Page 33 of The Roommate

Clara stopped walking and looked up at him. “The principal didn’t buy it?”

His chest burned as he remembered the assessment sent to his parents, left carelessly on the kitchen table waiting for him when he got home from school. Underachieving, pleasure-seeking, lazy, reckless to the point of endangerment.

That had been almost ten years ago, but he knew not much had changed. If he saw Principal Carlson again, she’d probably add to the list. Defensive, closed off, hopeless.

With a hand on her back, Josh guided Clara around a pothole. “She didn’t buy it.”

What was he thinking, spilling his high school woes to someone with a doctorate? Josh could picture her at eighteen. One of those golden girls with all of the privilege and support he’d resented his whole life.

When Clara walked into a room, people respected her.

When Josh walked into a room, people wondered why he was wearing so many clothes.

“Don’t feel sorry for me.” The words came out rougher than he’d meant them.

“I wasn’t.” Clara actually crossed her heart.

The sun slipped below the skyline and the stadium lights around the baseball field came on.

Clara wandered in that direction. “What about extracurricular activities? Did you play any sports?”

“No, but I did stay active.” He pointed to a patch of trees and a well-worn bench. “Had sex over there.” He gave a fond wave to the dugout. “Went down on Olivia Delvecchio there. Found out about squirting—”

“Okay, okay, I get it. You’re a stud.”

“Even back then I knew where my talents lay.” He pictured his last meeting with Bennie. “Although I guess that might have been wishful thinking.”

“What do you mean?”

He lowered his chin to watch the grass grow. “Black Hat, the studio I work for, gave me a real lowball offer recently when my agent asked to renegotiate my contract.”

She’d shown him her weakness, and now he’d revealed his own. For all his big talk and his “viral” video, no one who mattered considered him worth opening up the old checkbook.

“Really? I’d think they’d jump all over the chance to keep you on the books.” She sat on the bleachers. God, everything she did looked so polished and proper.

Josh sat down next to her. “It’s my fault. I signed this terrible contract a few years ago. Didn’t even read it. I got drunk off the idea that someone thought I could do something, anything, well. The loss of revenue from merchandise alone . . .” He buried his hands in his hair.

“Merchandise?” Clara’s voice had gone up an entire octave.

Her discomfort broke through some of his self-pity, lightening his mood. She was a good sport, his new roommate. “Don’t worry, Wheaton. Any time you ask, you’ve got the real thing.”

Clara gasped as she took his meaning and pulled the edges of her cardigan closer together. “What will you do about this contract situation? Get a lawyer?”

He admired her determination to change the subject, but the mention of lawyers went down like a bitter pill. “Nah. I can’t afford a lawyer, at least not one good enough to go up against Black Hat. I assume you know that parts of the porn industry deserve the bad rap. That there are some not-so-nice people with skin in the game?”

“Until I met you I didn’t think there was anything worthwhile about porn.”

He’d figured as much. “As a performer, you’ve got very little say in what gets made. The producers and studio heads pull the strings. I’ve got a solid fan base but not much sway. Believe it or not, women aren’t the primary audience of most pornos.”

“Is that why so much of it is gross? Why don’t the major studios invest in female audiences?” She wrinkled her nose. “Sounds like bad business to me.”

“Are you saying that if the studios invested in the right kind of porn, you would watch it?” Josh conjured up the embers of his signature smolder.

“That question is negligible at present,” she said, crossing her legs at the ankles.

“Damn. You can make anything sound fancy, can’t you?”

She squinted into the darkening sky. “Surely not something completely pedestrian.”

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