Page 50 of Dear Roomie
He releases me and guides me toward one of the beds, clearing away the mess of clothes and cosmetics that the girls left in a sprawling heap. The white sheets are rumpled, clearly having been slept in. I cringe internally at the disheveled state of things, but he starts reorganizing the bedding without me saying a word. Seeming satisfied with his work, he flops down on top of the freshly made bed and pulls out his phone.
“We will have to make this work,” he says, waving the device in his hand.
I crawl onto the bed next to him and lie down, leaving several inches of space between our bodies. That gap feels charged, the air electrified, and the hairs on my arm stand on end. I’m acutely aware of where we are and what Morgan is to me—or, more accurately, what he isn’t—but only part of me cares. I know I’m crossing lines, but they are lines that might not exist come morning, and that thought only feeds the other part of me—the one that wants nothing more than to crawl back into the comfort of his embrace.
He holds out his phone so we can both see the screen, but the picture is so tiny that I still have to inch closer. And then I do it again. Currents of tingly shock waves erupt across my skin as my arm brushes up against his. He looks at me, his face flush and eyes dilated, and his tongue darts out to wet his lips. My breath catches and my heart rate picks up again, but for the first time today, it isn’t panic that drives the spike.
“Come here.” He opens his arms, inviting me to move closer.
His words break the growing tension, and heat rises in my cheeks. I take him up on his offer and try to ignore the feeling of rightness that comes as my head meets his chest and his free arm wraps around me.
Episode after episode passes by in a blur, but I’m too focused on the distracting touch for the stories of knights and wizards to draw me in. Sure fingers trace small circles on my back, drawing me deeper into his warmth with each deliberate path. Shadows envelop the room as sunlight fades from the window, and my eyelids start to sink as well. I do everything I can to fight sleep, but, asalways, sleep wins. The last thought that passes through my head as I drift into unconsciousness is that I never want this moment to end.
***
Morgan is gone when I wake up.
My stomach sinks as I feel around the cold bed, looking for any remnants of the comfort from the night before, but find nothing.
Disappointed, I sit up and look around the room. At some point in the night, Chelsea and Evelyn stumbled back to the hotel room and passed out in the bed beside mine. Did Morgan leave before they got back, or was their arrival what drove him away? They weren’t supposed to have to share a bed this year, but I had to go and ruin that for them. A surge of nausea twists in my gut, urging me out of the bed. Cursed fragments of yesterday’s events bombard me, and without my knight in shining armor here to ground me, the churning grows.
I flee toward the door, keeping my steps quiet, but freeze when a piece of hotel stationary wedged in the frame catches my attention. The note is my lifeline. With desperate hands, I snatch the paper and read over the words, and like magic, the heaviness in my gut evaporates.
Taking a deep breath, I clutch the note to my chest. Somehow, he always manages to say the exact right thing, or maybe it’s the right thing because it’s coming from him. Maybe he didn’t go too far. He needs to know how much yesterday meant to me. I push open the door to find him, but the familiar sight of my boyfriend—ex-boyfriend?—sitting in the hallway stops me in my tracks.
Tanner is curled in on himself, with his head tucked in on top of his knees, still wearing his stupid costume from yesterday. To be fair, so am I, but his American-flag swim trunks and suit jacket look even more ridiculous when he’s moping on the floor.
As the door swings shut behind me with a loudthud, his head snaps up, and he stares at me with red-rimmed eyes. He looks wrecked; his hair is flat and greasy, and dark bags have made themselves at home under puffy eyelids.
“Ophie…” His voice cracks as he scrambles to his feet.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I spit the words at him, the protective armor of rage slipping into place.
“Ophelia…baby…please talk to me. I’m so fucking sorry.” He reaches for my wrist, and I pull away before he can touch me. The bruises on my arm are still too fresh for me to trust his fingers. He flinches but doesn’t make any moves to touch me again.
“Baby…” he rasps out. “Please don’t leave me over this. I can’t lose you.” His eyes grow glassy with unshed tears.
“You know what happened to my mom. You know how I feel about drugs. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t walk away right now,” I say through clenched teeth.
“Because you would be throwing ten years down the drain over one mistake. Fifteen, if you count the years before I got up the nerve to finally ask you out.” He chokes on his words as tears start to spill over. “You wouldn’t just be giving up on me, but my whole family. The twins don’t even know what life is like without you in it. Please, please just talk to me before throwing it all away.”
His pleas break through my defenses, and my anger starts to deflate.
“Fine. Answer me honestly, and we will see.”
He nods, so I askthe question, even though I already know the answer.
“Were you high yesterday?”
“Yes.” His head hangs with his solemn answer.
“Was it cocaine?”
“Yes.”
“How long?” When he doesn’t respond, I ask again, my anger springing back in full force. “How fucking long have you been using, Tanner?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbles, “a few months? Around the time I started working at the campaign office.”
