He Thought I Hadn’t Noticed

My roommate had a problem.

He blushed when I looked at him. He forgot what he was saying when I smiled. Lately, things had started disappearing from my laundry.

Owen Carter apparently believed I hadn’t noticed any of this.

I was doing my best to encourage that belief.

At six thirty on a Tuesday morning, the scrape of a sneaker against our bedroom floor woke me. I pushed the curtain aside on my lofted bed and looked down.

Owen stood beneath the window, bent over his shoelaces. His training shirt had ridden up his back. There was a narrow strip of skin above his shorts and an entirely unreasonable amount of shoulder beneath the cotton.

He was twenty-two, six feet four, and disciplined enough to get up before sunrise voluntarily. I was twenty-one and considered that a character defect.

I cleared my throat.

His head came up so fast he almost hit the bed frame.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “Did I wake you?”

He looked as though I had caught him breaking something valuable.

“I have a class at eight anyway.” I rubbed my eyes and smiled down at him. “You might have saved my academic career.”

His gaze dropped to my collar.

I was wearing an old, soft shirt with a neckline that had lost an argument with the washing machine. When I leaned forward, it slipped farther down one shoulder.

Owen looked at the door.

Then, apparently against his better judgment, he looked back.

I liked a man with a difficult morning ahead of him.

Westbridge University had assigned four of us to a suite in August. Marcus and Ben shared the other bedroom. Owen and I shared this one, which contained two desks, two wardrobes, Owen’s ordinary bed, and mine, raised high enough to fit storage underneath.

I had chosen the loft because it gave me more floor space.

I had since discovered other advantages.

“Are you going to practice?” I asked.

“Weights first. Then drills.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“You’re going back to sleep, aren’t you?”

I glanced at my pillow.

He smiled before he could stop himself.

There it was. The little crease beside his mouth that made me want to ruin his concentration.

“You think you know me so well.” I swung my feet toward the ladder.

I had barely found the second rung when my sock slipped.

For one horrible second, the floor tilted toward my face.

Then Owen caught me.

One arm closed around my back, the other beneath my knees. The landing knocked a breath out of him. My hands grabbed his shoulders.

We stared at each other.

His eyes were a warm, clear brown. Very wide, at that moment.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

My heart was racing. The fall had been real. So was the alarming ease with which he held me.

“I don’t think so.”

He looked down at my ankle, then at the ladder, as if he intended to hold it personally responsible.

“Your socks are slippery. You should take them off first.”

“I’ll remember that next time.”

His hand was warm through my shirt. His breathing had gone oddly careful.

I could have asked him to put me down.

Instead, I leaned closer.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

“Then why is your face red?”

The red spread to his ears.

“It’s warm in here.”

The window was cracked open. October air drifted across my bare feet.

“Is it?”

He lowered me to the floor with such exaggerated care that I briefly considered developing a permanent ankle injury.

“I should go,” he said.

“Of course. You have all those weights waiting.”

He grabbed his bag, forgot his water bottle, came back for it, and left again.

I stood in the middle of our bedroom, smiling.

He was getting worse.

After my afternoon seminar, I took the long way home past the outdoor basketball courts. This required walking in the wrong direction for eleven minutes.

I was prepared to make sacrifices.

Owen was playing with three teammates and a couple of other students. Sweat darkened the front of his gray shirt. He caught a pass, turned, and put the ball through the hoop with an ease that made everyone else look unnecessarily busy.

Two girls beside the fence were discussing him.

“That’s Carter. He’s on the team.”

“I know who he is.”

“He never comes out with anybody. Apparently he’s always working.”

“I can live with that.”

One of them laughed. The other kept watching.

Owen lifted his shirt to wipe his forehead.

The conversation stopped.

I understood. I was also having a moment of silent appreciation.

Then he noticed me.

His hands stopped halfway down. A teammate stole the ball from him.

“Carter,” the teammate shouted. “You planning to join us?”

I lifted one thumb and mouthed, Nice shot.

Owen dropped his shirt.

For the next ten minutes, he played as though someone had offered him a full tuition refund for winning.

I settled beneath a tree and watched.

When the game ended, his teammates crowded around him, laughing and slapping his shoulders. He answered them, but his eyes kept returning to the shade beneath my tree.

I stayed exactly where I was.

Eventually he escaped and came over, still catching his breath. He stopped a little farther away than necessary.

“Julian. What are you doing here?”

“I happened to walk past.”

He glanced toward the academic buildings, which were on the other side of campus.

I held out a packet of tissues before he could develop geographical concerns.

“You were good.”

“Thanks.” He took one tissue. “You don’t have to stand here. It’s getting cold.”

“You’re the one sweating.”

“I know.” He looked down at his shirt. “Sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing? I’m enjoying myself.”

That produced a pause worth the entire eleven-minute detour.

“Would you teach me sometime?” I asked.

“Basketball?”

“Unless you have another talent you want to demonstrate.”

He pressed the tissue to his forehead.

“I can teach you basketball.”

“Then I’ll buy you dinner as payment.”

“You don’t have to pay me.”

“Owen, I’m trying to invite you to dinner.”

He looked at me.

I let the silence do a little work.

“Okay,” he said at last. “But I can buy it.”

“We’ll argue about that on the way.”

I turned toward the dining hall. He fell into step beside me, close enough that our hands nearly touched.

“Owen?”

The girl from the fence hurried toward us. Pretty, dark-haired, carrying a canvas tote with the campus activities logo.

He stopped.

“Chloe. Hey.”

She looked briefly at me, then smiled up at him.

“Could I talk to you for a minute? There’s something I wanted to ask you.”

Her cheeks were pink. Her fingers tightened around the tote strap.

I knew that expression.

Owen apparently didn’t. He was about to say yes.

I had been patient for weeks.

I saw no reason to start being generous now.