Chapter 32 - My Room Mate from the Pack

The screen lit up, and soft background music floated out of the speakers. Eric’s face filled the frame-clean-cut, confident, the human embodiment of a well-pressed linen shirt. He was already mid-story, animatedly talking about some client pitch, his voice full of self-satisfaction.

“…and I told them, if we’re not aiming for the top of the market, we’re wasting time…”

I watched myself in the background. Sitting there, smiling, nodding in all the right places. Laughing-no, not laughing. Smiling politely. Distantly. My mouth moved like it had been coached.

I didn’t look happy. I looked… pretty and controlled. Like I’d studied how to be the picture-perfect girlfriend and mastered the choreography.

There was no spark in my eyes. I wasn’t at ease. It looked like I was waiting for permission to exhale.

I closed the laptop and sat in the half-dark. Then I opened it again and rewatched the video.

Not once did I laugh, not like I had on the roof with Roman. Not like that ugly, unfiltered snort I let out when he’d compared our landlord to a Russian intelligence agent. Not like the way I’d laughed until my ribs hurt when he danced with the mop after spilling cranberry juice one afternoon.

My phone buzzed. I snatched it off the desk, desperate for a distraction.

A voice message from Roman.

His voice poured out of the speaker, low and familiar and completely unbothered. “Hey, Mags. You left your mug in the bathroom again. Either it’s part of your new skincare ritual or this coffee cup is possessed. Also, I saved you the last brownie, which means I’m clearly in love with you. Don’t make it weird.”

He laughed softly. That rough-around-the-edges, kind-of-a-growl laugh that made it feel like someone had poured warm syrup over my heart.

I snorted and immediately covered my mouth. I listened to the message again, a giddy smile on my lips.

Then I saved it.

Then I panicked.

Deleted it.

Panicked even more.

Cursing under my breath, I quickly thumbed into the deleted folder and recovered it like it was a national treasure. I hit play one more time and then leaned back in my chair, phone pressed to my chest like I was starring in some teen drama about heartbreak and slow-burn love and confusing roommates.

I stared at the ceiling.

This was fake. This thing with Roman was all fake. It was me helping him out of a bind. A structured coping mechanism. A distraction in hot, shirtless packaging with a tragic backstory and boundary issues.

I was not falling for him.

I repeated it like a prayer. Like if I said it enough, I could make it true.

Groaning, I stood up from my chair and collapsed on my bed. I threw an arm over my eyes and tried not to cry. Or scream. Or smile.

The truth settled over me like a weighted blanket, heavy and unavoidable: If it was fake, then why did it feel more real than anything I ever had with Eric?

Roman’s voice echoed in my mind again. “Don’t make it weird.”

Too late.

It was already five-thirty. My back ached, my stomach felt like it was trying to digest itself, and I was so caffeinated I could feel sound. But hey, I’d gotten through the rest of the day without thinking about Roman’s smug smirk or the hallway eye contact incident.

Much. I hadn’t thought about that stuff… much.

I saved my file, minimalist floral logos be damned, and forced myself to shut my laptop. My head was buzzing, but it wasn’t from work. It was from nerves over the double date. Seeing Eric. Seeing Eric with her.

When Roman pulled up outside in his car, I climbed in, already jittery. The city hummed around us-the low roar of a bus pulling away from the curb, the clatter of a streetcar a few blocks over, the faint blare of a siren in the distance. I didn’t talk. Hell, I didn’t trust myself to speak. My leg bounced uncontrollably. The windows were cracked, but the air was still too warm, too heavy with the smell of sea salt and rain-washed pavement from the earlier drizzle.

Roman put his hand on my knee and gave me one of those annoyingly perfect smiles.

“It’s going to be fine,” he said. “Deep breaths, killer.”

Swallowing hard, I nodded. “I’m trying.”

The restaurant was aggressively wellness-themed. Tucked between a boutique dog bakery and an artisan soap shop on a narrow street, it practically screamed San Francisco. Crystals glittered on every table. Steam puffed from salt lamps in the corners like we were entering a scented fog of enlightenment. The seating? Yoga mats. Of fucking course.

“If anyone expects me to downward dog between appetizers, I’m leaving,” I grumbled.

Eric and Bianca were already there. She was barefoot and beaming.

Before we could even sit down, Bianca insisted we do a group breathwork ritual. “It clears the energetic slate,” she explained, hands fluttering like she was part fairy.

Roman’s nostrils flared mid-nasal-inhale. A strangled sound escaped him halfway through the cleansing cycle, and I nearly collapsed trying to hide my laugh behind a napkin.

The food was pretentious beyond belief. Something involving beet foam and dehydrated kale bark. When my stomach growled audibly, Roman whispered, “My energy’s about to fast its way out of this building.”

Bianca launched into a monologue about “energetic fasting.” Roman looked like he was barely holding it together. A musician started to play an acoustic guitar on a small stage in the corner. It was enough sound to fill the awkward silence.

Then Eric turned his attention to me.

“You’re looking very… healthy, Maggie.”

Healthy? Not beautiful. Not glowing or great or even well.

Healthy

-like I was a tub of Greek yogurt or had just recovered from a prolonged illness.

I smiled politely. “Thanks. I’ve been doing this new thing where I, you know, sleep and eat and function like a person. It’s revolutionary.”

Under the table, Roman’s hand flexed against mine. I didn’t dare look at him.

Eric chuckled. “Always with the sass.”

There it was-his classic fallback. If he couldn’t outshine me, he’d just… narrate me. Package the parts of me that didn’t fit into his aesthetic and label them as charming quirks. It used to work, back when I was too tired and in love to notice I was being dimmed.

I swirled the water in my glass. “It’s served me well.”

He leaned in slightly, like we were sharing some private joke. “You’ve got a glow. I don’t know. You just seem different. In a good way.”

My stomach gave a dumb little flip, equal parts memory and reflex. Part of me used to ache to hear him say that even once. It would have been confirmation that I was enough. That I was good. That he saw me. And now? Now I couldn’t tell if I wanted to cry or throw the Himalayan salt crystal centerpiece at his head.

Bianca didn’t seem to notice. She was in a trance, watching the acoustic guitarist and swaying slightly, her hands folded in her lap like a serene cult leader awaiting ascension.

Eric tilted his head. “I saw your post the other day. That design with the moon phases? Stunning.”

Oh.

That post. The one Roman had insisted I share even though I thought it was too weird, too specific, too me.

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