The Playboy Hid His Roommate, So the Whole Quad Watched Him Beg novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Pot

Dash cuts him dead at breakfast while Tripp announces a $9,000 pot on taming him; that night he sets the rules, Wilder sets his own, and pulls the blanket over them both.

In the morning Dash walked past him in the dining hall as though they had never met.

Wilder stood in the tray line with a plate of eggs and his hair hiding his ears.

His eyes were on the cook's mouth while she asked what he wanted.

He had paint on his sleeve from the night before.

Dash had been awake since five, and he had spent three of those hours not looking at the other bed.

"Who's that?" Rory asked, setting down a tray with enough food on it for four people.

Rory Kemp was six foot five, kind as a dog, and the only person at Hartwell who had never once been afraid of Dash.

"Housing mistake," Dash said.

"He looks like a mistake I'd like to make."

"He's eighteen and he paints on his clothes."

"So that's a yes on the paint," Rory said, and bit a bagel in half.

Dash sat with his back to the tray line, which was a decision.

It did not help.

He could feel exactly where Wilder was in the room, the way he always felt where the stern of a boat was in the dark.

"Gentlemen." Tripp Oakes dropped into the chair across from them, sandy and smiling, a house-colored quarter-zip stretched across his shoulders.

Tripp was a senior and the stroke of the second boat.

He was also the son of the chair of the Board of Trustees.

It was the first thing he told people and the last thing he let them forget.

"Haverford. I have news."

"You're graduating."

"Better." Tripp slid a folded paper across the table. "The Tame List is live."

Rory choked on his bagel.

"The what?" Dash said.

"Ten bucks a head, anyone on campus. Whoever gets Dashiell Haverford seen with the same person three weekends in a row takes the pot."

Tripp tapped the paper.

"Seen means hand-holding, a kiss in public, a breakfast date. Not a hookup. Everyone knows you don't stay for breakfast."

"Is this a joke?" Dash said.

"It's at nine thousand dollars as of this morning."

Dash looked at the paper.

It was a printed list of names, some he knew and some he did not.

Each had a dollar amount beside it, a bookmaker's sheet of everyone who thought they could land him.

His name was at the top in bold.

"You're going to get yourself expelled," Dash said.

"For what? Nobody's forced to play."

Tripp spread his hands.

"Nine hundred people have already put in, Dash. You're the most wanted man on the Green. I'm giving the people what they want."

Dash laughed, short and cold, and pushed the paper back.

"Three weekends in a row with one person," he said. "It's cute. You'll be dead by graduation."

"Then you've got nothing to worry about."

Tripp stood, clapped Rory on the shoulder, and then did something that made Dash's stomach go tight.

He looked past the table, to the tray line, to the white-blond boy with the eggs.

"Who's the new kid?" Tripp asked.

"No one," Dash said.

"He's cute."

"He's a freshman," Dash said. "He's nobody. Leave it."

Tripp smiled slowly and walked off toward the coffee.

Rory watched him go.

"That's a lot of heat for a housing mistake," he said.

"Eat your bagel."

Dash stayed away from Haverford House until midnight.

When he got back, Wilder was in bed with the lamp on, sketching in a book propped on his knees.

He did not look up.

Dash shut the door, locked it, and stood with his back against the wood.

"We need rules," he said.

Wilder turned a page. "Okay."

"Look at me when I'm talking to you."

"That's my rule."

Dash stopped.

Wilder put the pencil down and sat up, and for the first time since breakfast he looked straight at him.

"If you're going to talk to me, face me," he said. "Or touch my arm first, so I know you're talking. Those are the terms."

"That's a power play," Dash said.

"It's a rule about not shouting at a wall."

"It's a strange rule."

"It's my rule," Wilder said. "Do you want to hear the rest of them, or are you going to keep yours?"

Dash crossed his arms. "Mine are simple. Nobody finds out. In the day, you're my roommate and nothing else. Out there I don't know you."

"And in here?"

"In here, the door is locked."

"Nobody finds out," Wilder repeated. "Why?"

Because there was a printed list with a dollar amount on it.

And a man had looked at Wilder across the dining hall as if he were a prize.

Dash could not say that.

He would rather have been drowned.

"Because I said so," he said.

Wilder's mouth twitched.

"You're tired of people finding out you're human."

"I'm tired of people."

"Fine." Wilder stretched out his legs. "Then I get one more. In the dark, you say my name."

"Why?"

"Because I like how you say it."

Dash felt the back of his neck go hot again.

He turned off the lamp.

He crossed the room in the dark and found the edge of the bed without being invited.

A hand closed around his wrist and pulled him down.

Wilder's breath was against his mouth.

"Nothing counts in the daytime," Dash said, his voice rough. "Not a word of it."

"Fine."

"You're not my boyfriend."

"I'm not anything," Wilder said.

Dash kissed him, and Wilder kissed him back with an eagerness that had nothing shy in it.

Hands pushed under the hem of his shirt and slid up his ribs.

Dash had known a lot of people and a lot of beds.

He had never once wanted to take his time.

He wanted to now.

He wanted to learn this one thing before anyone else got there.

A rush of cold air told him the blanket had been dragged up over both their heads.

Wilder's laugh was warm and breathless in the little tent of it.

"Fine," he whispered. "Your dirty little secret."

"Don't call it that."

"Then keep it locked, Haverford. Nobody gets in."

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