Roommates With Benefits [BL] Chapter 40: We Both Were Just Stupid

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But refused to believe that. The hell he doesn’t...I laughed, an involuntary burst of noise that echoed. "Okay, sure."

"I don’t."

"Damien."

"You clearly think I do."

"I don’t just think it, I have proof! You made a list! A printed, formatted, laminated list! Rules that state no unnecessary interaction, that’s not a feeling! That’s a docunt!"

"That wasn’t—"

"You looked at on move-in day like I was sothing stuck to the bottom of an expensive shoe!"

His jaw shifted slightly. "T...that’s not what that was."

"And the first ti we t...you and your friends were rude to cause I made a mistake. You stared at like I was the most boring problem you’d encountered all week after I apologized four tis for spilling coffee on you! And you made fun of for not being able to afford a replacent, like I was so goddamn peasant!"

"You spilled coffee on a thousand dollar shirt, though."

"THAT IS NOT THE POINT!"

My voice rang out with enough force to fill the room, and for a mont, everything went quiet. Outside, the city continued on, but inside, the apartnt was still.

For the first ti, I saw Damien caught off guard...genuinely not composed, just a guy in a room, looking at , unprepared for what I was saying.

His eyes didn’t leave mine as I let weeks of bottled feelings spill out without a filter.

"You have a problem with literally everything I do," I said, softer now but still sure of myself. "The food I cook, the music I play, even the way I exist in the space. You act like I’m so inconvenience assigned to your address because the universe ssed up the waiting list. Like I’m the scholarship kid in the wrong building and you’re just waiting for soone to pick up. Just admit it, you don’t want soone like near you. You want gone."

Sothing flashed across Damien’s face, quick and complex, gone before I could fully catch it. Sothing that wasn’t cold or composed or any of his usual defenses.

"You think I want you to move out?" he asked quietly.

"Yes," I said. "That was the impression I got from the laminated list and the one-word commands."

"I thought you hated ."

His straightforward admission knocked the breath out of , and I stared at him, struck dumb.

"What?"

"At the café," he elaborated carefully, like he was walking over a delicate topic he’d been mulling over for a while. "You avoided after that coffee incident. Every ti I showed up, you handed my order off to soone else before I could even get to the counter."

"I was just being professional! You looked at like I was so bug on the sidewalk! I only did that so I wouldn’t smack you and lose my job."

There was a beat it silence after that.

"When you moved in," he continued, "You seed uncomfortable around from the start. I thought the rules would give you space and clarity, make things less complicated."

I processed this with my mouth slightly agape. "You thought handing a laminated list of prohibitions, including ’no attempts at friendship’ would make feel comfortable?"

For a mont, he looked like he was hearing his own plan echoed back to him and reconsidering it.

"It made sense at the ti," he offered.

"Your brain is broken," I told him, honestly concerned. "Sothing isn’t connecting properly in there."

"I...I’m not very good with people."

I stared at him, really seeing him. And suddenly, I almost believed him. All the stares I’d thought were icy judgnts, the corrections I’d perceived as disdain—maybe they were sothing else entirely.

The silence, the rules, the odd, twisted care disguised as irritation because he had no other way to express it.

"You thought you were helping," I said slowly.

"Yes."

"By ignoring every day."

His jaw tightened. "That wasn’t my intention."

"What was your intention?"

He paused for a mont. "To not make things worse."

I rubbed my hands down my face and hid them for a second, trying to gather myself. "I genuinely can’t tell if you’re incredibly smart or uniquely, profoundly bad at this."

"That’s fair."

"It’s not a complint, by the way."

"I know."

"The protein shake thing," I said suddenly as it hit . "When you said there was food in the fridge, that was you trying to be—"

"Yes."

"That was you trying to be—"

"Yes."

I dropped my hands. "You couldn’t just say that?"

"I wasn’t sure how."

The silence between us changed. It wasn’t heavy or tense; it was softer and uncertain, not hostile.

I narrowed my eyes at him, but the anger I felt was softer now. I still felt it, but it had changed shape under this new understanding.

I was still reeling from the fact that he wasn’t trying to be rude to or anything, he was actually just trying to make who he thought hated him... comfortable? In his own weird way?

I was a psychology major and even I was confused as to his thought process.

I looked away first, glancing at the window where the city lights were twinkling against the darkening sky, trying to find sothing to say about everything that had just spilled out between us.

"You still kissed ," I finally said, quietly, not as an accusation but just acknowledging the fact that was out there now.

The silence that followed was heavy with aning.

Then he replied simply, "Yes."

One word. Clear and straightforward, and beneath it was sothing raw and honest that I hadn’t seen from him in this way before.

My heart raced, and I focused on the window, swallowing hard.

"Why?" I asked before I could think better of it.

The apartnt held that question, heavy in the air between us.

When I glanced back, Damien was looking at . Not with the cold assessnt I’d co to expect, not with an unreadable expression. Just looking, steady and sincere, like he was weighing sothing.

Like whatever was waiting behind those blue eyes had been there for a while and was considering whether now was the ti to let it out.

And that look, sohow, impossibly...was more unsettling than every glare he’d ever given combined.