And They Were Roommates(33)

“Oh, is this some secret roommate code I’ve been missing out on? How fun.”

“What?”

“I have it—let’s knock based on how many syllables are in our last names. I’ll do four knocks for von Hevringprinz.” Jasper punches his hand with his other four times. “Now you’ll do my last name.”

I punch my hand once.

“Fantastic!” Jasper pulls me into a side hug, squishing our shoulders together. “I can feel our teamwork blossoming even more.”

My heart rate spikes to the stratosphere. Because I can too. Even though I shouldn’t.

I can’t.

Jasper lets go of me. He walks to his bed, tosses himself onto the eleven pillows, and picks up P.M.’s book. “How’s your homework coming? It’s due tomorrow.”

As if I could forget. “Fine,” I lie, my pulse still thrumming in my wrist. Whether that’s due to his touch or his growing familiarity, I’m not sure.

“Is that so?”

I eye the book in Jasper’s grasp. He’s tasked with writing letters for the whole student body year-round yet has time to leisure read. Or P.M. is worth shoving aside his schedule for.

This is my last chance to figure out what writing pleases Jasper by tomorrow, but I need to be careful with my questions. I’d rather read P.M.’s words for the rest of my life than for Jasper to find out I’m struggling. “Why are you obsessed with that guy’s writing?”

His face slackens. “You know Pierre-Marie Laframboise’s work?”

“No, but Xavier told me he was our year’s Excellence Scholar before me, and I’ve noticed you constantly reading—”

“Of course you know P.M.’s work!” He flings the book across his quilt, and the pages crumple when they hit the bedpost. He falls back and stares at his poster on the ceiling. “Who doesn’t know him? That repulsive strawberry shortcake. Oh, Jasper, even your student adores your rival.”

Rival. Even though Xavier barely shared what Jasper and P.M.’s dynamic was when they attended Valentine and wrote for STRIP together, I would have never guessed it’d be this. “Is he a better poet than you?”

“Worse. He gets more modeling gigs than me.”

“That’s it?”

Jasper scoffs so aggressively that spittle flies from his mouth. “He’s known as the Prince of Passion in the poetry scene. Him! How can that be when I’m lying here? And as of this month, that strawberry shortcake has sold twenty-seven thousand three hundred sixty-two more copies of his pompous poetry collection than I have. At least, according to reporting sources.”

“If you don’t like him, why are you reading his work?”

“Because I wish to understand why people like him more!”

I blink. “Did you admit to someone being better than you?”

“I—” Jasper’s lips purse, considering the question too. “No.”

“Weren’t you the one telling me there will always be someone better than you? Such is the circle of artiste life?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”

A laugh bubbles out of me.

Jasper sits up to get a better look at me, his wispy hair scattering across his constantly rosy cheeks—which apparently flash redder when he’s worked up like this. “You—” His gaze drifts to my lips. No, my laugh.

He can’t be. He didn’t.

My heart pounds through me. “What?”

“Your laugh is…” His surprise turns into a glare. “Wait, now—what’s funny about my suffering?”

He couldn’t have recognized me. That was in my head.

“Nothing,” I quickly say, shoving aside my nerves. Even Jasper Grimes, Rank One and famous social media poet, has someone he can’t beat. I still have no hints about what writing he prefers, but this discovery was worth it. “I just never expected you to be so fussy about this.”

“I’m not fussy.”

“You are.”

“I’m reading.” Snatching another book on his bedside table—Sense and Sensibility—Jasper burrows into his blankets. He flicks on his reading lamp, filling the room with its buzzing, and rolls to face the wall.

I look toward my desk, where my love letters wait for me to stay up all night and finish them. If not that, homework. Always. But my exhaustion weighs down my eyelids, and Jasper is quiet now. A rarity. Instead, I walk up to our bookcase, pick up Kafka on the Shore, and crawl into bed to do the same.

As the minutes tick by, a familiar calm settles over me. One I felt whenever I hid in the aisles of Mom’s Bibliobibuli Bookstore to read. I haven’t experienced it since coming to Valentine. It’s nice, sharing that communal silence with somebody else.

Well, almost silence.

“Can’t you turn that thing off?” I ask him, pointing at the lamp on his bedside table.

Jasper follows the direction with his eyes. “How else will I read? By candlelight? That could hurt my eyes.”

I don’t know what else I expected.

I sigh and go back to my book.

Jasper stays silent too. A little too silent. Like he still really is hurt.

“P.M. couldn’t handle Valentine like you can, right?” I say to him slowly. The reminder of someone so successful failing to achieve what I need to dampens my own mood, but I keep my voice level. “You’re always ranked top five. You both have strengths.”