Roommates With Benefits

by Nicole Williams

  “We’ll see you tomorrow night then. Thanks for the invite.” I could see Soren watching me from the window—he hadn’t taken his eyes off of me since I’d moved outside. You know, had to make sure little sis didn’t get kidnapped out of the yard.

  “You have my address, correct?”

  “I do,” I said.

  He’d texted it to me a few weeks ago, basically giving me a free pass to come use his home gym or indoor pool whenever I wanted. I knew what a nice offer that was, but at the same time, it made me wonder how many of his clients got a golden ticket to his legendary estate just outside of the city. He took a helicopter to and from work every day, though he’d offered me a ride as well if I ever wanted to take him up on his offer to utilize his hotel/home facilities. I’d never brought up what I was supposed to do when it was time for me to leave and the helicopter only flew back to Manhattan in the morning.

  “Oh, and Hayden, this is a black-tie affair. You’re welcome to borrow any of the samples lying around the office, but please let your roommate know sneakers and a ball cap won’t cut it tomorrow night.”

  The line was dead before I had a chance to say anything. Sneakers and a ball cap? Ellis and Soren had never met, but he had him pegged in the fashion department. Looking through that same window again, I realized most college guys could be put into that fashion category.

  Black tie? How was I going to convince Soren to put on a tux? The fanciest thing I’d seen him in was a polo shirt that he’d worn untucked over his dark 501’s, sneakers and ball cap included. There was no way he had a tux lying around in his rotting pile of laundry. Heck, there was probably no way I could to convince him to put one on in the first place.

  Provided I could convince him to attend the party with me anyway.

  Soren. Soren?

  Of all the names I could have said, his had been the first? The only one on the tip of my tongue? I hadn’t made a load of friends yet, but I still had a decent handful I could call on in the event a wingman or wingwoman was needed. It wouldn’t take much convincing to get any of them to an Ellis Lawson party.

  When I stepped back inside, I noticed Soren trying to get my attention. I pretended like I didn’t though. I needed to get out of here. I needed some space to reflect and realign my brain so it accepted Soren as my roommate and friend and that was all. I needed to pull the drain on wherever that pool of desire I had for him was buried inside.

  “Jane!” I hollered, tapping her shoulder and squeezing in between the legion of frat boys piled around her and Ariel. “I’m out. Are you guys ready to leave or are you staying?”

  Jane waved her finger at the man circle around her. “I’m not leaving until I’ve had a bite of every last one of them.”

  “You staying too, Ariel?” I asked, interrupting the modern recreation of a scene from Dirty Dancing.

  She didn’t look away from the guy she was moving against. “I’m definitely staying.”

  My head shook. For a couple of girls who thought college boys were in the “to be avoided at all costs” pile, they both were getting awfully friendly. “Okay, well, text me when you make it back to your place later.”

  “Wait. You’re not leaving by yourself, are you?” Jane stepped away from the football-player-looking type grinding up against her, coming toward me.

  “I’m fine. I came here alone. I’m good leaving alone too.”

  “Yeah, but it’s late.”

  When I started for the door, Jane’s hand wound around my wrist, earning her a sigh. “It was late when I got here too.”

  “Hayden, you’re not leaving this party by yourself.”

  Someone came up behind me then, replacing Jane’s hand around my wrist with his. “No. She’s not.”

  Soren’s fingers were warm and solid. Five fingers, that was all he had on me, but I felt him everywhere.

  That was maybe what had me shaking my wrist free.

  “Would you stop with the overbearing protector thing already?” I snapped, moving toward the door. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Soren?” Jane called from behind me.

  “Yeah, I got her.”

  Hearing his answer, like I was a duty or something, had my pace picking up. If I hadn’t had heels on, I could have tried to outrun him, but how foolish would that be? Running away down some dark sidewalk from my roommate who wanted to make sure I got home safely?

  My life made negative one sense.

  “Hayden!” Soren hollered when I made it out of the cyclone fence. “Stop.”

  “Stop telling me what to do,” I fired back, super mature-like.

  His footsteps pounded down the walkway, only making mine move faster. “God damn it, Hayden. What is your deal?” Soren’s footsteps slowed once he was a few steps behind me. “One minute you’re laughing and letting me close, and the next I’m afraid you’re going to go praying mantis on my ass. What am I not understanding here? Please. Enlighten me so I can fix it.”

  The words little sister were rising from within me when I clamped my mouth together so hard, my molars felt about to creak. “I don’t need a personal security guard. You can go back to the party and enjoy yourself. The subway station isn’t far.”

  “I’m not trying to be your personal security guard.”

  “Then what it is? You’re trying to be something. What?” The sound of my heels clacking against the sidewalk echoed into the quiet night.

  His sneakers hardly made any noise behind me. “I’m trying to be someone who cares. That’s all. But you’re making that damn near impossible.”

  My eyes were starting to sting. Must have had to do with the windspeed from the pace I was pounding out. It definitely wasn’t because he was saying the right thing.

  “You can’t protect me from everything.” My arms drew around my body. To keep myself warm and to keep myself together.

  Moving up beside me, he sighed. “You make it a habit of underestimating me way too much.” Nudging me, he slipped something over my shoulders.

  “What?” I glanced at the jacket he’d covered me with.

  “It’s Derrick’s. I didn’t bring mine and figured you’d get cold since you know, it’s early spring in New York, which is pretty much nothing more than winter going into overtime.”

  My fingers went around the collar of the jacket, pulling it closer. “Thanks.”

  “See? There it is again. That tone of surprise. Underestimating me.” His hands went into his pockets as he matched his pace to mine. Now that I wasn’t trying to run away on four-inch heels from a college athlete, I’d slowed down.

  “I don’t underestimate you,” I replied.

  “Then what is it you do? Because you definitely don’t overestimate me.”

  I’m trying to note every flaw you have so I don’t fall for you any more than I already have. I’m trying to inflate every flaw you have. I’m trying . . . but I’m not sure I’m succeeding.

  I went ahead and kept that explanation to myself.

  “Who were you talking to back there?”

  “My agent, Ellis,” I said.

  “Didn’t you just see him a few hours ago? And what’s he doing calling you after midnight?” Soren’s attention focused ahead of us, where a couple of guys had just stumbled out of a bar.

  “He wanted to invite me to a party tomorrow night.” Perfect segue.

  “And he thought the middle of the night was the ideal time to extend that invitation?”

  “This profession, it doesn’t keep regular business hours. It’s an any day, any time type of gig. I knew that getting into it.”

  When the guys crossed the road to the other side, Soren’s eyes came back to me. “Yeah, but that wasn’t a business call. That was a social call.”

  “You make that sound so scandalous.”

  “He’s a single dude in his forties calling a nineteen-year-old in the middle of the night to invite her to a party. That’s the definition of scandalous.”

  “He’s my agent.”

&n
bsp; “He’s a man first and foremost.”

  Exasperated, I indicated at him. “If I followed that string of logic, then what in the world am I doing living alone with you?”

  “Ah, but I’m a man with a moral code. There’s a difference.”

  “How do you know Ellis doesn’t have a moral code?”

  Soren blinked at me. “Do I need to restate for a third time the call he just made?”

  “So how do you tell the guys with moral codes from the ones without? Am I looking for some halo, badge, or insignia?”

  As we approached the bar, Soren draped his arm around me and drew me close. It was one of those biker bar looking places that had just as many people outside smoking as they did inside drinking.

  “You feel it, that’s how,” he answered.

  “You feel it,” I echoed, blinking at him.

  “Yeah, you know, in your gut. You can look at a person and feel what they’re really about.”

  “In my gut,” I said, not masking my sarcasm.

  “Come on. You felt it when you met me that day you moved in. You might have been surprised and apprehensive, but you could feel—in your gut—that I was one of the good guys.”

  “You read the sports section of Mr. Matthews’ newspaper every morning and put it back before he gets his paper.”

  Soren glanced at the sky like he was looking for divine intervention or something. “Yeah, but you knew I wasn’t the type of guy you had to worry about waking up to find him towering over you, touching himself, while he watched you sleep, right?”

  My nose curled for him. My toes curled for me. “I guess?”

  “No, you know. And I know you know, so let’s move on to your agent.”

  As we walked by the bar, a few whistles sounded and a couple of motorcycle engines revved.

  Soren’s response was waving his middle finger and tucking me closer. “So what’s your gut tell you about him?”

  My brain wasn’t ready to acknowledge what my gut told me about Ellis Lawson. My shoulder lifted. “I don’t know. He’s my agent. It’s not like I’m moving in with him or anticipating a marriage proposal.”

  Soren huffed. “Come on. You know.”

  “Will you stop telling me what I know and don’t know already? You might want to add Know-It-All in that character column of yours.”

  Soren didn’t drop his arm once we’d passed the bar. I didn’t slide away from it either. “Your resistance to giving an answer is an answer. I don’t need you to say it out loud.”

  I looked at him, my eyes drawn to his jawline. He’d nicked himself shaving in a few places, probably because he’d been trying to get in and out of the bathroom quickly so I could use it too. “Don’t need me to say what out loud?”

  Soren cleared his throat as we approached the subway entrance. “That the guy’s a creep.”

  “Ellis is not a creep.”

  “Want to try that one more time? Sprinkle a little conviction into that tone of yours?” When I elbowed him in the ribs, he laughed. “Okay, okay. Enough about your creeper agent. You know it, and I know it. Let’s move on to another topic, like what fast food joint we’re going to hit up on the way back to the apartment.”

  Soren came around me so I could use the handrail to climb down the subway stairs. “Actually, I have something to ask you. Kind of a favor.” My teeth worked at my lip.

  “Name it.” Soren hung beside me, matching every step I took.

  “The party tomorrow night, at Ellis’s—”

  “Aka, Super Creeper,” he mumbled.

  I kept going. “I asked if I could bring someone with me, and he said that would be okay.”

  “Yeah?” His voice gave away a hint of surprise.

  Ask him. Just ask him. You’re not asking for him to be your baby daddy or anything. You’re asking him to be your wingman at a party. “Would you go with me?”

  Soren leaned in. “Sorry. I didn’t hear that.”

  Yeah, I couldn’t even hear that.

  My back straightened as I took a breath. “Would you go with me? To the party tomorrow night?”

  Soren paused on the step he was on. When I turned to see what was the matter, I found an odd look on his face.

  “Me?” He pointed at his chest. “You want me to go with you to this fancy party? Not one of your model friends?”

  I could have invited Jane or Ariel. I could have invited a few of the other friends I’d made from seeing the same faces at go-sees and waiting in the same waiting rooms over the past couple of months. I wasn’t sure how to explain that he was the only person I’d thought of when I asked if I could bring someone.

  “If you don’t want to come, or can’t, that’s okay. I can ask someone else—”

  “No. I can come. I want to come.” He moved down the last few stairs to stop beside me. “I’m just surprised is all.”

  “Surprised why?”

  “That you voluntarily invited me to spend a night with you.” When my eyes widened, he lifted his hand. “To spend an evening with you. Evening.”

  “Why is that a surprise?” We were roommates; we were together a lot.

  “Because usually I’m the one forcing myself on you”—his eyes squeezed shut, the other hand lifting in the air—“imposing myself on you.”

  “I came to your game tonight. Willingly. And to the party after. Also willingly.”

  “Yeah, but this is different.” When I glanced at him as he moved toward the subway platform, he elaborated. “Because this time you’re inviting me to something.”

  “I invite you to things.”

  He turned to face me. “Like what?”

  My mouth opened before my mind had generated a response. I couldn’t think of an instance. There wasn’t a time I’d invited him to go do something with me—it had always been the other way around. Of course I’d done that in my quest to keep some distance between us, but I was surprised he’d noticed.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “No apology needed. It’s just nice to know you might actually kinda like me.” He winked as the subway screeched to a stop. He took my hand to pull me away from the doors so people could climb off. “I was starting to think you hated my guts and were just too nice to say so.”

  “Okay, that’s the second time you’ve talked about guts tonight. And zombies haven’t once come into the conversation. I’m calling a gut armistice, at least for tonight.”

  Soren smiled at the ground, waiting until the last person had climbed off before leading me in the subway car. The subway pulled away from the platform, and I found my head lolling into Soren as sleep deprivation caught up to me, now that I wasn’t moving. His arm tucked around me so I could rest my head on his shoulder. I felt his head turn toward me, his breath warming the top of my head.

  “Yes.”

  My eyelids fluttered but couldn’t open. “Yes what?” I said with a yawn. “Yes to the party?”

  His head bobbed beside mine as his hand curled around my arm. “Yes to that, and yes to anything else you ever need from me.”

  “You know what a tux is, right? Suit, jacket, bow tie?” I rambled from behind my partition as I shimmied and stretched into the gown I’d borrowed from the sample collection at the agency.

  “What? The dude at the tux rental shop told me it was a speedo, top hat, and bow tie. Damn.” Soren grunted from behind his own partition. “Think anyone will notice?”

  My eyes closed. With Soren, I wasn’t sure if he was joking or serious about something like that.

  “Before you go searching for the sharpest heel you have in your arsenal to lob my way, let me throw out a quick ‘just messing with ya.’”

  The sound of a zipper came from his side of the room. Which had a direct effect on the rate of my heartbeat. Which sucked for me, since my secret crush was under the impression I was the kid sister he never had.

  “You got a black one, right?” I asked after I’d finished wrestling the long gown into place.

  “Oops. Though
t you said blush.”

  “Soren,” I groaned, reaching for my bottle of ibuprofen. I was already stressed about tonight without his relentless quest to annoy me.

  “Of course I got black. I reined my mom into tux-shopping duty with me. She’s got great taste and wouldn’t steer me wrong.”

  “You took your mom with you?” I reached for the earrings I’d picked out to match the champagne-colored gown.

  “There was no way I was taking lead on tux selection. She had the day free, so she offered to come into the city to help me pick something out.”

  “That was nice of her.”

  “Please. Any of her sons calls up and mentions tux and girl in the same sentence, and Mom would rip the cape off Superman’s back to get here lightning quick.”

  “Someone excited to get four sons married off?” I asked, slipping into the T-strap heels I’d picked for tonight.

  “Someone’s excited to have grandchildren. And another woman around to help even the balance.”

  From the sounds of it, he was pulling on his dress shirt. Soren made a lot of noise dressing. In fact, I never knew dressing or undressing could create so much noise until I’d moved in with him.

  And no, the logic that perhaps the noise level might have been attributed to how keyed in I was to his every movement was not lost on me.

  “Did she know you were going out with me tonight?” I asked, hoping my voice sounded more innocent than my face looked.

  “Yeah, I told her.”

  “And was she still just as eager to help you pick out that tux?” My eyes clamped shut when I replayed my question to myself. Hello, Fishing For Information. Now scoot along before he figures it out.

  “Well, I didn’t tell her until she’d already met me at the tux shop, so I’m not sure how to answer that.” From his voice, I could tell his face was pulled up with mild confusion. “She did say to tell you hello though, and extend an invite to their place next weekend for my brother Ben’s birthday. She makes a huge meal. We do demonstrations trying to prove who’s manlier, which usually results in some kind of verbal or physical brawl, after which Mom bribes us with more food for good behavior. That type of thing.”