Chapter 55: My Roommate Is Definitely Not Jealous
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By the time I got to Preston Hall, my mind felt like it had been tossed in a blender on high speed.
The late night walk back from Callington Hall should’ve helped me clear my head out. Fresh air, peaceful campus paths, and the soft sound of my footsteps on the pavement, all the right ingredients for some calm reflection.
But it didn’t work. If anything, the quiet just gave my thoughts more space to spread out and settle in, taking over like they owned the place, rearranging furniture and propping their feet up.
Now I had two kisses running around in my head, both occupying space without paying rent. One from three weeks ago, in a closet, uninvited, unresolved, and apparently immortal. The other happened less than an hour ago outside Melanie’s dorm, soft, warm, and everything a first kiss should be.
And for some reason, my brain thought it was a good idea to compare the two.
In detail. With the kind of critical focus that felt less productive, considering I really did have things to do, a cognitive development paper due Wednesday, a work shift tomorrow morning, and a life that needed living, but here I was.
I freaking hated myself for it. That felt like the most honest thing I could say.
Because who the hell compares a kiss from a nice girl, to a kiss from Damien fucking Lockwood?!
Me, apparently...
I let out a defeated sigh.
Melanie had been sweet, the date had gone well, the movie had been genuinely funny, the ice cream was good, and the conversation flowed easily. She was pretty and funny and interested in me seemingly without needing any decoding. Everything had gone right; it had all been exactly as it should.
So why did it feel like something had sneaked in and gone wrong?
"Because you’re an idiot," I told myself as I climbed the stairs. "An idiot with terrible priorities and no sense of survival."
The stairwell didn’t disagree with me.
Honestly, that was the best explanation I’d found all night. I was going to sit with it. With a deep, fatigued sigh, I unlocked the dorm door to room 25 and stepped inside.
The second I looked up, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
"Jesus Christ!"
A figure was sitting in the darkness of the living room, completely still, as if they’d been there for a while and were perfectly at peace with it. I clutched my chest with one hand and grabbed the doorframe with the other, heart racing, mind racing through every horror movie I’d ever subjected myself to.
Holy fuck!
The figure didn’t budge.
"O...one day," I said, pressing my hand flat against my chest, "I’m really going to get a heart attack. And it’ll be your fault."
A lamp clicked on in the corner, casting a warm amber glow across the room. Damien was casually seated on the couch with one arm draped along the backrest, legs stretched out in front of him, looking like he’d just been sitting alone in the dark for perfectly ordinary reasons.
A cold mug sat on the coffee table next to a closed laptop. His expression was one of those carefully arranged unreadable faces, not blank but definitely composed.
He’d been there for a while, that much was clear, the coffee looked abandoned. The laptop hadn’t been touched in ages. Clearly, the lights had been off.
My stomach did a little flip, which I promptly ignored.
"Why are you sitting in the dark like a supervillain?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. "You don’t even have a cat to stroke. What are you batman?"
Damien’s gaze followed me as I stepped inside. "You’re back late."
"It’s not that late." I glanced at the time, it was only 12:30. Which was pretty late to be honest, but you know me...I’d never outrightly agree to anything this man said.
"It is for you."
I frowned at him. Oh...okay then, Dad.
Annoyingly, he was right. My Saturday nights usually involved textbooks, instant noodles, and whatever coping mechanism I was leaning on at the moment. Exciting, right? The fact that I had a late-night routine he’d noticed was yet another issue tucked away for later.
I tossed my keys onto the counter with a soft clatter. "You waiting up for me, Lockwood?"
His jaw tightened just a bit. "No."
"Liar."
"I wasn’t waiting."
"You were sitting in the dark."
"I was reading."
I glanced at the closed laptop, the abandoned mug, and the complete lack of any reading material nearby. "In complete darkness."
He stared at me.
I stared back.
We held that gaze for a moment too long, both of us acutely aware that one of us was lying and that the other knew it.
Eventually, I pointed at the cold mug. "That’s been sitting there for at least an hour."
Damien looked away, I grinned...small victory. Technically insignificant, but still pretty satisfying. Look at him pretending not to care...
I was in the process of giving myself a mental pat on the back when he spoke again, his voice perfectly level, like he was making a careful chess move. "Must’ve been a long date."
Something in his tone made me halt. It wasn’t exactly accusatory, but it was definitely something, the sort of quality beneath his words that felt intentional, almost as if he chose to sound neutral but wasn’t.
"What?" I asked.
He leaned back a little against the couch. "You were gone for almost six hours."
I blinked a few times, needing a moment to process that. "That’s an oddly specific number."
He said nothing.
"Have you been timing me?"
"No."
"Damien."
"I noticed when you left."
"And when I came back since you were up waiting for me, awwn."
I stared at him for a while. The reasonable explanation was that he’d just been in the apartment all night, registering my absence the way you notice any change in a space you occupy.
But the other explanation, the one that was glaring at me from the edge of obviousness, was something I wasn’t ready to face just yet.
"We watched a movie," I said. "Then we got ice cream."
"Hm."
There it was. That one syllable, so contained and somehow loaded with significance. A word that technically meant nothing yet somehow conveyed everything. He didn’t believe me, he thought Melanie and I had...done something else.
Frustration started to bubble up. "What does that mean?"
"Nothing."
"It certainly means something."
"You made a sound, Damien. Sounds mean things. That’s the whole point."
One brow arched up. "Why are you defensive?"
"I’m not defensive."
"Sounds like you’re explaining yourself."
"Because you’re acting weird."
"I’m not."
"You’re sitting in the dark, timing my dates, and throwing side comments at me."
Damien nodded slowly, as if absorbing the information with great care. "Right."
I hated that word. I’d never despised a specific four-letter word so consistently as I did when Damien Lockwood said right.
"So what’s your issue tonight, roomie?"