Roommates With Benefits

by Nicole Williams

“And he misses you.” She brushed the back of her hand across my cheek. “You miss each other so much because you care about each other so much. That’s a good thing. I know it doesn’t feel good all the time—times like these—but believe me, that’s a rare feeling to have for another human being. A rare one for them to feel in return.”

  I took the tissue she pulled from her purse to wipe my nose. I was a sobbing, snotty mess. “Yeah?”

  “Trust my fifty-plus years of life experience.” She nodded. “Absolutely.”

  “It feels like we’re having a long-distance relationship living in the same, small apartment.” I glanced over my shoulder, teeth sinking into my lip when I noticed he’d washed and folded a pile of my laundry while I’d been gone. “Right when life brought us together, fate’s trying to keep us apart. Like it’s trying to tell us something.” My hand rubbed my arm as I shifted in place. There were probably better people to have this conversation with than the mother of the man I cared about, but she was right here, and I felt as though I needed to get all of this off my chest right now.

  Her hand went beneath my chin, tipping it up. She had a soft smile on her face. “The only thing it’s telling you is that you’re going to have to fight for what you want. That you’ve got something special to fight for.” Her light eyes—the same shade as Soren’s—shone and made me miss him more. “Soren, he’s a good guy, the best kind. He’ll love you forever, no matter what happens. He fell in love with you—he’ll stay in love with you. He won’t let the distance come between you two. It’s up to you if you’ll let it.”

  A small weight rolled off of me. The distance was daunting, but it wasn’t the only obstacle we faced. It wasn’t the one I feared most. My abandonment and trust issues ran deep. They felt woven into my character. I wished I didn’t have them, I wished I could wish them away, but that didn’t change the reality of their effect on me.

  Soren hadn’t left me. But why was he always gone?

  He hadn’t abandoned me either. But why did I feel so alone?

  “I recognize that brooding look. I’ve seen the same one on my son’s face a lot lately.” Mrs. Decker’s arm linked through mine before she steered me out of the apartment. “You know where I take him when he’s missing you so badly it looks like he’s about to lose his mind?”

  My head shook as I locked the door.

  “His favorite bakery. It’s amazing what a little conversation and a lot of peanut butter pie can do to brighten even the darkest of moods.”

  Finally. I was about to see him. Not through the filter of a FaceTime app either. I was about to hear his voice—not through the speaker of a phone. I was about to touch him—have him touch back—instead of imagining what it felt like.

  The fall handbag campaign we’d shot in the French countryside had wrapped up a few days earlier than expected, which never happened. My flight had arrived on time too, which also never happened.

  It was almost like fate had decided to stop fighting dirty and give us a hand.

  I hadn’t bothered to pack a bag this time. Instead, I’d rushed to the airport, found the first flight to New York I could get on, and smiled the whole flight home. That smile deepened when I arrived at the baseball stadium.

  Soren had home games this weekend, and I was going to them all. I wasn’t going to let him out of my sight until I had to board the plane back to Paris on Monday. I’d been racking up some serious frequent flyer points over the past couple of months. The client flew me back and forth as needed, but they didn’t view “as needed” as every or every other weekend to see my boyfriend back in the States.

  So most flights I shelled out my own cash for, but other than sending money back home and stowing some away for a rainy day, it was the best money I spent.

  It was a warm day, and the stands were pretty full for a community college baseball game. I guessed it had a lot to do with Soren’s team setting some new records and there being talk about the team’s starting catcher getting serious attention from pro scouts.

  Soren didn’t like to talk about it too much—he said he didn’t want to jinx it and claimed baseball players were superstitious for a reason—but I bragged about him to anyone who would listen. He was going to do it. His dream. He was going to achieve it.

  At the same time I was thrilled for him, I couldn’t ignore the nervousness I felt when I thought about what that meant. Soren would be done with school this spring. From there, he’d either be moving on to a four-year degree or getting signed by a major league team. He might not have talked about it in detail, but that didn’t mean I didn’t know what was coming.

  Where would he go? Would he go? What would it mean for us?

  Those were questions we were both happy to ignore, preferring instead to live in the moment. The future was too damn uncertain.

  It took me a while of scanning the home side benches to find a space I could squeeze into. He didn’t know I was coming, and I couldn’t wait to surprise him. After excusing and squeezing myself into the free square of bench a few rows behind the dugout, I surveyed the scoreboard. The Devils were up a few runs, and it was the seventh inning stretch. Which explained why no one was out on the field, though a handful of players tossed a ball back and forth in front of the dugout.

  I didn’t see him at first—he was warming up with one of the team’s pitchers down the right field line. My chest ached once I did see him. My lungs hurt from realizing all of those miles that had kept us apart all came down to these last few yards.

  He had on his catcher’s mitt, crouching low as he focused on each pitch coming in. The smack of the ball as it hit his mitt. The whoosh it made as he sent it flying back. The intent look on his face under his mask, the curl of his hair around the brim of his cap, the muscles working beneath the snug uniform. I had to catch myself from leaping over the fence and running to him right then.

  Security probably would have frowned on a crazed woman charging the field toward the team’s star player.

  Folding my hands in my lap, I adjusted the red Devils hat Soren had picked up for me, determined to stay in my seat. My plan faltered when I noticed someone emerge from the dugout and walk toward him. It wasn’t another player—it was a girl. She was wearing a team jersey and a pair of khaki slacks—clearly she was a part of the team—but I felt my hackles rise.

  Especially when I noticed what was bouncing rather impressively as she ran toward him. The girl had it in the front and in the back, curves where I had planes. I wasn’t the only one in the stands staring at her either. Half the male spectators were too.

  Even her shiny, blonde ponytail bounced as she jogged toward him.

  When she paused beside him, Soren lifted his hand at the pitcher to stop him. She was holding out a water bottle. When he nodded and tipped his head back, she sprayed a stream into his mouth. Once he’d swallowed, she said something else, to which he nodded, followed with another squirt of water directly into his mouth.

  It looked like he said thanks after that drink, and she smiled and gave his shoulder a squeeze.

  My blood felt scorching hot when her fingers curled into his shoulder. I felt very possessive of that shoulder at the moment. That was my shoulder.

  With a wave, she flounced back to the dugout, bouncing her hard-to-ignore assets as she went. Weren’t water girls supposed to be, I don’t know, not so perky and pretty?

  Soren was already back to throwing the ball with the pitcher before she’d moved away—his eyes never strayed from the ball—but none of that could calm the jealous lunatic who had busted out of her straitjacket.

  After a few more throws, he rose and moved toward the dugout. He only made it a few steps before he froze in place. He’d seen me. Even through his mask, I could see his eyes blink a few times, like he was clearing his vision, before they rounded.

  When he slid his mask up over his ball cap, his grin took up half of his face. Moving like he was running the bases, his direction changed from the dugout to where I was stationed at the fenc
e. People in the stands were starting to notice, and the ones closest to me on the bench stepped a little aside, like they were expecting his next move.

  They were right. Soren didn’t slow or say a word when he made it to the fence—he just leapt over it in one smooth motion, his body smashing into mine as soon as he’d cleared it.

  A note of surprise managed to escape me before his mouth covered mine at the same time his arms circled me, one at a time. I didn’t care who was watching or how many were. I didn’t care about anything besides the man holding me, his lips trying to make up for days of separation. His mitt pressed into my back, drawing me closer, and somewhere in the midst of my hands running over him, I managed to knock his catcher’s mask from his head.

  A cheer rolled through the crowd as we kissed. When they started chanting “Charge!” Soren’s smile curved against my mouth.

  “That’s one hell of a hello.” My arms were tied around his neck, and I wasn’t sure I could let go so he could finish a few more innings.

  His lips touched mine once more. “Just getting warmed up.” His hips barely tipped into mine to reveal just how warmed up he was getting. Even through his cup, I could feel him.

  “Hey, Lover Boy!” An older man wearing a uniform emerged from the dugout, waving at the two of us sandwiched together against the fence. “You’ve got a game to finish.”

  Soren lifted his arm at his coach, dropping his forehead to mine and taking one long breath. “Thank you. Best surprise ever.”

  After leaping back over the fence, he snagged the mask that had toppled over it and started toward the dugout, running backward so he didn’t have to look away.

  “Hit a home run for me.” I fought a laugh when he bumped into the edge of the dugout.

  He rubbed his shoulder mindlessly, a permanent smile on his face. “How many?”

  My eyes rolled. “Show-off.”

  After he disappeared into the dugout as the other team took the field, I needed a minute to put my feet back on the ground. That might have been the best welcome in the history of welcomes. My toes were tingling from that kiss, and everything else tingled from the relief of having him close again.

  It was hard to go back to sitting on a bench, but I loved watching Soren play baseball. I didn’t know much about the game, other than the basics, but I didn’t come to watch the game. I came to watch him. His passion for the sport was evident in everything he did on the field—he moved with the kind of ease that suggested he’d been born to play the sport.

  When he emerged from the dugout a couple minutes later, he took a few practice swings before making his way back over to my area of the fence. “You want that homer going over right, left, or center field?”

  I leaned forward in my seat. “Your ego’s showing. Might want to cover it up a bit before you offend someone.”

  Soren tapped his cleats with the end of the bat, his mouth working. “Where do you want it?”

  “What’s going to be the hardest?”

  His shoulder lifted, like left was just as easy as right, as was center.

  “Ego level, obscene.”

  “I’d do anything for you, including lie, cheat, steal, and kill. Hitting a home run is nothing.”

  Holding my stare until the last second, he turned to move into the on-deck position. I thought that was what it was called anyway. Deck something.

  As Soren took his place at home plate, he looked perfectly calm. Focused. The first pitch the pitcher threw, he swung at. There was the crack as the bat connected, the whiz of the ball driving deep, then the roar of a crowd jumping to its feet as Soren Decker added another home run to his stats.

  Before he rounded first, he glanced over at where I was glued to the fence. He winked, a smirk already in place.

  The last couple of innings went the same way. Soren managed to knock one more out of the park before the end of the game, along with catching a couple of fouls at the top of the ninth.

  It was hard to watch anyone else on his team. I wasn’t the only one drawn to number twenty-three’s every move though. He stood out. A lot. His team was good—god knew I’d had to listen to him brag about them all season—but they looked like a bunch of little leaguers compared to Soren. He played at a different level. It wasn’t just the filter I saw Soren through that led me to that conclusion—it was the way it was.

  Soren was going to make it. He was going to live his dream of playing for some professional team. At the same time my eyes welled with pride, they stung from the tears of bittersweetness.

  My dream had come to life. His dream was about to.

  What neither of us seemed to want to acknowledge was that those dreams would rip us apart.

  After the game wrapped up—another impressive win by the Devils—I went to wait for Soren outside of the locker room. He must have taken the world’s fastest shower in the history of locker rooms, because I’d only been waiting for a minute before the locker room door threw open and out he came. Or out he ran.

  His gear bag over his shoulder, he wrangled me under his other arm and turned to leave the park. His lips met mine as we moved.

  “Kissing and walking can be dangerous.”

  His arm rung around my neck deeper. “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Good game, Soren!” someone shouted from behind us.

  When I glanced over my shoulder, I found her—waving and smiling and focusing on him.

  My man. Mine.

  Because I clearly didn’t have a possessiveness issue or anything.

  “Thanks! Catch you later,” he called back before weaving us through the park fences. “Now, where were we . . .” When his head turned to kiss me again, he didn’t miss the look on my face. “We weren’t there. Definitely weren’t there.”

  “Who is she?” I asked.

  “Who’s who?”

  My eyes lifted. “That girl who just called for you in a crowd full of people when you were kissing your girlfriend.”

  He had to clear his throat and look away because he was about to smile. Glad my jealous streak amused him. “That’s Alex. She’s a PT student, so she gives the team a hand if anyone’s injured or anything like that.”

  “So, what? She gives you deep-tissue massages?”

  “Is the follow-up to that question going to involve something about candles, oil, and nudity? Because you seem a little . . .”—when he noticed my eyebrows raising, he cleared his throat—“sensitive on the subject.”

  “I’m just asking a question.”

  Soren wound my braid up in his hand as we moved onto the sidewalk. “No deep-tissue massages. Bags of ice, heat packs, stretching us out, that kind of thing.”

  “Stretching you out?” I repeated, although not in the same innocent tone.

  “I am not going to be able to say anything right when it comes to this topic, so can we stop talking about Alex now, please? She helps out the team and is a total science nerd.”

  “How do you know that?”

  The corners of his eyes creased. He took a few moments before answering. “Because she’s my lab partner.”

  I stopped moving down the sidewalk. “She’s your lab partner? So she’s not just on your team, icing and heating and stretching you guys out, she’s also buddied up with you every week in lab?” His arm fell away when I moved in front of him. “The lab partner you’ve been spending hours with over the past couple of months?”

  I moved a step back and crossed my arms. It wasn’t really him I was upset with; it was our situation. Soren and I had had a small handful of hours together over the past month, while some other girl had gotten loads more. I hated that. I hated that I hated that to begin with.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

  His head was tipped as he watched me, his hair still dripping from the shower he’d rushed through to get to me sooner. I felt like an idiot for having this conversation on a busy sidewalk, but I also knew I couldn’t let it go without getting it out. Communication was what all of those relation
ship books said was the key to making a relationship work. Sometimes I wondered if they needed to add a preface to that, like constructive communication.

  “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think it mattered.”

  “You didn’t think it mattered that some woman who looks like a playmate is a part of your team and also your lab partner?”

  Soren’s hand reached for me. Like a magnet, mine reached back. “No,” he stated.

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t see her like that.”

  “You don’t see her as being Miss December if this whole science nerd thing doesn’t work out?”

  A corner of his mouth jerked up. “No, I don’t see her. I don’t see anyone else.” Soren stepped toward me, his eyes on fire. “I see you. Only you.” Each word was slow, its own statement. “Everyone else blurs into a kind of homogenous stew.”

  I let him pull me tight against him, my anger already melting away. “We’re not a melting pot anymore apparently. We’re a tossed salad—that’s the PC way to describe Americans now.”

  He slid my ball cap so the bill was backward, just like his. “I’m not talking about Americans. I’m talking about what you brought up—other girls.” He pulled me to the side of the sidewalk to give us some privacy. “And I didn’t say melting pot. I said stew. Homogenous stew.”

  “How’s that different?”

  “Every bite looks the same.” His thumb brushed the inside of my wrist. “Inedible.”

  “Inedible?” I smiled. “I don’t think that’s the word you’re looking for. You don’t eat girls.”

  His eyes flashed, a challenge in them. “I’m planning on eating the one standing in front of me as soon as I get her behind a locked door.”

  My gaze moved around us, making sure no one overheard. “Behind a locked door and on top of our bed?”

  Soren’s mouth dropped to my neck. He gave a slight yank on my braid, arching my neck back to give him better access. When his lips touched me, a jolt shot down my spine. When he started to suck at my skin, his tongue breaking through every few pulses, it felt like he was between my legs right then from the way my body started to spiral out of control.