Roommates with Benefits [18+ only]

58. What else do you need?

LUKAS

I thought I'd use Tara's room since Sean was in mine, but the idea of being in her bed without her felt wrong. Not that I slept much anyway. I spent the whole night thinking, which in itself was proof that I wasn't really drunk to begin with. Raking a hand over my face, I sat up on the sofa. The living room was still a mess, but I had no will of cleaning up yet.

The first thing I did was unlock my phone, hoping there would be a message ... but nothing. I knew I should give her space, but I felt way too anxious to wait. Since it was late to go jogging, I decided I'd do a quick workout routine at home. All I had to do was get changed into some sweatpants – the jeans and dress-shirt I'd worn last night for what I thought was going to be a date obviously weren't made for workout.

I tried to be as quick and silent as possible when I went into my room to grab the stuff I needed, but Sean didn't seem to wake up even for a second. I put on some sweatpants, grabbed my workout mat, and went into the living room, where my phone and my Bluetooth earphones were.

As pathetic as that may sound, more than listen to the music as I did my workout, I thought about Tara. Normally, I would need to focus because I use study material instead of music, to kill two birds with one stone, but it was just a 30 minutes workout routine to burn the calories due to the alcohol from last night and to make up for the fact that I didn't go jogging. In short, that means I could do my workout and at the same time daydream about the love of my life.

I was completely distracted, so much so that I didn't hear anything and didn't notice Sean standing in the living room until I was halfway through with my fourth and last series of push-ups. I only had one more exercise left, so I simply went on, not paying any attention to him. I saw his lips moving while I was still doing push-ups, but I didn't hear a thing, so I took off one of the earbuds. "What?" I asked gruffly, still continuing with my workout.

"Nothing," he stared at me, seemingly marveled, "just ... I didn't think this was a thing."

I gave him a quick onceover, then feigned a smirk. "Clearly."

"Hey, I work out ... sometimes." He defended.

"It's really none of my business."

"Aren't you a ray of sunshine in the morning?" Sean scoffed.

"Tell you what, Martin," I mused without stopping, because there's only one person I'd stop my workout for, and that certainly wasn't her friend. "I'm gonna guess what you exactly think of me. Just say yes or no."

"You really wanna hurt your feelings like that, big boy?"

"You see me tall, muscular, hell, I'm even blonde – dirty-blonde, but still blonde. I'm probably the exact copy of your high school bully." I stated, getting in position for planks, since I was done with push-ups. "Someone that looks like me probably made you feel insignificant, so that was already a bad start. Now, with your hipster attitude and the nerdy references you think you're smarter than me, hell, you probably think I'm some dumb gym freak Tara's going to forget soon enough once past the hyper sex drive of our relationship." I paused, mostly because I was done with my planks, so I stood up, unable to hide my smirk as I grabbed a towel and placed it around my neck. "You don't know me, but you don't want to know me. I'm your nemesis by definition."

"Like a super villain?" He scoffed.

I went into the kitchen, and he followed. "My point is, I've got nothing to prove to you." I took a sip of the water I'd left on the island. "But there's one thing you need to get used to," I stated, putting the bottle down, "I'm not going anywhere." I stated. "If you intend to be Tara's friend, you better lump that primeval hate before it gets too far," I took a step closer to him, "because let's be honest here, we both know that, between the two of us, she'll always choose me."