Roommates With Benefits [BL] Chapter 51: Oliver Steals Damien’s Girl

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It has had been three weeks since lanie had put her number in my hand, that bright smile on her face, all easy and confident, like she thought I’d eventually call or text her and was just giving ti to catch up.

Three weeks since Damien decided it was his life mission to make my life easier in all sorts of ways that were honestly starting to annoy because it’s way harder to dislike soone when they’re constantly leaving you coffee and making you dinner.

And, most unfortunately, three weeks since that stupid kiss.

Not that I was counting.

Absolutely not counting.

I was just acutely aware of how much ti had passed, like any reasonable person might be, with complete, excruciating, minute-by-minute awareness.

Very different. That distinction was crucial. I needed it to be crucial.

At least that’s what I told myself while sitting cross-legged on the couch with my Psychology textbooks open in front of and about zero actual information making its way into my brain. The words were there, sentences existed, and sowhere on page forty-seven, cognitive science was apparently doing sothing interesting. But I couldn’t tell you what it was.

The apartnt was unusually quiet for a Thursday afternoon. Sunlight stread through the big windows of Preston Hall, casting long, warm golden streaks across the polished floors and the fancy furniture that still looked like it belonged in so lifestyle magazine spread called Living Well While Making Your Roommate Feel Financially Inadequate.

Outside, I could faintly hear the sounds of campus life, voices, footsteps, soone’s music...but in here it was still, warm, and way too comfortable for soone trying to study.

Across the room, Damien sat at the dining table silently scrolling through his phone.

He still looked annoyingly attractive, doing absolutely nothing interesting. One arm rested on the table while he typed, his dark hair a bit tousled from running his fingers through it, and that serious look on his face when he was focused — completely unaware or maybe just unfazed by the fact that I could see him from where I was sitting.

He’d been sitting like that for almost an hour, barely moving or saying anything. Just there, breathing and taking up space like he’d never once wondered if he had permission to do so.

I hated that I paid attention to stuff like that now. The hair, the arm, the jaw, the whole situation of him just chilling twelve feet away doing normal human things.

I used to think Damien was just an asshole. A rich, cold, annoying jerk who happened to be my roommate. Life had been so much simpler back then. Simpler and a whole lot less warm in an irritating way.

My phone buzzed against the couch cushion, I ignored it...it was probably Joey spamming dumb s and stickers again to get my attention.

It buzzed again. Then again, with the kind of persistence that screams the person on the other end is not doing patience.

I sighed dramatically and reached for it. "Whoever you are, I hope this is life-changing news."

The mont I unlocked my screen, I instinctively knew who it was.

lanie.

Hey Oliver~ It’s been 3 weeks and you still haven’t used my number 😔 A girl might get insecure...

Another ssage popped up before I even finished reading the first.

Take out this weekend to make up for it? Coffee? Dinner? Your choice. I promise I’m fun 😉

A third ca in almost right after.

Unless you’ve been secretly kidnapped.

In which case, blink twice.

I stared at the ssages, and despite myself, I smiled. Which was a bumr because lanie was genuinely hard not to like, that’s the problem with her. She’s funny, confident, and outgoing in a way that sohow doesn’t tip into being exhausting. She has a knack for making conversations easy, like she just decided it would be effortless and the conversation had no other choice but to comply.

One of those people who walks into a room full of strangers and leaves with twenty new friends, while soone like stands in the corner practicing what to say before ordering a drink.

anwhile, I still get anxious ordering food over the phone.

Life really isn’t fair.

My thumb hovered over the keyboard. I should probably respond. Normal people respond to cute girls interested in them, right?

Normal people don’t spend three weeks avoiding a pretty girl’s number because they’re quietly going nuts over a roommate who makes them coffee and then stares at them over dinner like he’s solving so problem he hasn’t nad yet.

Right? I’m genuinely asking at this point. It had really been a while since I last dated.

A while aning four years...

My dad’s voice popped into my head just when I didn’t want to hear it, always so sure of himself. ’You’re young, Ollie. Go out. Have fun. et people!’

Easy for him to say. He wasn’t living with Damien Lockwood and working two and a half jobs.

I glanced up to him once again because it seed hhis habit of staring at people had been contagious, Damien still existed. Infuriatingly, consistently, attractively existed, right there at the dining table, doing absolutely nothing I should have been worried about.

The sight dragged everything back up... the kiss, the argunts, the weird truce we’d stumbled into, the coffee every morning, the notes, the way he’d looked standing close to in the kitchen with laughter in his eyes, his hand near mine over a salt shaker like it was the most natural thing ever.

I groaned and dropped my head against the back of the couch. Then, because I was such a genius...a plan ford in my head.

That’s it! That what I needed, a date!

That was the answer. A date with a cute, funny girl who texted in full sentences and used emojis responsibly. This was normal. This was healthy, it was the kind of simple, uncomplicated thing I needed to remind myself that I was just a normal straight guy living a normal life.

Not soone who had been slowly losing his mind for three weeks over a guy who communicated mostly through sticky notes and teasing jokes.

Yes. That sounded entirely reasonable. I was very convinced by this logic.

I typed back.

: Sorry 😅 Life’s been insane lately. Wanna go to the movies this weekend?

The reply ca almost imdiately.

lanie🌻: FINALLY. I was starting to think you forgot .

Saturday?

I couldn’t help but smile. Saturday sounds good.

A string of celebration emojis showed up. They were enthusiastic, clear-cut, and refreshingly easy to interpret, unlike so other forms of communication I’d been subjected to recently.

Cute, dangerously cute. I was still staring at them when a voice interrupted my thoughts.

"Who’s got you grinning like that, Oliver?"

My head snapped up.

Damien hadn’t looked away from his phone. Not once, his eyes stayed glued to the screen, his posture unchanged, one hand still near the keyboard. He looked like soone who casually asked a question with no real interest in the answer.

Yet sohow, he’d known to ask. He’d known without looking.

I narrowed my eyes. "Are you spying on ?"

"No."

"Sounds exactly like sothing a spy would say."

He let out a small sigh, patient and long-suffering, which might have annoyed if I weren’t so busy feeling suspicious. "Who is it?"

And that’s when sothing hit , sothing I genuinely couldn’t believe had taken this long to figure out.

I sat up straighter; this needed proper posture.

For weeks, I’d been sticking with the theory that Damien had so kind of thing for lanie. It explained how he’d watched her at the party, the tension radiating off him when she was nearby, and the weird cold vibe he’d had afterward. I had filed it under rich guy has a crush, rich guy is territorial, rich guy is annoying, moving on.

And now here he was, asking about who I was texting. With that studied neutrality that said he was trying really hard to sound like he didn’t care.

I smirked, Interesting.

Very interesting.

"Not that it’s any of your business," I said, keeping my tone casual, "but I think I’m about to steal your girl."