Page 12 of My Ex's Roommates
“Do you miss him?”
I considered his quiet words and felt a sense of relief when I realized I could answer honestly. “No. I miss my brothers.”
He hugged me even tighter. “Can you go see them?”
I let out a huff of laughter and watched goosebumps erupt across Dylan’s neck. I suddenly became very aware of all the places our bodies were touching and just how much he wasn’t like hugging my brothers. I could feelhimagainst my stomach, not hard but definitely not soft. Instead of pulling away, I stayed there, just feeling him. Curiosity and loneliness had me reluctant to end the hug.
“Harper?” His voice was lower, deeper when he said my name.
I heard footsteps on the stairs and forced myself to pull back. Clearing my throat, I grabbed my door and started easing it shut. “Thank you. Um… Goodnight.”
I shut the door and pressed my forehead against it. I didn’t know what was wrong with me but I knew something was.
12.
***Harper***
The next night Silas appeared in my doorway like a dark angel, dressed in all black with his dark hair falling over his forehead and his gray eyes focused entirely on me. He had his playbook clutched in one hand and he was gripping the top of my door frame with his other. The black t-shirt he wore crept up to reveal the smallest sliver of tan stomach.
I looked up from my book and raised my eyebrows at him. I was still struggling to deal with the embarrassment of asking Dylan for a hug so I wasn’t exactly excited to see another one of them darkening my doorway. “Yes?”
He dropped his arm and moved into my room. Pulling my desk chair closer to my bed he sat down and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “We made the change you suggested to the play today.”
It was the one day of the week I hadn’t been able to attend practice because of a meeting with one of my professors. I’d been too nervous to ask if they’d tried the change I’d suggested but having Silas show up peaked my curiosity just too much. “And?”
“Pretty sure Hogan would’ve kissed you if you’d been there.” A smirk twisted his mouth higher on one side. “Look at another play for me?”
I couldn’t say no. I moved to the edge of my bed so I could look at the book with him. “Show me.”
He pointed to a play and opened his mouth but I cut him off.
“This isn’t right. It’s all jumbled.” I took the playbook out of his hands and pulled a pen from my purse. Without asking him, I quickly scribbled the changes and then looked at the play again. “There. It could still be better, though. If Dylan did a fake handoff and then carried out the rest, it would be good.”
Silas took the playbook, studied it, and then shook his head. Dropping it to the floor by his feet, he turned his haunting stare back at me. “How do you know how to read plays so well?”
“Was that a trick? Did you think I wouldn’t figure out what all was wrong with it?” I saw the answer in his smirk and rolled my eyes. “So, what? You came in here to test me and see if I knew what I was talking about, despite the change I made in the play yesterday working well today?”
“Answer me. How do you know how to read plays so well? Jake?”
I scoffed. “Seriously? Jake could barely read the plays. My brothers. They played as much as they could, whenever they could. I helped them work on their plays and I fixed them up afterwards when they were banged up from playing in a city league with shitty pads.”
“Is that why you’re doing sports medicine?”
I nodded. “I like taking care of people. I prefer football because I love the game but I just want to be on the sidelines of any sport, really.”
He was quiet for a minute and when he looked back at me, his smirk was gone. “I’m sorry. For judging you before. You were right to rip us a new one.”
Shocked at the apology, I just shrugged. “It felt good.”
He laughed and his whole face transformed from hard and broody to something just a bit too masculine to call beautiful but it was close. “I’m sure it did. You should do it more often.”
I groaned and shook my head. “Please don’t give me a reason. It’s been a hard enough year already.”
Sobering, he glanced over his shoulder at the door and then moved so he was sitting next to me on my bed. “We have more in common than I ever would’ve thought possible. My dad was never around and my mom ODed when I was five. I, uh, went through the system until I got adopted at fourteen.”
I turned so I was facing him. “No siblings?”
“Not biologically, no. I was thankfully the only kid my mom left behind. The family who adopted me, the McNeils, took in two more kids after me, so I have siblings now.”
