I blink again, slowly adjusting to the light. “Why do you sound like a sexy audiobook narrator?”
Jay purrs a laugh that ripples slowly over my skin. “I see last night hasn’t deterred you at all from flirting with me.”
Flopping an arm over my face to cover my impending shame, I ask, “Tell me I didn’t embarrass myself last night?” A pause. Too long. Dangerously long. I lift my arm, peering at him. “Jay.”
He’s perched on the coffee table, mug in hand, clearly enjoying this. “You don’t remember?”
Dread hits me before the memory does. Then—oh god. A flash. His face. My voice. Thatword. It all comes back to me in a wash of horror and kaleidoscope of cringe.
“Wait… noooooooo—”
“Ohhhhh yes.”
I groan, sinking back into the covers. “Please say it was ironic. Please say I said it ironically.”
“My favorite part was when you were moaning, ‘yes, Daddy,’” he muses, sipping his coffee far too smugly.
“Stop,” I whimper, clutching a pillow to my face, hoping I’ll disappear into the fluffiness. “I’m going to beg campus housing to let me have that apartment early.”
Jay laughs, it’s more air than sound but still devastating to my insides because that’s the first laugh I think I’ve earned from him, and it justhadto be over this, didn’t it. “Relax. No one’s judging. You were drunk. Very drunk. Possibly poisoned.”
“Honestly, I’d prefer poisoning. Less mortifying.” God, I’m every cliché he probably thinks I am.
When I pluck up the courage to peek out from behind the pillow, the grin on his face is so wide, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him smile so big… at my expense, though. I throw said pillow at him. He catches it with one hand, effortlessly. “Stop enjoying this.”
“I’m not. I swear.” He lifts the mug in a toast. “I’m just flattered. It’s not every day a woman screams ‘Daddy’ at me and wants me to be their fake husband all within a month. I’m so lucky you’re my roommate,” he sighs, but it’s laced with amusement.
“I hate you.”
“I know.” He sets the pillow back at my feet, passing me a bottle of water. “Hydrate for me, though, before you kill me.”
I reach for it with the dramatic flourish of someone whose soul has left their body. “If you tell Daphne, I will smother you in your sleep.”
Jay’s silence is deafening. “That might be difficult.”
I freeze. “You didn’t.”
“She was on speaker this morning.”
“Jay.”
He shrugs like it’s out of his hands now. “She was howling. Hudson had to mute the call.”
I let my head fall back against the armrest with a thud, not caring about a concussion. Jesus just take me now. I’d rather camp outside the pearly gates than endure my own secondhand embarrassment.
He takes a slow sip of his coffee again, eyes still gleaming. “I was going to make you eggs, but maybe I should just let you wallow.”
“You’re enjoying this way too much.”
“I’m enjoying you squirming.”
I look at him, groggy and mildly dying, but I can’t help the smile tugging at the edge of my mouth. “I can’t handle this.”
He sets his mug down on the table and leans in just slightly, voice smug. “Rest up, Olivia. Daddy’s gonna make you some eggs.”
I throw the second pillow, and he’s still laughing when it hits him square in the chest.
“Kill me, just kill me.”
