Roommates With Benefits

  He really was Jumbo.

  Jumbo.

  Stop thinking the word jumbo. So much worse than hard.

  And there it was again. Since I clearly was incapable of not saying it to myself . . .

  Fine. Soren Decker had a hard, jumbo-sized dick.

  Like I cared.

  That part of his anatomy had no relevance where I was concerned. It was more our poor shower’s concern than mine.

  “See something you like?” Soren stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked his hips forward.

  My head whipped back around, my face feeling hot. “See something I’d like to forget.”

  A sharp exhale came from him. “Please. Like that part, any part, of me is forgettable.”

  “And now I’m going to move on to trying to forget you just said that.” My arms crossed again, as was my typical reaction most of the time when Soren was around. Why did I like this guy? Why did I feel some pull toward him when I should have been backing away in revulsion? Okay, so maybe revulsion was a strong word, but exasperation wasn’t.

  “Damn. I keep thinking I’m going to eventually reach some limit to staring at my name on your back, but it’s not happening.”

  Groaning, I swept my braid over my shoulder. There. At least now half a letter would be blocked. “What is it with you men getting all hot and bothered when you see your name on a woman’s back? I mean, this isn’t lingerie with strategically cut holes or anything. It’s a baggy, frumpy jersey.”

  “I guarantee it dates back to caveman times.” He cleared his throat like he was getting all factual on me. “Has seen a resurgence in current times.” When I sighed, he laughed. “I don’t know, Hayden. It’s just, like, marking a guy’s territory or something. I’m probably going to hell or about to get stoned by a mob of women, but there’s just something that gets to a guy when he sees his name on his woman.”

  My heartbeat was so strong, I could feel it in my palms. “But I’m not your woman.” My head tipped back just enough I could make out his figure.

  “You’re the closest thing to it.”

  I am? How? Like in the romantic way or the non-romantic way?

  “What makes me the closest thing to it?” I asked, confirming yet again why curiosity was going to be the death of me. If, at least, in my love life.

  “You know, how we look after each other. The way we spend our free time together. We live together. Eat together. Get into arguments. Know all about our families, our pasts, our goals . . . you know, all of that stuff.”

  Replaying in my mind what he’d just said, I realized how Soren and I were more than roommates. We were more than casual friends too. Good friends? I wasn’t sure that was right. Best friends? A person shouldn’t dream about sliding into bed naked with their best friend, right? Lovers? Definitely not.

  I didn’t know what we were anymore. Didn’t have the faintest clue.

  “Marking your territory, eh?” I slowly turned around, arms still crossed. “I didn’t peg you as the chauvinistic type. Caveman kind, sure, but—”

  His head shook. “My name on a woman’s back isn’t just about her belonging to me.” His eyes found mine before I could look away. Now I was stuck. “It’s about me belonging to her too.”

  Everything started to soften. My expression, my heart, my posture. How could he say all the wrong things, yet have it all exactly right when it counted? The name on my back wasn’t just about staking his claim; it was about taking himself out of the game.

  “Say something. Say something dumb. Hurry.” My hand rolled, encouraging him. “Say something that will stop making me wonder if you really are this sweet, thoughtful person you’re coming across as right now.”

  He gave me a funny look, giving me a chance to take it back. When I didn’t, he shrugged, a crooked smile working onto his mouth. “And maybe I might be thinking about how insanely hot the view of my name on my girl’s back would be while I’m fucking her from behind.”

  My eyes widened as I felt my knees slacken. Hearing him say that should have earned him an eye roll and a groan like I’d hoped whatever “dumb” thing he said next would do. Instead, I was picturing the very act he’d described. I saw Soren naked, moving inside a woman from behind. One hand cradled around her waist, the other pulling her hair, a smirk on his face as he stared at his name on her back.

  It wasn’t picturing Soren having sex that was screwing with my head though. It was who he was having sex with. Me. I was the women he was driving inside of, spread out on all fours, panting his name like pleasure was a cute little notion compared to whatever it was I was experiencing.

  “What’s the matter? Your face. You’re red. Like, red, red.” Soren’s expression took on a serious tone as he hurried toward me.

  “I’m fine. Just stay there.” I whipped my arm out in front of me, hand raised.

  He stopped, but my unusual reaction had caught his attention. “Are you blushing? Is that the blush to end all blushes?” He squinted as he moved his head, inspecting my face. “I think it is. Here I was worried you were having an allergic reaction or something, and it’s just you blushing because I brought up doggy-style fucking.” His brows bounced as his chest pressed into my hand. I was keeping him at a literal arm’s length right now. “Turned on?”

  “More like repulsed. But thanks for playing the Name That Emotion game.” I took a deep breath and moved back a few steps, trying to drain the color from my face. “Might want to work on that before you find that lucky lady you want to have your name tattooed on. You just mistook arousal for revulsion. Going to want to get that figured out.”

  That damn grin. I hated it. I was obsessed with it too.

  “And if I were to ask you to hand over your panties right now, they would confirm your claim?” He held out his hand, like I was just going to whip out of my panties and hand them over for inspection.

  My hand settled on my hip. “Like the Sahara.”

  His hand stayed in the air. “Prove it.”

  “I don’t need to prove the truth. I’m not the one who cares anyways.” Turning to escape from this whole nightmare of an exchange, I opened the back door. “I’m going to go introduce myself to your friends now. I’m sure they’re far less animal than you.”

  “Sahara,” he scoffed, following me through the door. “Try the Amazon instead.”

  “God, Soren, will you stop? I’m not giving you my panties.” I hadn’t meant to shout that as loudly as I had, but the crowd in the kitchen didn’t seem to mind.

  “I wouldn’t give them to him either. Not when I’m here,” one of the guys jeered as I shoved by.

  “Where do I throw my name into that hat?” another hollered, making a lewd motion with his tongue at me.

  “Keep it in your mouth, asshole.” Soren shoved up beside me, pushing the guy into a wall so I could pass. “Before I pull it over your nose and staple it to your head.”

  No one mentioned anything else about my underwear after that.

  “Staple it to his head?” I nudged Soren when he showed up beside me again. “Props for creativity.”

  “That was nothing, believe me. That wasn’t even digging deep into my threat arsenal.”

  I didn’t miss the way he seemed to be corralling me into the side of the room, the way his arm floated behind my back like he was shielding me from your everyday to your record-setting douchebags. Soren waved at a cluster of guys toward the front of the room. They were all wearing jerseys like him, beers in hand and shoving one another with their free ones.

  “Friends are over there. Sure you’re still up for the intro?”

  “Hey, I’m a fan of the team.” I drew my finger across the Devils cursive lettering going across the front of the jersey.

  “Yeah, and they’re going to be big fans of you once they meet you.”

  I was starting to figure out why he’d been hesitant about making the introduction tonight. Especially with the way his arm went around me as we approached. He didn’t like the idea of any of th
em flirting with me or making some play for me. Like they even would—there were plenty of aesthetically pleasing girls here tonight—but I could tell by the way Soren was acting, he felt differently.

  Big brother warning his friends they better not even think about little sister?

  Or was it something else? The same something else I felt when Jane and Ariel talked about Soren like he was something they couldn’t wait to test drive?

  His friends noticed us coming, a couple of them stabbing their elbows into the next guy’s stomach. By the time we stopped in front of them, all of the guys were staring at us. Like they were trying to figure something out.

  “Now I see why you’ve been so close-lipped about your roommate,” one of the guys up front announced, giving Soren a look like his secret was out. He pointed his beer at me, a goofy grin moving into place. “You’ve been trying to keep her all to yourself.”

  Nothing was subtle about the way Soren angled in front of me. “You know shit, Derrick.”

  “Come on. Cut the defensive thing.” Derrick moved so he was able to see me again. His beer pointed at the tops of our heads next. “She’s too tall for you anyway,” he said, before pointing his beer at his chest and stretching a little taller. Derrick was tall—a couple inches taller than Soren. He was trying to make those two inches seem like two feet.

  “Yeah. Well, she’s too smart for you.” Soren slapped the bill of Derrick’s hat down so it covered his eyes, then he stepped in front of him. “Okay, listen up and listen good. I’m only introducing you bunch of thugs to my roommate because she asked, not because I think you have any merits or admirable qualities that deserve an introduction to her.”

  “I’ll show you my merit, Decker,” one of them popped off, working at his fly.

  “Merit, Callahan. Merit. Not miniature.” Soren patted Callahan’s face a few times. “Keep your bean in your pants. Last time you went searching for it, five reruns of MASH were over by the time you found it.”

  A chorus of jeers followed, the herd of guys shoving at “Callahan” like he’d just been schooled. He didn’t even look fazed; he was heckling right back at them.

  “What’s your roommate’s first name, Decker? I already know her last.”

  “How do you know my last name?” I asked, trying again to step out from behind the wall Soren seemed to have put up in front of me, compliments of his body.

  “I might not know what your last name is right now. But I definitely know what it’s going to be,” the guy replied, lifting his chin at me. “The same one as mine, mamacita.”

  “I’m going to cita your mama, Mateo, if you keep hitting on my roommate.” Soren didn’t budge when I shoved him. I didn’t think he’d even felt it.

  “Soren, dude, are you going to introduce us or are you going to continue the act of making yourself look like an idiot?”

  When Soren didn’t answer, I ducked out from behind him so quickly he didn’t notice. “So, hey, I’m Hayden. Soren’s roommate.”

  I waved at the newly quiet crowd of guys, starting to understand why Soren had been so hesitant to introduce me with the way I’d been dressed before. Even with his ginormous jersey hanging off of me, most of them were staring at my legs like they were contemplating how far they could wrap around their back. Long legs had their advantages on the runway—not so much when being introduced to a half-drunk team of college baseball players.

  “And when you say Soren’s roommate, how would you define that?” Mateo asked, earning a death threat issued in the form of a glare from Soren.

  “As in we share an apartment?” I answered.

  “Do you, on occasion, share anything else?” Mateo continued, handing his beer off to the guy next to him before moving closer. As soon as he did, Soren’s hand planted in Mateo’s chest, shoving him back. “Say, perhaps, a bed?”

  “Mateo, for real, man. Do I treat your sisters like this when you bring them around?” Soren asked.

  “No. Because you know I’d whup your ass if you did.”

  “And I’m about to whup yours if you don’t adjust your line of questioning. Or the alignment of your eyes.” Soren stepped back in front of me.

  “She’s not your sister though, man.”

  “Where all of you tools are concerned, she is. Got that? Hayden is my sister, and if you fail to show her the sister-code we uphold on this team, I will destroy you.” Soren jabbed his finger in the direction of each of his teammates. “Slowly.”

  A unified lifting of hands followed as they took a collective step back. “Little Sis Decker. You got it, Captain.”

  Soren waited a minute before introducing me to his teammates. I didn’t hear any of it though. Sister. Little sister. That was all I heard as he listed off names. That was what I was to him. A responsibility. Someone to look out for.

  How many more reality checks did I need before I accepted that Soren didn’t have the same kind of feelings for me? I saw someone I wanted to take into my bed, and he saw someone he could tuck into bed.

  Great. My life was festering in a steaming pile of win tonight.

  It was too loud to hear my phone ring, but I felt it vibrating inside the small purse on my shoulder. I’d take any distraction I could find. Even if it was my agent calling me late on a Saturday night, I thought with a frown.

  Tapping Soren’s arm, I pointed at my phone before I moved toward the front door. When I waved at his teammates, they waved back. Their eyes were on mine for the first time since our meeting, giving me the little sister code of conduct treatment.

  “Hello?” I answered. When Jane and Ariel saw me and flagged me over to where they were dancing with an even larger group of guys, I pointed at my phone.

  “Hayden? Is that you? I can barely hear you.” Ellis replied just as I moved outside.

  “It’s me. Sorry. I’m at a party, but I’m outside now. Better?”

  He was quiet for a moment. “You’re at a party?”

  “Yeah, but I’m leaving now,” I replied, glancing through the window. I could see Soren’s teammates still clustered around one another. Sister Code. I was not Soren’s sister. We’d shared an apartment for barely eight weeks—that made us acquaintances, not blood relatives.

  “Did you go with friends or with a boy?”

  “Both,” I said.

  “And are you and this boy serious . . .?”

  “No, definitely not. He’s my roommate.”

  “Oh, yes. That boy.”

  My eyes lifted. By now, I was used to Ellis drilling me about both my professional and personal life. He said he’d seen models ruin their careers more often by making bad decisions in their personal lives than the poor ones they made on the job. So he asked how much sleep we were getting, how “hard” we’d partied the night before, what our workout routine looked like, what our boyfriends were like. There wasn’t much sacred where Ellis was concerned, but he’d kicked my career off faster than I could have hoped, so I tolerated his intrusiveness.

  “The reason for my call is that I wanted to invite you to my own party I’m hosting at my place tomorrow night,” Ellis continued as I walked circles around the front yard. I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t before checking in with Jane and Ariel. “Top industry professionals will be here, a Michelin-star rated chef will be preparing the food, and I’ve had enough cases of champagne flown in from France to fill the swimming pool out back.”

  I could hear his smile; I could see it. Measured, compulsory. It was an attractive smile. I just wasn’t sure it would win any genuine awards.

  “That is, if you’re not too partied out from tonight’s jubilee,” he added.

  My finger tapped the outside of my phone as I thought. Ellis gave the kind of parties all of New York talked about. Rumor was that he’d turned down certain A-list celebrities who’d vied for an invite. Going would be a smart career move if some of the top designers, editors, and photographers would be there, so I couldn’t understand where my vein of hesitation was coming from.

 
“Don’t think, just come. I promise, you’ll have fun. I can also promise you won’t have to worry about intoxicated frat boys groping you and trying to drain cheap beer down your throat.” Ellis paused. “No offense to your current company, of course, but I think we both know you’re on a different level than they are.”

  My feet stopped moving. “I consider myself to be on the same level as every other human being on the planet, actually.” Okay, so I’d kind of just talked back to my agent in a not-so-pleasant tone. Maybe not the most superlative call in the world, especially since said agent held my future in the palm of his hands.

  “Just because you believe that, doesn’t make it true.” His voice was calm, even. “We might all be created equal, but it’s what we do with our lives that sets us apart from the rest.”

  I wasn’t sure I agreed. I wasn’t sure I disagreed. But I knew better than to dig any deeper into the topic with him. “What time’s the party tomorrow?”

  “It starts at eight o’clock. It ends when it ends.”

  The thought of rubbing elbows with possibly hundreds of strangers made my stomach turn. I was nineteen. Most girls were my age were working part-time jobs at the mall and hanging out with their boyfriends, not partying with fashion icons and expected to carry on intelligent conversations with them.

  “Can I bring a friend?” I asked.

  After a momentary pause, Ellis asked, “What kind of a friend?”

  “My roommate.” My forehead lined when I heard what I’d just said. Soren? Of all the people in the world I could have come to some fancy party, Soren was the one I picked? But it wasn’t really a conscious decision; my subconscious had been responsible for that pick.

  “Your boy roommate?”

  It made me smile that Ellis made boy sound like some unsavory disease. “That’s the one.”

  What followed was a minute of silence where I felt like he was waiting for me to retract my request or change it, but I stayed quiet too.

  “Yes, of course it’s fine if you want to bring a guest,” he said at last. “Perhaps request he leave the beer bong and keg at home.” He followed it with a chuckle, but Ellis wasn’t joking. Not that Soren had a beer bong or keg lying around anyway.