Page 17 of Dear Roomie
“Chels,” Evelyn gasps.
“Does he fuck as good as he flirts?” I ask.
“That’s the thing, we didn’t even fool around. Sure, we made out for a bit, but we stayed up for hours talking until we both fell asleep on his couch. Then this morning, he made me breakfast before driving me home.” She bites on her lower lip to hold back her growing smile.
“So do you plan to see him again?” Evelyn asks.
She nods, and the grin breaks free. “He asked to take me out tomorrow.”
“That’s great, Chels,” I tell her. At least one good thing came out of running into my mistake. Although, this probably means I’ll be running into him more too.
“I really like him,” she confesses.
I don’t get a chance to respond before my phone rings. They roll their eyes when they hear the familiar sound—Tanner’s special ringtone. It’s been set that way since eleventh grade when he broke up with me for a week after I missed his calls while I was on vacation with my dad.
I haven’t missed one since.
His behavior yesterday makes me want to break that streak. White-hot anger still burns through my veins at the mere memory of how he spoke to me, and my finger hovers to decline the call, but a twinge of guilt holds me back.
“I gotta take this,” I tell the girls as I excuse myself from the table.
I swipe to answer but don’t say anything as the line connects. If Tanner comes at me with the same attitude he had yesterday, I’m going to hang up.
“Ophie, are you there?” he asks after several seconds of dead air. An edge of desperation distorts his voice, making it more gruff than usual. Hearing it only makes my anger boil closer to the surface.
“Yes.” I keep my answer terse, or I’ll lose my shit.
“O, baby, I’m sorry.”
“For?”
“Yelling at you. Accusing you of bullshit. All of it. I fucked up.” He lets out a heavy sigh.
“Yeah, you did.”
“Can you forgive me, baby?” he pleads. I can practically hear his pout through the phone. “It will never happen again. I promise.”
“Okay.” I sigh and lock away all the growing bitter feelings. “Just don’t do that shit again.”
“Thank you, Ophie.” He sounds more like himself again in an instant. “I did want to talk about the roommate, though.”
Here we go again.
My eyes roll as I brace myself for what’s coming. Maybe this time, he’ll be able to talk things through without making an ass of himself.
“I want to meet him.”
“What? Why?”
From the tone of his voice, I can already tell how this is going to play out. He’s going to show up and do the whole alpha-posturing thing to show Morgan that he owns me. It will be a one-man pissing contest as my boyfriend does everythinghe can to mark me as his territory. I might as well let him piss on my leg to get it over and done with.
“Is it really that strange that I want to meet the man who’s trying to fuck my girlfriend?”
“What the fuck, Tanner? You literally just said you weren’t going to be a dick. Morgan isn’t trying to fuck me.”
“Yet. He hasn’t tried to fuck youyet, but he will.”
“Do you even hear yourself right now? You sound like a crazy person. I thought things were too busy with work for you to come up.”
