Page 7 of Dear Roomie
“Okay then, think over your options, and let me know what you want to do in the morning. It’s past one in the morning here—”
A loud crash from the room next door distracts me from whatever my dad is saying.
“Hey, I’ve gotta go,” I cut in. “I love you, Dad.”
“Love you too, kid,” he says, and the line goes dead.
I dash back into the bathroom and push the door to the other bedroom open without knocking. My roommate is sprawled on the floor, surrounded by boxes that have been strewn about in haphazard heaps. There aren’t many of them, and there’s no furniture, but those things are probably still in his moving van.
He lets out a groan of pain, summoning me to his side in an instant. Alarms blare through my head as he stares up at the ceiling with dazed eyes.
“What the fuck? Are you okay?” I crouch beside him to get a better look. He looks fine, from what I can tell, except that his glasses are skewed. I hadn’t noticed before, but the eyes behind them are hazel, shining almost amber in the light.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says as he sits up, but the strain in his voice tells another story.
It only takes a second for me to figure out why.
A small television broke his fall, its sharp plastic corners lining up perfectly with his spine. He notices it too, and his face falls. He scrambles around on his hands and knees to stand the TV up and plugs it into the wall. Muttering something under his breath, he clicks the power button. The screen flashes tolife, but the display is nothing more than a black-and-white web of destroyed pixels.
That isn’t what catches my attention, though.
A small patch of blood, which is growing as the seconds pass, stains his white dress shirt.
“Fuck.”
“Yeah,” he sighs as his shoulders sag. “It’s definitely broken.”
“No, Morgan, ‘fuck’ as in you’re bleeding,” I snap.
He cranes his head to see the spreading stain, and his expression falls even further. The dejected look on his face pulls at something in my heart. There is no way I can leave him here when he looks this sad. It would be cruel, like kicking a puppy.
“Come here.” I grab his arm to pull him to his feet and then guide him to the bathroom. He follows without protest, but his brows are pinched in obvious confusion.
“Sit,” I command, directing him to the lid of the toilet. “Take your shirt off.”
He does what I ask while I grab the first aid kit from under the sink. I turn back around and find him straddling the toilet seat with his back to me. For a brief moment, I’m caught off guard by how sculpted the muscles there are—it’s the last thing I expected to see underneath the geeky, try-hard attire—but the oozing cut near his spine quickly draws my full attention.
“Let me look.” I kneel behind him and run my hand over the bruising skin. My fingertips tingle from the warmth radiating off him; it’s almost electric. He lets out a soft hiss at the contact, and I jerk my hand away. “I’m sorry, did I hurt you?”
“No, I’m fine,” he says through clenched teeth. “What’s the verdict, doc?”
I choke back a snort of laughter. “I’m no doctor, but I don’t think you’ll need stitches. I do want to clean and bandage it, though. If that’s all right.”
All at once, I’m aware of how inappropriate I’m being. I barged in and forced him to get half naked while I ran my hands all over his body.
What the fuck, James?
My cheeks grow hot as my embarrassment floods through me. I clean and dress his wound as quickly as I can while still making sure things are done right.
“There, good as new,” I tell him, pulling away.
He turns to face me and gives me a heart-stopping smile. It’s not perfectly symmetrical—one side pulls higher, and only his left cheek dips with a pronounced dimple—but those imperfections only make him more attractive. Because, holy fuck, Morgan Hall is attractive.
“Thank you, James,” he tells me, his voice dripping with sincerity.
“I—uh—I’m gonna go make dinner,” I stammer, growing more flustered. “You can join me if you want…I’m making tacos.”
I don’t wait for him to respond as I flee the confined space into the refuge of the kitchen. There isn’t much room, but I’ve meticulously organized all of the cabinets to optimize what I do have. I’ll need to teach him where things go.
