Page 16 of Roommates
“I'm sure he'll calm down and apologize eventually.”
“I know. We always make up. It's just so annoying.” Conner sighed, shaking his head. “I'm sick of people trying to protect me because I'm an omega. Be glad you don't have to deal with that.”
“There's ups and downs to everything,” I said, lamely. Conner was right of course. I should be glad that people didn't know of my omega genes, even if I'd often found myself wishing things were different over the past week.
At least Conner could date.
But I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself. Aside from the fact that I couldn't keep banging my roommate, my life wasn't so bad.
“You know what?” Conner said. “Raph's invited me to go to the new amusement park with him and a couple of friends. You should come too. We can have a fun day. Forget our troubles for a little while.”
“Sounds fun.”
“Yeah, it'll be just you and me and Raph and...” Conner's face fell. “Oh...”
“What's wrong?”
“Nothing, it's just that... I think Nathan might have invited your roommate.”
Oh. My stomach sank, but I tried not to let that show on my face. “Is that a problem?”
“I don't know,” Conner said, his eyes boring into me. “Is it?”
“It's not a problem.” Even if I felt a little awkward around Adam right now, it wasn't like I could avoid him for the rest of the term. We were sharing a room, for heaven's sake.Thatwas the problem, not a shared trip to an amusement park.
“Well, if you're sure.”
“I'm sure.”
I was not.
I STAYED with Conner until late that evening, when I eventually ran out of excuses to get back to my room. Knowing that I couldn't extend my stay infinitely, I said goodnight to Conner and steeled myself for what was coming next. When I opened the door to my room, my gaze was immediately drawn to Adam, sitting at his desk, hunched over a book.
“Don't tell me you're actually studying,” I said, the words falling from my lips before I could hold them back.
Adam turned to me with a dry laugh. “I can't always rely on you to save my ass, can I?”
“I don't mind helping you out.” Even if things felt slightly awkward between us. Adam's eyes lingered on me a little bit too long before he focused on his book again. Or was I only imagining that?
“You might actually be the nicest person I know,” he said, not looking at me. “I'm sorry that I took advantage of you.”
“You didn't take advantage of me.” What did he even mean by that? The fact that I helped him study or... that other thing we did? In any case, I'd been a willing participant both times. Adam didn't need to feel guilty for anything he'd done.
“Yeah?” Adam gave me a small smile. “I'm glad. You were out for so long today I kind of thought you were avoiding me or something.”
Busted.“I was just being stupid,” I said, sitting on my bed. “Just because we had a one night stand doesn't have to change anything, right? We can still be friends and help each other out.” Seriously, I had to stop being silly. One night stands happened all the time. There was no way I was the only person who'd ever slept with their roommate either.
“Of course we're still friends!” Adam said and I grinned at him. Anything to convince him that beingfriendswas enough for me, even when it really wasn't.
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A D A M
I knew I was supposed to stop thinking about Lucas in a romantic way, but when we all went to the amusement park together about a month after classes had started up again, I really wished it wasn’t five of us but just Lucas and me, by ourselves.
Things could have become awkward between my roommate and me, but as long as we stayed away from certain topics, we got along fine. We never talked about our one night stand anymore. I kind ofwishedwe could talk about it, to be honest. I wished I knew exactly how Lucas felt about the night we'd shared. But he clammed up whenever I even hinted at it, so I stopped mentioning it at all.
That didn't mean I'd stopped wanting him, though.
