Roommates With Benefits [BL]

I had hardly taken three steps into the bedroom when it hit me: I had no clue what I was doing.

There I stood in the center of the room, staring at our luggage as if it had personally offended me.

Our clothes were strewn about from the week we’d spent on the island, most still neatly folded because, apparently, Damien had this superhuman ability to unpack without creating the chaos that I usually considered organization.

My suitcase lay open next to the wardrobe, half-filled with clothes I had hastily thrown in at the trip’s start, convinced that packing for a private island was just like packing for a weekend at your average family home.

Turns out, I was dead wrong...very wrong.

I grabbed the first shirt I could find, a soft cotton number still carrying a hint of sunscreen and saltwater, a reminder of a different kind of evening that was now just a memory.

Then I froze.

Why was I even standing there, thinking about shirts?

My dad was in the hospital.

My dad needed surgery.

My dad could—

No.

I took a deep breath and pushed the thought away before it could fully form, like slamming a door on something I wasn’t ready to face.

”Oliver.” Damien’s voice came from behind me.

I turned around.

He was near the doorway, taking off his expensive watch with the same calm precision he applied to everything else, his expression unruffled in that unsettling way of his. There was no sign of panic, no frantic gestures, no visible fear.

But after knowing him for a while, I could pick up on the tiny signs that others might miss.

His jaw was tight.

His shoulders were tense.

And his eyes held that focused look they got when something was seriously wrong...the same look he’d had the night he came back from his family’s estate with a bruise on his jaw and a story he was unwilling to share.

He crossed the room toward me. ”I’ve handled the flight.”

I nodded quickly. ”Okay.”

”I’ve already asked Harris to have the plane ready.”

”Okay.”

”We’ll leave as soon as we can.”

”Okay.”

I hated how useless that word sounded coming from my lips.

Okay.

As if any of this was okay.

As if my whole world hadn’t just been turned upside down by a fifteen-minute phone call that had somehow erased an entire week of ocean views and lazy mornings with a single ringtone.

I turned back to the suitcase and started tossing clothes inside.

Shirt, pants, underwear.

Another shirt.

”Do you need anything else?” Damien asked, already moving toward the bedside table with the calm efficiency of someone who handled family emergencies like grocery lists.

”My phone charger.”

”I’ll get it.”

”No, I can—”

”Oliver.”

I looked at him.

His voice wasn’t harsh, but there was a firmness in it that made me stop arguing, the kind of tone that made it clear this was one battle I wasn’t going to win. ”I’ll get it.”

I nodded.

He turned to the bedside table while I kept packing, though I wasn’t really sure what I was stuffing into the suitcase anymore.

My hands moved on autopilot, folding and cramming in clothes as some vague imitation of packing, but my mind was still trapped back on the terrace, still replaying that voice on the phone.

Your father’s condition has become critical.

He needs a liver transplant.

As soon as possible.

Life-threatening.

Those words rolled around in my head, repeating like a song I couldn’t turn off.

I shoved another shirt into the suitcase harder than necessary, as if physical force could somehow relieve some of the pressure in my chest.

”I should have been there.”

Damien stopped.

He didn’t turn around right away; his hand was still resting on the charger cable he’d been coiling.

I stared down at the clothes in front of me.

”I should have been there,” I said again, quieter this time. ”He was getting worse, and I was here just living the life.”

”You didn’t know.”

”I should have known.”

”How?”

”I...I don’t know.”

My voice cracked a little, and I hated that, it betrayed the thin thread I was hanging on to.

”I should have noticed something. He sounded fine when I talked to him. He said he was resting. I should have known he was lying.”

”Your father deliberately hid it from you.”

”Because he didn’t want me to worry.”

”Yes.”

”Which means he knew I would have worried.” I let out a bitter laugh that wasn’t humorous at all. ”Fantastic. Father of the year award for him.”

Damien stepped closer, placing the charger on top of my suitcase without saying a word.

That was exactly the kind of thing my father would do. He’d spent most of his life trying to ensure I had what I needed, even when he didn’t have enough for himself.

He’d hidden his pain behind bad jokes, concealed bills behind forced smiles, and now it seemed he’d opted to wait until I had finished my exams to inform me that he was nearly dying, neatly filed under ”things Oliver shouldn’t worry about”....right alongside every other sacrifice he’d made without telling me.

It was so typical of him that I wanted to scream.

Instead, I raked my hands through my hair, gripping it like that might somehow keep my thoughts from swirling away completely. ”God, I hate this shit.”

Damien’s expression softened.

”I know.”

I glanced at him.

There was something in the way he said it that tightened my chest, a quiet certainty that didn’t try to gloss over what was happening or make it smaller than it was.

He didn’t tell me not to worry.

He didn’t promise everything would be alright.

He didn’t give me one of those empty reassurances people offer when they’re uncomfortable with someone else’s suffering.

He simply stood there, allowing the weight of it to exist between us without attempting to diminish it.

That somehow made it better.

I looked away before I could feel the sting in my eyes again.

”Can you pack the rest?”

”Sure.”

I zipped up my suitcase, the sound feeling oddly final in the stillness of the room.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

Outside, the ocean continued its relentless crash against the shore, indifferent as ever. The same ocean I’d spent the last week admiring, the same warm breeze wafting through the open doors, bringing with it the faint scent of salt and the distant rustle of palm leaves. The candles from dinner were probably still flickering away on the terrace over a meal we would never finish.

Somewhere out there was the table where I’d been getting ready to tell Damien that I loved him.

I had spent the week imagining that moment: his reaction, how ridiculous I would sound, his teasing afterward, kissing him beneath the stars with the ocean stretching out behind us as the perfect backdrop.

But instead, I stood beside a suitcase, wondering if my father would still be alive by the time we got home.

Life had an awful sense of timing.

I picked up my phone.

There were already several messages from the hospital.

I didn’t open them.

I couldn’t.

”Damien?”

He looked over at me, pausing whatever he was doing with his own bag.

”Yeah?”

”What if we’re too late?”

The shift in his face was subtle.

But I caught it, that flicker of something deeper he usually kept hidden behind all that composure.

He came closer and took my hand, his fingers wrapping around mine with a quiet assurance.

”We won’t waste time.”

That wasn’t really an answer, but it was enough to make me nod.

---

The journey back to the airstrip was a blur.

I barely remembered leaving the villa. I hardly recalled saying goodbye to the staff who treated me like royalty here, their faces arranged in that practiced sympathy people always wear around bad news that isn’t theirs.

I could hardly remember boarding the plane.

Everything felt strangely distant, like I was observing myself from somewhere outside my body, cataloging events without really feeling them.

One moment I was beside Damien on the island, and the next, I was sitting in the private jet with my forehead pressed against the window, watching darkness swallow the last remnants of land below us.

The ocean vanished first, then the island’s lights.

Then there was just black sky, an endless void that mirrored a hollowness settling in my chest.

I stared into it.

My reflection stared back.

I looked terrible. My eyes were red, my hair a mess, and I was still in the clothes I’d chosen for dinner, as if the universe thought it was funny for me to look presentable while falling apart, some cruel joke at my expense.

Damien sat next to me.

He hadn’t said much since we boarded, he didn’t need to.

His hand rested over mine on the armrest, his thumb moving gently across my knuckles in slow, absent strokes...a small, steady source of comfort in a night that felt like it was unraveling.

I hadn’t realized how tightly I was holding his hand until my fingers started to ache.

I relaxed my grip and I tried to shut my eyes.

It didn’t work.

Whenever I closed them, I pictured my father lying in a hospital bed. I saw the doctors surrounding him. I kept hearing the word critical replaying in my mind again and again until it lost its meaning and morphed into a threat.

I opened my eyes as Damien looked over at me. ”You should try to rest.”

”I can’t.”

”You need to.”

”I know.” I turned back to the window, focusing on my tired reflection instead of the darkness outside. ”I just can’t.”

He was quiet for a moment before he shifted closer, the leather seat creaking beneath him.

Without thinking, I leaned against him, resting my head on his shoulder.

His arm came around me right away, pulling me in with an ease that suggested he had been waiting for me to do just that.

For several minutes, we sat in silence.

I listened to his heartbeat.

It was steady.

Mine, on the other hand, was not. ”I don’t...I don’t want him to die.”