Roommates With Benefits [BL]

•⋅⊰∙∘☾✶☽∘∙⊱⋅•✾•⋅⊰∙∘☾✶☽∘∙⊱⋅•

"No."

"Joey."

"I appreciate you."

"I appreciate oxygen. Please let go."

Finally, he released me, his eyes a bit red but now smiling. "Seriously, though."

"I know."

He nodded. "Thanks."

I smiled. "Anytime."

He stood up, adjusting his suspenders. "I’ve got to go to the venue."

"Good."

"I need to meet the groomsmen before the bachelor party."

"You look like you need a shower first."

"I’ve showered."

"When?"

"This morning."

"That was twelve hours ago."

He looked offended. "That’s still today."

"Go shower."

"You sound like Natasha."

"That’s because Natasha is usually right."

He grabbed his jacket from the back of the couch. "Are you coming tonight?"

"To the bachelor party?"

"Yeah."

I shook my head. "I’ll pass."

He frowned. "Come on!"

"I’m tired."

"You don’t have to drink."

"That’s exactly what someone says before forcing me to drink."

"Fine, don’t drink."

"You’ll still pressure me into doing something stupid."

"Probably."

"Exactly." He laughed and moved toward the door. "I’ll see you tomorrow, then."

"Tomorrow." He paused with his hand on the doorknob and looked back at me. "You sure you’re okay staying here alone?"

"Yeah."

He studied me for a moment before nodding, though he didn’t look entirely convinced.

"Okay." Then he left.

I watched through the window as he hurried to his car, almost tripped on the edge of the driveway, regained what little dignity he had left, and hopped in.

I chuckled quietly. Some things really never change.

Joey had gotten older. He had a steady job at the art gallery selling fancy paintings to rich people, a house, a future, and a woman waiting for him at the end of the aisle tomorrow.

Yet somehow, beneath all that adult responsibility, he was still the same goof who once called me from a burning apartment and described it as "kind of inconvenient."

I smiled to myself, but then the house became silent, and my smile faded. I sank back onto the couch.

The quiet wasn’t unpleasant, just a space for thoughts I usually kept busy enough to avoid.

As I looked around the living room, I noticed little signs of Natasha everywhere.

A framed photo on the bookshelf, another of them laughing at a restaurant on the side table, a blanket neatly folded over an armchair, a pair of her shoes by the hallway, and a small vase of flowers on the dining table.

They had built a life together. Not a perfect one, but a beautiful one.

It was odd to think how quickly it all happened.

After Damien left Preston Hall, I didn’t last long in Room 25. I tried...I really did. For about three days, I told myself I could manage it.

I could walk past his side of the room and ignore the emptiness. I could sleep in the same bed without turning toward the side he used to occupy.

I could cook dinner without anticipating him walking in to complain about my cooking or casually pat my ass making me yell at him.

By the fourth night, I threw in the towel. I packed my things and moved back in with Joey. It was cheaper, that’s the excuse I gave.

The truth was, I couldn’t bear being alone in a room that still smelled like him.

I figured time would heal everything. It didn’t, time just taught me how to carry it without letting anyone see.

Joey had been there through all of it. And somewhere during our last year in Hawthorne, while I quietly tried to rebuild myself, he accidentally fell in love.

It began with Natasha...a drunken one-night stand after one of Joey’s wild parties. Or at least, that’s how they described it.

The first time Joey mentioned her, he was sitting across from me at the kitchen table, looking way too proud of himself.

"It was just once," he said.

I stared at him. "That’s what everyone says before the second time."

He insisted there wouldn’t be a second time. But there was. Then came a third, followed by dinner, movie nights, Natasha’s toothbrush appearing in the bathroom, and half her clothes somehow landing in Joey’s closet.

Before I knew it, Joey stopped referring to her as "that girl" and started saying her name every few minutes. It was impossible not to notice.

They grew closer slowly, almost accidentally, until one day it hit me and Joey wasn’t just dating Natasha anymore; he was building a life with her.

I remember guys’ nights during that period when Joey would sit across from us, beer in hand, talking about her with a smile that wouldn’t budge, no matter how much we tried to mess with him.

"She’s the one, man," he’d said, shaking his head and laughing. "I just know it!"

I teased him for being sickeningly romantic, but I was genuinely happy for him.

At least one of us was on track to end up with the person he loved.

I leaned back on the couch, staring at the ceiling. That thought should’ve stayed there.

It shouldn’t have been anything more than a memory. But instead, one word got stuck in my head: loved.

My chest tightened, and Damien’s face rushed in.

I sat up. "No, fuck no...not now."

The word came out louder than I meant.

I rubbed my face. "Nope."

I wasn’t going to do this. Not tonight. Not in Joey’s house.

Not when his wedding decorations were in the next room and his future wife was likely somewhere deciding whether to strangle him for losing one of his shoes.

Damien had been gone for years. Years. He had his life, I had mine.

He was probably happy, surrounded by the dumb, rich people who got his world, who belonged in fancy rooms and knew which fork to use at fancy dinners.

He was the CEO of one of the country’s biggest companies. He had everything his parents had almost taken from him.

The future we’d talked him getting back about had happened...just without me.

And that was fine. It had to be.

I stood up and walked to the kitchen. I opened a cupboard looking for something to drink, and my eyes landed on the old white university mug...the chipped one from Preston Hall, the one I had carried with me when I moved back in with Joey.

I stared at it. I’d kept it for years but hadn’t used it once so I gave it to Joey when he asked when I realized Damien wasn’t coming back for me.

I reached for it, but then stopped, my hand hovered for a second before I slowly pulled it back. "No."

I shut the cupboard. I didn’t need to touch it, didn’t need to think of him, or wonder if he still remembered that silly mug, the hockey game, or how we used to cook together...any of those little things that once felt so ordinary.

I had moved on. I had a career, responsibilities, friends. I had built a life that belonged entirely to me.

I wasn’t the same person who stood in Room 25 watching Damien walk away. I had changed.

I’d grown up and I’d moved forward. Damien had moved forward, too. That’s how life works.

People leave, people change and oeople fall in love, lose love, and find new people, building new lives.

I had done all of those things. Well, maybe not the falling-in-love-and-finding-someone-new part.

But everything else...meh, close enough.

I leaned against the kitchen counter and scanned the quiet house.

For some reason, the silence felt different now.

It reminded me of Room 25 after Damien left, that same emptiness, that strange awareness of everything missing.

I pushed off the counter. "I’ve moved on," I said softly.

The words sounded silly in the empty kitchen. I tried again.

"I’ve moved on." I crossed my arms. "I am a completely different person now."

That sounded a bit more convincing. Almost. I nodded to myself. "Damien is living his life. I’m living mine, that’s it."

Because the alternative meant admitting that four years could go by, a whole life could be rebuilt around an absence, and somehow, the person who left could still fill a space inside you that nobody else ever had.

I wasn’t going to think about that. I wasn’t going to wonder where Damien was tonight, or if he ever thought about me, or if he’d forgotten my voice, or whether he ever regretted leaving. I had moved on.

I was a different person now.

I just wished I sounded more convincing saying it.

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𝔞𝔲𝔱𝔥𝔬𝔯’𝔰 𝔯𝔞𝔪𝔟𝔩𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰

now hear me out 😅🖐️

I know this looks bad, but I swear this is not another angsty, sad volume.

we’re actually going back to our roots with this one, where it’s all light-hearted and adorable as Damien and Oliver find eachother again after so long.

just lemme cook now❤️