Page 18 of Roommates
Lucas and I were alone together all the time. We shared a room, after all. We were friends.
So why did this feel different?
I had absolutely no idea what to say as I faced Lucas now. “So, um... you're not feeling well?” I tried.
Smooth, Adam. Real smooth.
“It's nothing serious,” Lucas waved me off, but he wouldn't quite meet my gaze, and I wondered what that meant. It was almost as if he was nervous about something, but I had no idea what that could be.
“Did you get burritos at the cafeteria last night? Those can really do you in.”
Lucas shook his head and laughed a little. God, he was so beautiful when he laughed that I felt even more speechless—or at least devoid of anythingintelligentto say. But maybe I didn't have to be smart. Maybe it was enough if I could make him laugh.
In theory, I knew that I had to stop chasing after Lucas, but in practice I never managed to do it.
“We should walk around the side of the slide and watch the others when it's their turn,” I said.
“Maybe we can snap a picture of them screaming.”
Lucas grinned. “That actually sounds like fun. Think Nathan's gonna scream?”
“Oh, I'm sure he will.” Considering my own fears, maybe I shouldn't have been so gleeful about immortalizing Nathan's, but the opportunity was too good to pass up.
“It always makes me laugh when alphas think they have to act all tough even when they're not.” Lucas shot me a knowing glance as he said this. What, did he know why I really chose to wait here with him?
Nah, he couldn't. No way. We'd never talked about roller coasters or anything like that. And now that I thought about it, there werea lotof things we'd never talked about. How could that be when there wasso muchI wanted to know about Lucas? I wanted to know everything.
“So what are you going to pick as your major?” I asked once we'd walked a few steps, trying hard to appear casual.
“Oh I want to be a lawyer eventually, so I'm mostly killing time until I can get into law school, doing pre-law stuff.”
“A lawyer, really?” I was mildly impressed. Lucas was only a sophomore, but he had his life way more planned out than I did.
“I never told you?”
“You might have, I'm sorry.” The truth was that I got distracted a lot when Lucas was talking.
Sometimes all I did was watch his lips move. I had to admit I was a bit of an idiot wherever Lucas was involved. He was just so handsome for a beta that way too often I caught myself staring at him when I should be listening instead.
“It's okay,” Lucas said. “I know I don't communicate as much as I should. I get caught up studying and writing essays and all that.”
“You work very hard. I think that's admirable.” Lucas wasdrivenin a way that I wasn't. “I don't know how you do it.”
He rubbed the back of his neck as if feeling a bit embarrassed by my words. I wondered if he even knew how adorable he was. Probably not, which made him only more attractive.
You need to lay off him, Adam. You've already made him feel super uncomfortable by coming on tohim once.
“I guess I just...” Lucas paused. “It's easy to work hard when you know what you're doing it for.”
I nodded. Maybe this was what set the two of us apart. He had a clear goal when I didn't. I knew once I graduated I wasn't going to be anything more than a figurehead for my parents' company. They sold baby clothes. I didn’t know anything about baby clothes. All I knew was that their biggest hits were clothes with cutesy little penguins on them—and that there were far too many baby pictures of me and my siblings in penguin costumes. Pictures I hoped would never be discovered.
“I don't really know what I'm doing anything for,” I admitted. This wasn't something I'd told anyone before. Who wanted to see an alpha from a rich family drown in self-pity? It was ridiculous.
Realistically, I had no right to complain about my life. And yet, somehow I thought Lucas would understand. He was smart like that.
“Your parents aren't giving you much of a choice in what you want to be after school, huh?”
“You got it in one.” As I'd expected he would. “I guess there's worse things in life than being asked to take over a successful company but I do feel a little caged in by my life sometimes. I have two siblings, but they're not alphas so they can do what they want. You know, sometimes I envy you a little for being beta.” There, the truth was out. Being alpha wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
