Playing with Fire: My Ex's Roommate

I broke up with my boyfriend three times to make sure he loved me.

The third time, he said okay.

Then he blocked my number, my socials, all of it.

So I did the only reasonable thing a girl with my face could do. I kicked open the door to the boys' dorm.

The AC in 418 was dead. Four guys, all in nothing but boxers, looked up from their screens at once.

Roman, my ex, the one who'd blocked me, went cold the second he saw me.

He shoved back his gaming chair, crossed the room, and walked me out the door by the shoulders. The door slammed an inch from my nose.

"The hell are you doing here?" He grabbed a shirt on the way out, dragging it over his head, voice muffled in the fabric.

I caught his wrist. "I'm sorry. I wasn't really trying to break up, I was just throwing a tantrum."

He pulled out his phone, flat, and turned the screen to my face.

Him: [That's the third time. You sure you want to break up?]

Me: [Positive!]

He peeled my fingers off his wrist, one by one.

"Sloane. I mean it. We're done."

And just before the door shut between us, my eyes snagged on the roommate leaning beside it. The pretty one. The kind of face that should come with a warning label.

He was already watching me.

And he was smiling.

Chapter 1

Thirteen days since he dumped me. The first two times I pulled the breakup card, he caved in three.

So when day thirteen came and went with nothing, I stopped waiting and went to collect him myself.

Every number, every account: blocked. A girl with my face does not get left on read. So I showed up in person.

The door to 418 swung open on a wall of bare skin.

AC dead, all four of them in boxers, hunched over their screens mid-match. Of course. The good-looking ones always travel in a pack. Roman was Hartwell's resident heartthrob, and his roommates hadn't exactly lost the genetic lottery either. Abs, collarbones. I genuinely didn't know where to look first.

Somewhere a game blared: You have been slain.

The kill sound rippled around the room.

Roman's face shut like a door. He threw down his mouse, shoved back his chair, and steered me straight out by the shoulders.

"The hell are you doing here?" He grabbed a shirt on his way out, yanking it over his head as he talked, voice muffled.

Which is exactly why I missed it. The cold in it. How done he already was.

"You blocked me. Don't even bother explaining yourself"

A girl who looks like me does not grovel. I'd prepared a whole tone. Wounded, but gracious. Prepared to forgive him.

He pulled out his phone, frowning, and turned the screen to my face.

Three messages. Our last three.

Him: [That's the third time. You sure you want to break up?]

Me: [Positive!]

Him: [Got it.]

He pocketed the phone. "We good to go?"

That was when the panic hit, out of nowhere, rising up my throat like cold water.

Here's the thing about Roman. He chased me first. He wasn't even my type. He was just so good to me, so steady, that somewhere along the way I forgot people could leave.

Then he went quiet. Buried in a tournament, slow to text, slower to guess what I wanted. And me? I did the stupidest thing a scared girl can do. I kept threatening to leave first, just so I could hear him ask me to stay.

It worked twice.

I really thought it would work a third time.

My eyes started to sting. I grabbed his wrist before I could stop myself.

"I'm sorry. I messed up. I wasn't really trying to break up, I just wanted to fight a little, and I swear there won't be a next time, okay? Just stop leaving me on read. That's all I'm asking."

Roman was quiet for a second. Then he peeled my hand off his wrist, finger by finger.

"Sloane. I mean it this time. We don't fit."

The tears came before I could stop them. I dropped my head so he wouldn't see.

That was when I caught it. His hand lifting, half-reaching, the start of an arm that wanted to pull me in. Then it stopped. Hung there a second. And went back to his side, cold, like it had never moved at all.

"You could've told me at the start," I said. "That we didn't fit."

I wasn't expecting an answer. He turned his head away and didn't give me one.

Once word got out that we were really over, the line started forming.

Same major, so I got a front-row seat. More than once I walked straight through the scene of some girl pressing a love letter into his hands. I kept my eyes forward every time. A girl with my pride does not rubberneck at her own funeral.

He was right. We didn't fit. I was sharp and proud and needed reassurance like air. He was blunt and cold and had run all the way out of patience for guessing games. At the start he'd swallow it, apologize for things that weren't his fault, talk me down off the ledge. But once we settled in, the sighs piled up, and he stopped trying to read my mind.

At the corner, out of the side of my eye, I saw it.

He took the letter.

My stomach dropped straight through the floor.

Roman was famous for being untouchable. The guy who never spared anyone the courtesy. He didn't take things from people. From him, taking a letter was basically a yes.

He'd never once said yes to me that fast.

My brain did the rest, the way it always did. Handed me the worst version of the story and stamped it fact: he'd already picked her.

I turned the corner before I could see his face. Some part of me knew that if I looked, I'd have to believe it.

Chapter 2

My head went white. I couldn't even register the faces of the people moving past me.

All I knew was this: I needed a replacement, fast. I was not about to be the sad girl with the red eyes, watching Roman move on with somebody else.

So I went back to my room, showered, and pulled out the blackest, tightest slip dress I owned. Did my makeup. Studied myself in the mirror from every angle until I was satisfied.

Then I grabbed my bag and headed for the bar strip off campus.

Oara was all low light and bad decisions. I ordered a whiskey, took a couple of sips, and walked onto the dance floor.

I was halfway into it, having an actual good time, when a cool, clean scent cut through everything.

I tilted my head. The guy beside me was the pretty roommate. Roman's roommate.

You don't foul your own nest. And I had zero interest in the nest, never mind the boy standing in it.

I started to move away. Instead the crowd shoved me straight into his chest, like I'd thrown myself there on purpose.

He caught my waist without missing a beat and laughed, low.

His voice sounded unfairly close to Roman's.

"Desperate already?" One eyebrow up, the whole thing landing somewhere between a tease and a dare. The words went hot on the back of my neck.

"You don't recognize me?" I stared at him.

Fine, it was the first time I'd gone this heavy on the makeup. Not unrecognizable.

"...Madison?"

"...Brooke?"

The longer I said nothing, the more it dawned on him.

He rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish. "Okay, I've had a few. Don't be mad, sweetheart. You here alone? You want to come hang with us?"

Us?

"Who'd you come with?"

"My roommates. Come on. They're all hot. You don't like me, there's bound to be one you do."

He grinned, easy, harmless-looking, except nothing about it read like a guy trying to set me up with his friends. It read like a guy who'd found a new excuse to keep me close. And like a guy who already knew exactly how this ended.

I almost laughed. Hated him a fraction less. Player, obviously. A funny one, though.

"Sure," I said, smiling, prying his ridiculously long fingers off my waist.

His name was Beckett. Twenty-one, family money, big city, only child, six-two, and somewhere between the bar and the booth he managed to tell me roughly everything short of the color of his boxers.

"How are you all even out here?" I'd assumed Roman would rather die than set foot in a place like this.

Beckett shrugged. "One of the guys got dumped. He's sulking. We dragged him out for drinks."

My brain went to static.

Dumped? Wasn't he the one who'd been so sure? Hadn't he just taken some girl's letter? So what was there to sulk about?

A few dangerous, delicious little thoughts elbowed to the front of the line, and all at once I wanted to see Roman so badly my steps sped up on their own.

Beckett caught my wrist, chin tipping toward the booth. "Easy. We're here."

I stopped. Looked.

All three roommates, yes. And Roman, off to one side, quiet, cold, nursing a drink. Watching the two of us walk up with absolutely nothing in his face. No confusion. No annoyance. Nothing at all.

The air went stiff.

"Found one I like," I said, pulling free of Beckett and pointing dead at Roman.

Beckett reached over and folded my finger back down. "Not him. He's the one in here getting drunk over his ex."

My mouth curled before I could stop it.

I held Roman's stare, open, shameless, my eyes spelling out the only thought in my head.

You still want me.

Chapter 3

Roman's eyes slid off me and dropped to my hand, the one Beckett still had hold of.

I shook it loose on instinct, and got his voice for my trouble, flat as a dead channel.

"Celebrating being single. Since when is that drowning my sorrows?"

The music in Oara faded out to nothing.

"Right." Beckett pulled out a chair and sat me down, sliding a plate of fruit my way, smiling at Roman like a man holding a winning hand. "And the guy who's kept the whole dorm below freezing for two weeks straight, AC be damned. That wasn't you."

Worth noting: every single time I got in my own head and wanted to bolt, Beckett reached over and hauled me back in. My personal hype man, apparently.

"See, even the pretty one's into me," I said, popping a grape, using the cover to grab Roman's hand where it hung at his side. "He just won't admit he's in here getting wrecked over his ex."

Roman glanced down at our hands. The corner of his mouth moved, barely. "I'm not."

"No worries. Add me, then." I dug out my phone and held it out to him.

Nothing. Shocking.

Beckett took it instead and added himself. "Add me, sweetheart. On call twenty-four-seven. Single, low maintenance, easy to reach."

I cut a glance at the ice sculpture of Roman's profile and tapped accept.

I had a feeling I'd be needing Beckett a lot.

The second I finished saving the contact, the hand I'd been holding, the one that hadn't reacted at all, pulled back. Clean. Decisive.

I turned to look at him, startled. He just tucked his chin, no expression, eyes anywhere but me.

Beckett talked me clear through to last call. Credit where it's due: the man does not let a conversation die, and he's actually funny. Twice I tried to sneak my hand back into Roman's. Twice it moved out of reach.

We spilled out of Oara together. Beckett, ever the gentleman. "Where do you live, sweetheart? I'll get you home."

"Hartwell. Sloane." I tipped my face up at him under the streetlight and waited, with intent, for the show.

He didn't disappoint. His face went blank for a solid three seconds.

"Sloane. As in." A beat. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me."

He spun to the guy standing behind him, the one with nothing on his face.

"You," Beckett started.

"Yeah. You take her home." Roman answered the question before Beckett could finish asking it, then handed me off like a coat.

That put me right back in the dirt. He really didn't want me.

Beckett froze for half a second, then laughed. He even stepped back toward me and slung an arm across my shoulders. "Works for me. Friend's girl, my girl, right?"

And he walked me off before anyone could argue.

I stumbled after him until we were out of Roman's sight line. Only then did he let go.

"You're not actually still trying to get with me, are you?" I looked up at him, genuinely baffled. Did this man want to keep living in that dorm or not.

Beckett rubbed his nose and laughed, and with that harmless face of his he somehow managed to look almost shy. "Nah. Not anymore."

First time in my life I learned my face wasn't quite the event I'd been treating it as.

"I'm just messing with Roman. He's probably mentally planning my funeral as we speak. Honestly? Worth it."

A spy, delivered straight to my door. Rude not to use him.

"So does he still like me or not? Then why won't he talk to me? Why'd he take that girl's letter? Why'd he just pawn me off on you?"

I fired them all at once, ready to wring every last thing Beckett knew right out of him.

Chapter 4

Beckett took one look at me and folded in half laughing. "God, you're cute. Now I almost don't want to tell you."

I scrunched my face at him. Before I could even start fighting for it, he gave it to me straight.

"He likes you. Obviously he likes you. But you put him through it, sweetheart. We had that tournament, we were genuinely buried, he wasn't ghosting you for sport." He paused, and for once the grin slid off his face. "And the first time you two broke up? I caught him out on the balcony. Crying. He kicked me off it so hard I nearly went over the rail."

My chest went tight. Guilt. The bad kind.

I dropped my head. "I'll change. I swear I'll change. I really like him too."

"Relax. Roman's just in one of his moods. The petty kind." He tipped his chin toward the building, told me to head up, and walked off without a backward glance. Never did explain what the petty kind meant.

I could not sleep. Tossed for hours.

Finally, on pure nerve, I called him. And somehow I'd been unblocked?

He picked up on the fourth ring.

His end was dead silent. I couldn't even hear him breathe.

"Roman. Are you upset?" I broke first.

He laughed, soft, and it came out wrong. Darker than usual. "Why would I be?"

"You unblocked me. Doesn't that mean you want me to"

"Beckett's not there?"

It took me a second. Then it landed. He hadn't seen Beckett come back this late, and he thought. He actually thought Beckett and I were.

The audacity. How dare he.

"He is!" The blood went straight to my head and dragged my mouth along with it. "He's in the shower."

I moved to hang up. His end beat me to it: one cold breath of a laugh, then the unmistakable crack of a phone hitting the floor.

He was angrier than me.

I sat there, stunned.

It caught up with me a beat too late. This was supposed to be me making peace. Since when do you make peace by throwing attitude? Too impulsive. I had regrets. I was not, however, wrong. This was his fault to begin with.

I pulled my face back together, forced the smile back into my voice, and called again.

Phone off.

I carried the regret all the way to my eight a.m. Slept badly, only drifted off near dawn, showed up late.

And wouldn't you know it, I walked straight into Beckett. Also late. Also very obviously out all night.

The two of us filed into the lecture hall one behind the other, to a generous helping of stares.

I scanned the room on reflex and locked straight onto Roman in the back row.

His face had gone past cold into something you couldn't look at head-on. Seated up high, he watched me down the slope of it, sidelong, dark, impossible to read.

I trotted over and went to set my bag down.

"Taken," Roman said.

"By who?" If he was mad he could just say so. I was the last one through the door. There was no one.

We were still locked in it when someone cut in.

The girl who'd handed him the letter came scrambling up from two rows ahead, bag clutched to her chest. "Me."

Soft-looking thing. Did the boldest possible thing with it.

I'd assumed she'd overheard us and decided to slide into the gap. Then I remembered he'd taken her letter, and the floor went a little less solid under my feet.

My fingers tightened on my bag.

I stared Roman down.

He lifted his eyelids at me, lazy, unbothered, and I got the sudden sick certainty that he could see straight through all of it. The awkwardness. The bluff. The fear underneath it.

Chapter 5

I sat there like a death-row inmate waiting on the verdict, the whole back row my jury.

Beckett broke the silence and saved me from social death. "Over here. Didn't I save you a seat?"

He waved his phone at me, nodding at the spot beside him. He'd clearly been having the time of his life on that phone right up until he clocked my humiliation and threw me a rope.

I nodded, grateful, and started toward him.

Roman caught my wrist. "Sit."

"Oh, now I can sit? And lose all my dignity, just because you said so?"

"Sitting or not?" His grip eased, barely, just a loose ring around my wrist. His face had gone cold and casual all at once, like he was asking what I wanted for dinner.

And somehow that breezy nothing sent a current straight up my spine. Like if I pushed my luck here, the window shut for good.

I pressed my lips together and sat down like a coward.

The crowd lost interest. The opportunist withdrew. The kind souls turned back around.

Just me and Roman.

He was writing the homework due that day, faster than I could've copied it.

"Didn't you take her letter?" I propped my chin and grinned. "So why won't you let her sit?" So he did know I was the one who got to be close.

"Sloane. Are you chasing me?"

My face went up in flames on the spot. I stammered, then nodded.

The man changed lanes so fast.

Roman's pen paused. The corner of his mouth tipped into a small curve. "You need me to teach you how?"

He turned his head and looked at me.

What he meant was: don't leave me here for the competition and then go park yourself next to someone else.

But if I didn't run, what if he made me embarrass myself in front of the whole room?

A beautiful woman does not lose her dignity.

Also, being this pretty, I'd never exactly had to chase anyone.

So, working off that logic, I reached over and put my hand on Roman's thigh.

He went rigid. Threw down his pen. Narrowed his eyes at me, and the look in them was genuinely dangerous.

"That's all I taught you."

He peeled my hand off and let out a low laugh I couldn't read, teasing or mocking. "That's the only thing I taught you?"

A whole flood of red-faced, heart-pounding memories arrived at once, and I sat there burning, lost in the highlight reel.

Roman, meanwhile, went calmly back to his homework.

He wasn't even interested anymore?

I stared him down, refusing to believe it. He genuinely managed to treat me like furniture.

"Roman."

"Hm."

"Roman. Do you still like me or not?"

"You not listening?"

"I don't get it anyway."

"What don't you get. I'll teach you."

And just like that I got reeled in, tucked obediently against his side while he walked me through the problem.

The bell rang and I was still chewing on it, reluctant to let it go, when Roman just picked up his bag and made to loop out the far end of the row.

That was when it clicked. He was dodging my question.

Already past the point of shame, I figured I might as well run face-first into the wall.

I shoved my pen and book into my bag and scrambled after him. "Where are you going?"

"Bathroom. Coming?" He glanced down at me.

That shut me up. Then, refusing to lose, I grabbed his wrist anyway. "Fine. Together. I'm not scared of you."

Roman raised an eyebrow. Said nothing. Made no move to stop me.

Chapter 6

We'd stalled long enough that it was mealtime, and the building had cleared out.

Still, at the door to the men's room, my nerve started to go.

My feet stopped. Wouldn't move another inch.

Roman turned, lifted his lashes halfway, and smiled. "Coming in?"

I swallowed. My eyes slid down from his mouth, inch by inch, and I honestly could not tell if he was seducing me or making fun of me.

By the time I surfaced, I'd already followed him in.

He pulled me into a stall, close. "Bold. You could go blind, staring like that."

"What are you doing?" My voice was all innocent investigation. My eyes had already lit up.

The truth is I'd always been a little starved for Roman. Not my fault he came with that waist, those legs. We'd blown this fight up bigger than any one before it, and it had been a long, long dry spell.

This just wasn't really the place.

"You weren't worried about the place when you had your hand on me in class." Roman bent to my ear, breath cool and pulling, and named the exact thought in my head.

My heart slammed. I fisted both hands in his collar, shut my eyes, and waited for him.

His breath ghosted a hair from my mouth, close enough that I could feel the heat of it. My pulse slammed. I held dead still, lips parted, waiting.

A long time.

A long, long time.

Long enough that I opened my eyes again, and found him watching me with nothing in his face at all.

The bottom dropped out of everything.

"Are you messing with me?" My voice cracked on it, humiliating.

Roman eased back. Took a cigarette out of his pocket, lit it, turned his head, and let out a thin line of smoke.

He looked so unfairly good doing it that my scalp prickled, and I nearly forgot I'd just been gutted.

"Sloane. A lot of things in this world don't happen the way you've decided they will. You should learn that."

He said it, pushed open the door, and walked out with the cigarette between his teeth.

So that was the whole production. A lesson.

Stop assuming.

Assuming he still wanted me. Assuming he'd never really leave. Assuming we'd find our way back.

I couldn't keep it together. I sank down, wrapped my arms around my knees, and cried right there in the men's room.

That's how Beckett found me.

He backed out two steps, checked the sign on the door, confirmed his worst suspicion, and came striding back in to haul me up. "Sweetheart. Sweetheart. Come on. We cry outside. Outside."

He dragged me out and straight into a cluster of girls heading in together.

They locked onto us with the bright, delighted faces of people who'd just hit gossip gold.

Beckett's hand flew up to cover my eyes, and he picked up the pace. "I'll buy it. Whatever it is, I'll buy it. Just stop being mad."

He got me clear and out into the open before I could squeeze the question out between sobs. "What were you saying back there?"

"My dear, sweet girl. Did you not see how those girls were looking at me? They are one hundred percent sure I made you cry in a bathroom. I am not taking the fall for something I did not do."

He pressed two fingers to his temple, the very picture of a traumatized man, and it startled a laugh out of me.

The laugh softened him. He pulled out a tissue and held it out. "What were the tears even for? Sitting there all tragic. In the men's room, no less."

"He doesn't like me. You were wrong." I took the tissue and wiped my face, and laid it out flat. "He tricked me into the men's room just to mess with me. To teach me a lesson. Probably to get me to back off, too."

"So drop him." Beckett raised an eyebrow, and the smile that came with it already had something cooking behind it. "I'll set you up with a new boyfriend."

Chapter 7

I mumbled down at the table. "Still none of them are better than him."

"Excuse me, sweetheart. Are you blind? Am I not good enough?"

"You. You're way too much of a player. Not my thing."

Beckett leaned in out of nowhere, that pretty face close, his smile gone soft and completely harmless. "Roman's coming. I'll help you out. But after this, you're banned from calling me a player. It hurts my feelings."

I heard Roman's coming and turned to look on reflex. Beckett caught my chin and stopped me.

"There's still room to help me here?" I said.

He didn't answer. Just smiled, took the tissue out of my hand, and wiped at the corner of my eye, at tears that weren't there, his voice going gentle and a little hypnotic. "Mm. There is."

I sat there frozen. He bent to my ear. "In a minute, you're going to cling to Roman. Tell him I'm coming after you, but you're hopelessly devoted to him. Got it?"

Then he straightened and walked off, no opening left for questions.

And sure enough, there was Roman, off to the side, frost all over his face. I pulled myself together, went over, and took his wrist.

He lifted his hand to shake me off. But his feet didn't move. He just looked at me.

"He says he's going to. Come after me." I held on. "But I only like you. Even when you mess with me, I like you."

That last part wasn't in the script. That part was just true.

Roman's mouth tipped up out of nowhere, the smile leaking all the way up into his eyes, and it scrambled me completely.

I trailed after him inside, one step behind the whole way.

My phone buzzed. Beckett.

Him: [Bring him breakfast tomorrow. If he won't take it, give it to me.]

Me: [And you're sure about this?]

Him: [Didn't you just call me a player? You don't trust the resume?]

I clicked the phone dark without arguing. Of course I trusted him. He had the look of a man who knew exactly what he was doing.

Next morning I got up early and bought one of everything. Statistically, something had to land.

When we weren't together, Roman never got up early for breakfast. When we were, he bought it every day, ate some himself, and I still didn't know what he actually liked.

I got to class. Roman was there. Beckett wasn't.

Which meant if Roman flat-out refused, I'd be standing there looking like an idiot.

I steeled myself and walked up to him, both hands full. "I got you breakfast."

Roman went still. Looked up at me, then down at my hands, and frowned, faint. "I'm good. Thanks."

I didn't dare check the room for reactions. I dropped my head and braced to digest the humiliation in private.

Then Beckett materialized and pressed a light hand to my shoulder. "Sweetheart, slept through my alarm, didn't eat. Can I have it? I'll buy you lunch."

I looked up at him, eyes shining, and nodded like my life depended on it. He took it, smiling, and steered me clear of the crime scene.

On the way out, the back of my neck went cold.

We sat in the corner. He ate, unhurried. "Why'd you buy so much?"

"I don't know what he likes." I slumped against the table.

"Cute. He doesn't like eggs, by the way."

"How do you even know that?"

"It's obvious. You dated the guy this long and don't know? No wonder he's got a whole list of complaints about you."

My already-miserable mood curdled straight into guilt.

I turned to glance back at Roman, and walked right into his eyes.

There was a cold little curl of mockery in them.

Like he was saying: So this is what "I only like you" looks like.

Chapter 8

I turned my back, guilty as charged.

"Are you bringing breakfast again tomorrow?"

"Oh, you're bringing it." Beckett didn't miss a beat. "Eggs, specifically. He won't eat them, I will. And you're going to tell him, word for word: 'Beckett said you love eggs. I bought them just for you.'"

The absolute menace.

I studied the side of his unbothered face for a moment and made a private vow never to land on this man's bad side.

Next day I brought the eggs and held them out to Roman, shrinking the whole time. "Beckett said you really like these. I bought them just for you."

Roman looked at the eggs in my hand and gave a soft laugh. "You believe everything he tells you, hm?"

Beckett drifted over, taking his sweet time. "Oh, you don't like them, sweetheart? In that case"

"I. Love them." Roman's face was cold enough to shed ice chips. He did not look like a man who loved them.

First time since I'd met him that I watched him eat a loss.

All because he didn't want me handing breakfast to anyone else?

Hypocrite. Why couldn't he just give in and take me back already.

He took the eggs and started peeling, slow, and something about the way he did it made me feel like the thing getting peeled was me.

Beckett shrugged and wandered off. I grabbed the opening and dropped into the seat beside Roman, and right as he went to eat the egg, I leaned in and bit it clean out of his fingers.

Roman turned his head and fixed me with a look