind. I watch them until I can’t see anymore, Mike chatting animatedly, and Iris laughing along.
I snatch up the heaviest box I can find and start toward the door, Nate falling into step beside me. “He seems nice.”
I don’t say anything to that because he’s right, and I hate it.
It takes three trips. Mike comes back out on the second one, cigarette gone, and leans against the truck watching us work with his coffee cup in hand, chatting with Nate and Iris.
And I swear to god, I think I see him look Nate up and down.
It takes everything in me not to drop the mattress I’m maneuvering through the front door.
The room looks different with my stuff in it. Like mine in a way that the dorm never did. I think back to this morning, when Nate said I should take some of my stuff from my room at home. My band posters. My guitars. Knick-knacks I’ve collected.
I could here. There would be plenty of room.
But I can’t. This is the only way I can feel comfortable. Move on the way I’m supposed to.
The way everyone else has.
The gray comforter, the IKEA desk, the things I picked up at Target on move-in day freshman year. That’s who I am now.
By the time we’ve got everything upstairs and the boxes stacked against the wall for future me to deal with, I’m ready to sit down and not get up for the next year. Nate’s fine because he’s always fine, and that’s an especially annoying quality right now.
After it’s all settled, Nate and I make our way down the stairs, following the sound of voices until we find Iris and Mike in the kitchen.
They’re standing on opposite sides of the island, and Mike is still talking, and Iris is laughing, not in a polite way, a real way, and I don’t know what to do with how that makes me feel.
“Alex didn’t tell me his parents were hot,” Mike announces, looking between Nate and me with a smile that has no business existing on a person’s actual face. “Feels like something he should have mentioned.”
I stare at him. Unable to believe that he actually said that.
To Nate.
“We’re not his parents,” Iris says.
“I’m his brother, and Iris is my wife,” Nate adds, and to his credit, he doesn’t sound offended that a guy called him hot.
“Good genes run in the family, then,” Mike says without missing a beat, those eyes landing on me in a specific way that makes me want to squirm. “No offense.”
I clear my throat, but my voice still comes out rough. “None taken.”
Iris catches my eye then, smiling in that specific way she has, that means she thinks she knows something. Well, she doesn’t know anything. Nothing is happening here. No feelings. No attraction.
I look up at the ceiling.
Nate shakes Mike’s hand before they leave, while Iris hugs me and says call me against my shoulder. I won’t be doing that for the foreseeable future. Not until she forgets about whatever she thinks she saw.
“I like him,” Iris says once we’re out by the truck, hopping in and buckling her seatbelt.
“I’m glad someone does.”
Nate leans out the window. “You good?”
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”
He frowns, knowing I’m not entirely telling the truth, but he doesn’t call me out on it. “Alright, bud. Call us if you need anything.”
The house feels different when it’s just us, without my family filling the silence. It’s just me and Mike, roommates who barely know each other.
He’s still in the kitchen when I come in, rinsing out the cups from earlier, but he looks up when the door closes.“They gone?”
“Yeah,” I say. “They’re gone.”
He nods, setting a cup on the drying rack. “They seem nice.”
There’s a tense moment of silence where I can’t think of anything to say. Outside, I hear a car go past. Mike leans back against the counter and looks at me with that open expression I’ve never seen him without. Maybe because he’s never had a reason to close it off.
I don’t know what to do with someone like that.
“So,” he says. “I was gonna order some food and play Xbox for the rest of the night. You wanna hang?”
He says it like it’s simple. Two people who are both known to sleep with other guys can hang out without consequence.
But I know that’s not true.
My eyes trail over him. The rings. The band tee. The tattoos on his knuckles and the black bands around his arm. The way he’s standing there, looking up at me with those eyes, waiting for an answer.
I think he might actually want to spend time with me.
Me.
It’s too easy. Too much like something I would fall into if I let myself.
I can’t do that.
“Nah,” I say, feeling bad the second I do. “I think I’m gonna go to my room.”
Something crosses his face. Quick, barely there. Something I would call disappointment if that wasn’t crazy. “Oh. Okay. Right,” he says, his lips turning down before he gives me a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m sure you’re tired after all that unloading.”
I don’t say anything to that. Instead, I go upstairs, close my door, and sit on the edge of my new bed in my new room and stare at the wall until the tightness in my chest goes away.