The Playboy Hid His Roommate, So the Whole Quad Watched Him Beg novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Tape

Daylight enemies fight over a tape line and a rowing machine; Dash scrubs paint off Wilder's wrist, calls to his back and gets nothing, and Tripp invites Wilder to dinner.

By Monday they were enemies again, and Dash had a line of blue tape across the floor to prove it.

It ran from the door to the window, right down the middle of room 3B.

On Dash's side stood a rowing machine, a desk with a laptop, and a framed photo of the Haverford Boatworks yard in Gloucester.

On Wilder's side stood an easel that had not been there on Sunday.

"You can't have an easel," Dash said.

"It's a drawing board with legs."

"It's wet."

"It's art." Wilder dabbed a brush into a pot the color of a bruise. "Don't touch it, and it won't touch you."

"It's on my tape."

"It's an inch over your tape."

"Which is an inch over your side," Dash said.

"Which is the compromise."

Dash dropped to the rowing machine, set the damper to ten, and pulled hard enough to make the rail shriek.

The noise was supposed to drive Wilder out.

Wilder only turned his easel so that he could watch Dash's arms.

On Tuesday there was a sticky note on Dash's laptop that said STOP BREATHING SO LOUD.

On Wednesday there was one on Wilder's easel that said YOUR PAINT SMELLS LIKE A GARAGE.

Under it, in Wilder's block capitals: GOOD.

By Thursday Dash had stopped trying to win and started trying to understand.

He got in from a seven o'clock practice with his hair still wet.

Wilder was bent over the desk with his back to the door, working at something small under a magnifying lamp.

"Frye."

Nothing.

"Frye," Dash said, louder. "You left the window open."

Nothing.

Wilder's shoulders did not so much as shift.

Dash dropped his bag, which made a thump big enough to rattle the pencils in the cup.

Still nothing.

He thought, rude.

He thought, on purpose.

It annoyed him so much that he crossed the tape, put two fingers on Wilder's left shoulder, and Wilder jumped and swung around.

"You're touching me from behind again."

"I said your name three times," Dash said.

"And I've said I don't like being grabbed."

Wilder pushed the lamp aside, and his eyes were wide.

"Come around, or say it where I can see you. I told you."

"You were ignoring me," Dash said.

"I was busy."

"You were ignoring me on purpose, so I'd come over."

"If I wanted you over here, Haverford," Wilder said, "I'd have asked."

Dash looked at the magnifier and the little jar of brushes and the tubes laid out in a perfect line.

He looked at Wilder's right hand, the knuckles smeared, and a long streak of dark green paint running from wrist to elbow.

"You're covered," he said.

"I'm a painter."

"You're covered in places paint should never be."

Dash pulled a rag from the pile on the desk and soaked it in the jar of turpentine.

"Give me your arm."

"I can do it myself," Wilder said.

"Give it."

Wilder hesitated, then held out his arm.

Dash took his wrist in one hand.

It was fine-boned, warm, with a pulse that hammered against his thumb.

He rubbed the rag along the green streak, slowly, from the wrist up toward the elbow.

He had not planned for it to take this long.

Paint came away in gray strands, and the skin under it was pale and soft.

Wilder watched his face the whole time.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked quietly.

"Because it's disgusting."

"That's not why," Wilder said.

"Hold still."

"I'm holding still."

He was.

He was holding so still that Dash could feel the breath go in and out of him.

Dash cleaned up to the inside of the elbow and stopped there, and neither of them moved.

"Your ear is red," Wilder said.

"It's hot in here."

"It's not your ear I'm worried about." Wilder lifted a hand toward Dash's cheek, and Dash caught his wrist before he could land. "No?"

"No," Dash said.

"Okay."

Dash let go and picked up the rag again.

On a whim, to cover how his hand felt, he reached up and brushed the hair back from Wilder's left ear.

Wilder flinched and shoved his hand away.

"Don't."

"It was one touch," Dash said.

"It's ticklish. My left side's always been ticklish."

Wilder smoothed his hair back down over his ear with a quick, practiced motion.

"Don't touch my ears."

"You have a lot of rules," Dash said.

"I have a lot of ears."

Dash laughed before he could stop it.

Wilder smiled, quick and bright, the first real one he had given him.

It hit Dash square in the chest.

"I have to go," he said, and picked up his bag and did not go anywhere.

A knock rattled the door.

It was six o'clock, still daylight, and no one should have been knocking on room 3B.

Dash opened it, and Tripp Oakes leaned on the frame with a bottle of something expensive in one hand and a grin on his face.

"Haverford. Heard you had a new roommate. Thought I'd say welcome." He looked over Dash's shoulder. "Hi, I'm Tripp."

"Wilder," Wilder said, coming to stand beside the bed.

"Great name. Friday, the Oakes house, seven o'clock. Dinner. Seniors cook for the freshmen, it's a tradition."

Tripp's smile never wavered.

"Bring a friend, if you've got one."

"He's busy Friday," Dash said.

"I'd love to," Wilder said.

Dash turned his head.

Wilder met his eye, calm and innocent, and wiggled his fingers at Tripp.

"I'd love to," he said again, and did not look away from Dash's mouth.

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