Room Mated: Standalone Reverse Harem Romance

Jude started the tour right where we stood. “This was set up as a second bedroom yesterday.” He stepped to the wall and grabbed the handle of a folded up accordion partition. He pulled it out a couple of feet. “It can either be closed off as a separate room or left open to make one big room.”

“We moved the beds and the dressers into the other bedroom,” Mason added.

“Why?”

“More space.” He pointed toward a huge box leaning up against a closet door behind the sofa I’d been sitting on. It was a 72-inch flatscreen TV. “We’re going to mount that on the wall tomorrow, so we can watch games in here.”

“But won’t you all be crowded in one bedroom?”

Mason shrugged. “It’s not like we’ll be spending a lot of time in there.”

“Besides, the three of us shared a bedroom last year in another building,” Jude said. “So we’re used to it.”

Ah, that answered that question. I glanced over at Parker, who was as quiet as ever. Evidently he had been their roommate last year. Jude followed my gaze and raised an eyebrow as if he knew what I’d been thinking. Then he gestured to me to follow and headed to the part of the suite that couldn’t be seen from the living room. We passed a bathroom with a shower as we went—that meant there were two full baths. Not too shabby.

But that was an understatement compared to what was around the corner. There was another seating area, but it obviously wouldn’t be used to watch TV. Instead, there was something better as the focal point. “A fireplace? Seriously?”

“One of the benefits of being the best suite in the building, baby,” Mason said. “Here’s another.” He opened a glass door next to the fireplace and revealed a balcony. I hadn’t noticed it before, but I leaned past him to peek out. The balcony was spacious and it looked like it wrapped around the other outer wall of the suite, too.

“Holy shit,” I said, awed by the suite. There were a smaller sofa and some chairs in front of the fireplace, and the little alcove looked as snug and cozy as the other room had been vast and spacious.

But the tour wasn’t over. Jude was now standing in the kitchenette in the corner. It wasn’t big. There was one counter against the wall, a half-sized refrigerator, a sink, a microwave, and some cabinets overhead, but still… a kitchenette in a dormitory that had a cafeteria? It was unheard of. I could see why Jude had said the competition to get this suite was fierce. And why Mason had been so proud of securing it.

I looked back and saw that Parker had drifted to a stop by the large table. I returned to him, running my hand over the smooth surface of the immense table. “It’s the perfect place to study,” Jude said.

Mason nodded. “It gives me enough space to spread out my blueprints.”

“He’s in engineering,” Jude clarified. “I’m music. How about you?”

“Business.”

“Parker is, too,” Jude said with a smile for his expressionless roommate. Except wait, Parker did have an expression. He looked sad. What the hell was wrong with this guy? Had he just read Old Yeller or something? I was really curious—but then I wasn’t, because something had caught my eye.

With an expression that was almost as dazed as Parker’s I moved toward the floor-to-ceiling windows on the far side of the table. The balcony was beyond them, but that wasn’t what I was looking at. I rested my hand on the bar-height counter that bisected the wall of windows.

“Yeah, that’s another place to study,” Jude said, placing his hand on the back of one of the barstools. “Or to have a cup of coffee in the morning. It’s a pretty view.”

A pretty view.

It was the biggest understatement in a century. Pretty. He was insane. It wasn’t a pretty view, it was an amazing view. An incredible view. A view I’d happily stare at for the rest of my life, if I had the chance.

I’d lived in Colorado my whole life, and in my little town, south of here and bordering Utah, there were canyons, buttes, and mesas. But these… these were the Rocky Mountains. As far as the eye could see were towering peaks with snow on top, even though it was only the end of July. They were the most incredible thing I’d ever seen. I imagined seeing that view every single day for the rest of the year.

Imagined studying in front of that view. Talk about inspirational. Mountains like that had always filled me with wonder. And to be able to gaze at them every single day? Incredible. Whatever Mason had done to get this suite had been well worth it, even if he’d taken out half of his classmates.