Page 49 of And They Were Roommates

Because ofme.

A grin spreads along my face. “Congrats.”

Jasper is too busy scrutinizing Luis up and down to offer a hello. His kindness must only extend to patrons who worship his every word. He points his journal’s spine at an empty desk one row over and stands. “I’ll wait there until we can finish our lesson.”

I follow Jasper’s journey to the next row with my eyes until Emilio and Michael distract me by talking among themselves.

“You good?” Luis whispers closer to my ear.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I say.

“Whenever you’re around Jasper Grimes, you look a little anxious.”

“He just gets on my nerves.”

“I heard he’s your roommate.”

Does that mean people talk about us? What could they even be saying? “Unfortunately. What have you heard?”

“You haven’t heard everything going around about you two?”

Brilliant. “No.”

“It’s breaking news that Jasper’s living with someone. Lastyear, he had the suite on the top floor that that one first year, Frank, has now. That’s brought in speculation on whoyouare.”

Nerves prickle in my chest. More spotlights. “I’m nobody, I swear.”

“People are crafting all sorts of conspiracy theories. One’s that you’re a famous poet, too, especially since you replaced P.M. as our year’s Scholar. Plus, your class schedules are mostly the same, right? From the outside, it looks like strings could’ve been pulled so you two stick together.”

“Nope,” I say, dead inside. “Just unlucky.”

Luis shakes his head almost incredulously. “Whyisthe principal’s nephew in a double?”

“There was a mix-up, apparently.”

“Jasper didn’t complain?”

“He thought having a roommate would be”—I toss up air quotes and frown—“fun.”

“In what universe? Mine won’t stop freaking out about spiders.” Luis tugs on a curl so violently that I’m shocked it doesn’t rip off.

“Yeah, I don’t know. Jasper at least gave ussecret roommate knocksyesterday, so maybe he’ll stop barging through the door.”

“I guess that’s less obvious than a sock on the knob.” Luis eyes me up and down. “He’s not causing you serious problems, though, is he? He makes you work a lot for STRIP. You look, well, miserable.”

Jasperiscausing me problems, but not in the way Luis is likely imagining. Even if Luis did flag me as someone who would be interested in sending love letters on our side of campus, there’s no way he’d guess Jasper’s and my complicated history. I trust Luis the most here, but it’s not like I’d tell him everything.

“Is he, V.H.?”

“No,” I say quickly. “It’s fine. I promise.”

Michael waves to snag our attention. Similar to Luis, his good looks seem frustratingly natural, as if he just wakes up like this. But where Luis is all soft and smooth lines, his sleek crew cut and pointed face make him sharper in comparison. “Ready?”

Instead of answering, Luis laughs as if Michael told a joke deserving of a platinum medal.

This must be his not-so-hypothetical crush.

Holding back a grin, I walk the three through their inverse function questions. While we solve the first equation, my gaze drifts past Luis’s shoulder, toward Jasper’s desk. He’s focused on the love letters in his journal like always. Never a textbook. Yet he has impossibly high grades for a second year. A perfect hundred.

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