Page 23 of And They Were Roommates

I rush to shut the door behind me before Maverick the Residential Retainer can overhear. If Jasper were anybody else but the principal’s nephew, I’d throw the door at his face. “I already told you that I wouldn’t do a good job.”

“And I humbly offer a solution.” Jasper picks up a pile of pens, pencils, and notebooks, then strides across our room, dodging the books strewn along his side. His ponytail is barely holding its shape after a full day, hanging loose around his cheeks. “For you to write with the quality STRIP promises, you need a love tutor. I will so graciously be yours.”

My heart rate spikes so sharply, I swear, it rattles all my bones. “Love tutor?”

“Please, call me Tutor Jasper. Per your previous stated terms, I’ll convince my aunt to find me another room.”

I stare at the three moles below his thumb shaped like a constellation. The last hand in the universe I want to touch.

“Please choose the inscribing instrumentation that resonates with you most.” Jasper shoves the pile of writing materials into my arms. I grunt. “One lesson with me. That is all I ask. Then you may decide if we make the brilliant team that I believe we would.”

Two pens slip out of my grasp and hit the floor, where Jasper’s books have spread to the door. I look to the ceiling posters of Jasper, then the cardboard version of him between our beds. “You really chose to bring your life-sized cutout? Out of everything?”

“It was a gift fromPoetic Fortune Digest. What else was I supposed to pack?”

“Gee, I don’t know.” I kick one of his books. “You have stacks of a certain something all over your desk. And your floor. And my floor.”

Jasper blinks. Potentially genuinely.

“A bookcase,” I say through clenched teeth.

Jasper surveys the empty space between our beds. “Oh. I see, von Hevringprinz.”

“You know you can just say my first name, right?”

“But your last name is beautiful.”

Spit lodges in my throat. I cough it out. “It’s long.”

“Could be longer. Consider Oscar Wilde’s real name.”

I thought I was the only one who knew this. “Oscar Fingal O’Fflahertie Wills Wilde?”

Jasper’s dimple pops. “Not as beautiful.”

I grin back until I realize what I’m doing. A serial heartbreaker like him has called a hundred other people beautiful too. We could never make abrilliant team.

But a bedroom of my own. Logically, that may be worth sucking it up and writing love letters with the one boy who broke my heart—and who can’t figure out who I am.

Jasper’s face falls. “Something the matter?”

“N-no,” I say quickly.

He squints back at me, like he’s trying to find an answer in my body language or facial features instead. “You’re quite evasive, you know that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Evasive. It means not straightforward. Avoidant. Hiding your thoughts.”

“I know what it means,” I snap, but my voice nearly warbles from the nerves shooting through me. One day in, and Jasper can already tell how desperately I’m trying to avoid him.

If I keep running from Jasper, that may only look more suspicious. Knowing him, he might try to dig deeper into my life than he already has.

“One lesson,” I say, even though it’s the last thing I want. “I’ll try it. No promises.”

Jasper’s face lights up again. “Wonderful!”

I bend over to spread the writing materials along the rug. What did Jasper say? To find what resonated? Well, no resonation detected. I follow my head instead of my heart when I avoid the pens and pick the first mechanical pencil I spot—how is Jasper confident with permanent ink?—and a standard composition notebook. When I look back up, Jasper’s arms are crossed.

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