The Roommate Equation
I never had a problem with my body. I love the extra weight, and the big boobs Dylan’s eyes rake over every time we’re together. But in this city, it doesn’t matter if I love myself and my body. Because the people who matter, the people who can make or break a career, want skinny girls.
They want someone who looks the part.
Dylan clenches his jaw, staring at me for a long hard minute before the muscles in his face relax. “Ash, you’re beautiful. And if you want people to see you differently, then you have to stop talking about yourself like you have some disability. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“I was stating a fact. Guys like Nico Chase would never go for a girl like me. He might fuck me, but that’s about the extent of it.”
“Why do you care if that asshole wants you, anyway?”
“You didn’t want me,” I say without thinking and immediately regret it.
“That’s not true.” He turns his head away from me as he runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “I don’t know why you would ever think that.”
“You made it clear five years ago that Date Crashers and your friendship with my brother was more important than me.”
“I fucked up,” he shoots back with venom in his tone. “Like you’ve never done or said something you wish you could take back? I didn’t realize you were so fucking perfect all the time. Give me a break already.”
“Is that why you’re driving me around town to run bullshit errands?”
Dylan presses his lips together, staring out the windshield at Nico’s mansion. “I like spending time with you.”
“If you could go back to that night at MIT, would you do anything differently? And not because you know the result.”
“Yes,” he says after a long pause. “I would do a lot of things over if I could. And I would have been there for you if you…”
He can’t finish his thought aloud, and thinking about how much pain I went through because of him, makes me want to rip all of the bad memories from my brain, so I never have to relive them again.
“You were never going to tell my brother about us.”
“I was,” Dylan says in a hushed tone, leaning his head back against the leather headrest. “I wanted to wait until after we got funded before I started a fight with Sloan.”
“We were together for almost two years, Dylan. You could have told my brother long before you coded the app. Every day, you had the opportunity to tell him the truth.”
“I was a pussy,” he admits. “Is that what you want to hear?” He lifts an eyebrow. “Huh? Is it?” I’m frozen, unable to respond, and he continues, “I was afraid of losing you and Sloan at the same time. I didn’t know how to keep both of you without fucking everything up.”
I never pushed Dylan to tell Sloan about us because of how my brother had overreacted in the past. We both knew what we were doing, sneaking behind Sloan’s back. I liked that we had our own thing that no one knew about. When we were together, Dylan was all mine.
“Will you ever forgive me?”
His eyes plead for me to say yes.
The answer is simple.
I nod. “I did a long time ago.”
“Then, why do you keep holding the past against me? Why does it have to be like this between us?”
“You coming in or what?” Nico’s deep voice cracks thought the awkward tension in the car.
“We’re talking about this later,” Dylan spits back.
“Do I have to come with you guys to a club tonight?”
“This meeting is important.”
“Then, why aren’t you meeting somewhere for dinner instead? Or in your office?”
“Because that’s not how these guys do things. Consider yourself lucky we’re not going to a strip club.”
I shake with laughter. “Sloan would never let me go to a strip club with him. And not like I’d want to go, anyway.”
“I’d love to see that,” Dylan counters with a sly smile. “But, hey, you never know with these guys.”
“And the guy’s wife has to come along too? I don’t see why.”
“She’s very hands-on. He won’t make a move without her. We need you. Having a woman on our side puts us on an even playing field.”
He needs me.
“Yo!” Nico waves his hand above his head, a snifter of amber liquid in the other. “Get your asses in here or take a hike. I got shit to do.”
I roll my eyes. “Such a charmer.”
By the looks of Nico’s messy dark hair, black bathrobe, sallow skin, and tired eyes, I would say he has nothing to do today unless you count drinking himself into a stupor.
Ever since Nico started binge drinking and getting himself in trouble with the press, Vinnie has struggled to get a studio to talk to him about Nico. No one is interested in a has-been star who can’t get his act together. I would kill to be in his position, and here Nico is wasting his golden opportunity on getting drunk and commiserating over who knows what in his Beverly Hills mansion.