Page 61 of My Roommate from Hell
I don’t know. Things aren’t the way I want them to be and there’s nothing I can do about it, and that’s its own kind of hell.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I’m bracing myself for the worst as I reach my dorm room.
What horrors will be waiting for me this time?
After I spoke with Ashley, I called Mom and told her about the lecture. I obviously kept out the part about fake dating Zarmenus, though I might have to tell her about it at some point. Or maybe not. How many people tell their parents about their college relationships? Mom’s always been pretty good about not asking about my dating life, but I think that’s because she knows that nothing’s been going on.
I take a moment before opening the door. I breathe in, then out. Whatever is in there, it’ll be fine.
I open the door and find Zarmenus sitting at his computer, headphones on, listening to a lecture. And wait, it smells nice in here. More than that, it smells clean.
Zarmenus unhooks his headphones and stands up. “I cleaned!”
I feel my lips tug into a smile. “I can see that.”
He’s better at it than I thought he would be. Our room is spotless, and the source of the smell is a candle burning on his desk. It’s against the rules, but one candle is less of a fire risk than the dozen or so he used last time.
“It was pretty fun,” he says. “Or maybe not fun, but oddly satisfying. How was your lecture?”
“Really good. My lecturer is an icon.”
“Nice. Do you like the candle? It’s blood orange, which I thought would smell a little more like blood than it does.”
“Right,” I say, then I remember the notebook I have basically burning a hole in my bag. Before coming here, I went to Brewed Awakening and hashed everything out. “I’ve been thinking about what we talked about.”
“Oh yeah? Me too.”
“My thoughts are if we’re going to do this, we need to do it right.”
“I’m all ears.”
I pull the notebook out. “I came up with a plan.” I hand him the book, open to the page where I’ve written down my ideas. It includes everything I can think of, including dates we start telling people, when we go social media official, and even includes a plan to ask Tyrell to post something about our love story.
As he reads, his eyebrows slowly lift.
“This is amazing,” he says. “But wait, why don’t you want us to start going on dates right away?”
“I figure nobody will believe us if we tell people we’re dating without any buildup,” I say. “I don’t know how it works in Hell, but here, there’s always a bit of will they, won’t they before people get together.”
“Courtship, you mean.”
“I wouldn’t call it that because it’s not the 1800s, but yeah. We need to seem like we’re friendly first, and then build up to dating. So we need to hang out in public, that sort of thing. Then we need to tell our friends we’re feeling confusing feelings for each other.”
He starts to smile.
“What?”
“Nothing, it’s just really cute the way you’ve planned all of this. You’re right, though.”
“There’s one problem,” I say. “I don’t know how Leeke will feel about us dating. And if she doesn’t approve then we can’t do this.”
Zarmenus scratches his cheek. “I have an idea.”
He gets up from his bed and walks toward the bathroom.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
