Page 7 of The Roommate Subtext

Phoebe didn’t add anything else except “Hmm,” letting the silence expand while Maggie tried not to squirm. “I’m tired of it, Phoebe,” Maggie said at last, when she couldn’t take the pressure anymore. She let her fork rest on the edge of the plate and looked up at her friend. Phoebe was watching her with kind, patient eyes, and Maggie unloaded. “The dating apps are exhausting. I’m supposed to open my entire soul to someone I don’t even know and hope their baggage matches mine? Just taking stab after stab in the dark?” She shook her head. “I’m burned out. And now, with this financial mess? I can’t afford to be distracted. I think I’m gonna take a break for a while.”

“You should get laid.” Phoebe used the side of her fork to carve out a bite of cheesecake. “Match with some hot rando, get your back blown out. It’ll take the edge off.”

Wasn’t that the truth. “Probably a good idea. It’s been a really long time.” She finished the last mouthful of champagne. “I hate the expectation to open up. I don’t want to open up. I want to stay safely closed off, like a little hermit crab. Crawl into my shell and stay there.” A single drop of champagne slid down back into the empty glass, tracing a rivulet along the way.

“There’s a ‘but’ in there.”

“But I also want somebody to love me.” Maggie wrinkled her nose. “Is that too much to ask? Complete adoration with zero vulnerability?”

Phoebe smiled. “There’s something here about the mortifying ordeal of being known.”

Maggie groaned. “Anything but that!”

Phoebe poked Maggie gently with her fork. “Well, at least there’s cheesecake.”

Maggie nodded. “At least there’s cheesecake.”

THREE

Blake hummed along to Vivaldi as he straightened the condo. The solitude was pleasant, if unusual. Maggie had sent him a text earlier saying she would be home late, the misspellings indicating dinner had turned into dinner and drinks. He wondered about her meeting with Chauvel. Blake had heard of the guy—he was a key donor to a lot of causes—but from what others had said, Chauvel was smarmy. Whatever Maggie was into, hopefully it wasn’t distasteful. He didn’t know her as well as he’d like yet, but she seemed sensible and unlikely to get in over her head.

Blake left the music playing in the living room as he went to take a shower. He liked to start with the water hot, even though the night was hot, and he stepped beneath the stream and let it beat down on him. Gosh, that was nice. He turned the water lukewarm, then cooler. Sometimes he liked the discomfort: sensation in all its forms centered him, brought him into his body and into this moment. The water drummed against his skin, cold seeping through the surface to numb his overheated flesh. Sometimes he would jerk off like this, skin hot in a cold shower, staying quiet so Maggie wouldn’t hear him. He was always careful of noise, not wanting to make her uncomfortable. Presumably she was getting off sometimes as well, equally silent in this same shower, or in her room. He tried not to think about that, although at times the image came to him unbidden: his roommate stretched out naked on her bed, fingers dipping between her legs, hips twitching as she neared her peak …

A sudden loud knock on the door pulled him out of the fantasy. “Hey, can I come in there? I’ve gotta pee.”

Blake snapped back to reality in an instant. “Yeah, come on in.”

The opaque shower curtain kept his privacy, and he made sure the edges were pressed against the tile as the door opened. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she chanted. “Too much champers, broke the seal, raced up the stairs, sorry, sorry.” An awkward few seconds passed while she took care of things. “Really crossing some roommate boundaries, here, aren’t I?” she asked.

“Definitely.” Blake had to grin at the ridiculous situation. “At least it’s not a glass shower stall.”

“We would all be getting an eyeful with that.” The toilet flushed, then the sink ran. “Thanks! Sorry again!” And she was gone, leaving him with a niggling feeling of guilt about his thoughts right before she’d barged in. Sighing, he turned off the water.

He left the bathroom a few minutes later, towel wrapped around his hips.

Maggie wolf whistled from the couch, making Blake laugh. She’d clearly had a bit too much to drink; her smile was wider and less guarded than he’d seen it in these last few weeks. “You giving us a show?”

“This is the show.” He held the towel in place and wiggled his hips, making her laugh louder.

“It’s well worth the ticket price.” She gave him two thumbs up, which was especially funny since she had teased him last week about giving thumbs ups.

He stopped gyrating. “What’s champers? You said you had too much champers.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Champagne?” Her tone indicated everyone should know that. “You’ve never heard that? I guess it’s more common in the UK.”

“I have never been there.”

“Me neither,” she countered. “But I’ve watched a lot of British TV.” She let her head loll back against the cushions. “I had two glasses before I ate anything, which might not have been the best call, but here I am. Phoebe and I split a bottle. Cora bailed on me for the lab, so I invited Phoebe because I didn’t want to be alone for dinner. I was … well, I guess celebrating? Commiserating. I was something. Let’s go with celebrating, because that sounds better.”

He almost said that she could have invited him for dinner, but that was too forward, probably. A couple months in and they were still figuring out their rhythms. “Celebrating a deal with Arnold Chauvel?”

Maggie nodded. “I don’t think I like him, but he’s got deep pockets.” She gave him a half smile. It was nice to see Maggie relaxed, sprawled lazily on the couch, her dark hair tousled like she had run her hands through it. Or like someone else did, his brain supplied, and suddenly another mental image hit him, of sliding his hands into her hair to tip her head back. Her eye makeup was the slightest bit smudged, her lipstick gone, and she wore an air of debauchery that hit him right in the groin. No, this wasn’t in the plan.

Maggie looked at the clock. “Shit, it’s later than I thought. I didn’t ruin your shower, did I?”

“No, of course not. I’m always hoping someone bangs on the door right in the middle.” He smiled with no hard feelings, but she looked sheepish anyway.

Her eyes lingered on his bare torso in a way he’d never seen from her. If he wasn’t mistaken, she was checking him out. “Forget your clothes?”