Saturday arrived faster than Jason expected, the meeting with Sarah’s roommate looming now as an actual, immediate event instead of a vague plan sitting somewhere in the future. He spent the morning more anxious about it than he wanted to admit, running through small, unhelpful worries, what to wear, what to say, whether roommates were supposed to be impressed or just tolerant of a boyfriend showing up for the first time.
Sarah texted him just after noon.
Sarah: okay come by around 3. she’s actually excited, which is a good sign
Jason: should i bring anything
Sarah: just yourself. maybe don’t be weird
Jason: no promises
Sarah: great. very reassuring
He got ready slowly, more deliberate about it than the occasion probably required, and left his apartment a little before three, the walk to Sarah’s place familiar now after weeks of doing it in reverse, her walking to him more often than the other way around.
He climbed the stairs to her building, found her door, and knocked, the same low nervous energy sitting in his chest that he hadn’t quite managed to shake off all day.
Sarah opened the door, smiling, pulling him in for a quick kiss before stepping back to let him inside. "Hey. She’s just finishing up something in the kitchen, come on in."
"How nervous should I be."
"Not at all. She’s going to like you. Everyone likes you once they actually talk to you, you’re just bad at believing that about yourself." She tugged him further into the apartment, and Jason took in the space quickly, comfortable, lived-in, a mix of both their belongings scattered across the shared living room in a way that spoke to actual years of cohabitation rather than a temporary arrangement.
"Hey, she’s here," Sarah called toward the kitchen. "Come meet him."
There was a pause, the sound of something being set down, and then footsteps.
Jason turned toward the kitchen doorway, and every ounce of the nervous energy he’d been carrying all day evaporated at once, replaced by something colder and far more disorienting.
Vivian stood in the doorway, drying her hands on a dish towel, and the moment her eyes landed on him, her whole expression froze mid-motion, the easy, warm smile she’d clearly been about to offer collapsing into something closer to shock.
Neither of them said anything.
Sarah glanced between them, confused by the sudden silence. "Vivian, this is Jason. Jason, this is my roommate, Vivi—"
"We know each other," Vivian said, her voice coming out strange, careful, like she was testing whether the words would actually hold up once spoken out loud.
Sarah blinked. "Wait. What? You two know each other?"
"We’re in the same study group," Jason said, the words arriving on autopilot while the rest of his brain scrambled to catch up with the sudden, vertigo-inducing reality that Vivian, his classmate, his gym-corner friend, the girl who’d dragged him into a study group by his sleeve two weeks ago, had been Sarah’s roommate this entire time, sitting three feet away from every single moment he’d spent falling in love with her, unknown, unmentioned, hidden in plain sight.
"You’re in a study group together?" Sarah looked between them again, something shifting in her expression now, confusion giving way to a slower, more uncertain realization. "Since when? Vivian, you never mentioned that."
"I didn’t know he was your boyfriend," Vivian said quietly, still staring at Jason like she was trying to physically reconcile two separate people she’d never once imagined were the same person. "You never told me his name."
"I called him Jason."
"You called him ’my boyfriend’ or ’the guy from the party’ or literally anything except a name I would have recognized, until right now." Vivian’s voice had gone tight, the easy chaos of her usual energy nowhere in evidence, something more careful and unsettled sitting underneath it instead.
Jason stood frozen in the middle of the living room, the countdown flickering uselessly in the corner of his vision, utterly irrelevant next to the much larger, more immediate collapse currently happening in front of him.
She’s known Bree’s information about Sarah this whole time. She’s the one who mentioned the dishes in the sink. She lives here. She’s lived here the entire time I’ve been falling for both of them without either one of us knowing.
"Okay," Sarah said slowly, looking between the two of them again, some of her earlier warmth cooling into something more guarded. "Somebody explain what’s actually happening right now, because you’re both acting like you’ve seen a ghost."
Vivian set the dish towel down carefully on the counter, buying herself a second, and when she spoke again, her voice had steadied slightly, though the careful control underneath it was obvious to anyone paying attention. "Jason’s in my study group. Has been for a couple weeks now. I had no idea he was the guy you’ve been seeing. You’ve genuinely never said his name in front of me, not once, not that I can remember."
"I probably said it," Sarah said, though she sounded less certain now than she had a minute ago. "I definitely said it."
"You didn’t."
Jason found his voice finally, though it came out rougher than he intended. "I didn’t know either. Sarah’s never mentioned your name to me specifically, not that I put together with anyone I actually knew."
"This is insane," Sarah said, sitting down slowly on the arm of the couch, processing. "You two have been in the same room for weeks and neither of you realized."
"I guess not," Vivian said, and her eyes flicked to Jason one more time, something complicated passing behind them, and Jason felt the full weight of every single conversation they’d ever had settle into a completely different shape in the space of about ten seconds. The teasing at the gym. The dragging him into the study group. The flustered blush he’d caused more than once without ever fully understanding why it landed as hard as it did.
She’s been living with Sarah this entire time. Hearing about our relationship secondhand, probably. Talking about me without knowing it was me.
The room sat in an uncomfortable, unresolved silence for a moment, all three of them processing the same collision from three different angles, and Jason realized, with a slow, sinking certainty, that whatever this afternoon had been supposed to be, a simple, low-stakes introduction, a nice normal Saturday, it had just become something considerably more complicated instead, the kind of complication that didn’t come with a clean, obvious next step.
Six days left on the clock, he thought distantly, the number barely registering against everything else currently happening, and somehow the system just handed me the single most complicated version of this exact problem, all on its own, without me lifting a finger.
Sarah looked between them one more time, something unreadable settling into her expression now, quieter than her earlier confusion, more careful.
"Okay," she said finally. "I think we all need to sit down and actually talk about this properly."
Jason sat on the couch opposite Vivian, suddenly very aware of how little distance there actually was between them. Sarah took the middle cushion, as though physically placing herself between the two of them might somehow make the situation easier to understand.
It didn’t.
"So," Sarah said, folding her arms. "How well do you two actually know each other?"
"Not that well," Jason answered immediately.
"Pretty well," Vivian said at the exact same time.
Jason slowly turned toward her.
Vivian’s expression tightened. "I mean, we’re friends."
"Friends?" Sarah repeated.
"Study-group friends," Vivian corrected quickly.
Jason almost sighed.
That’s not going to help.
Sarah’s eyes narrowed slightly. "What does ’friends’ mean?"
Vivian hesitated. "We’ve talked. We study together. We’ve gone to the gym at the same time. He’s helped me with some stuff."
Sarah looked at Jason.
"Is that accurate?"
"Technically."
"Technically?"
"I didn’t know she was your roommate."
"I understand that part," Sarah said. "I’m asking how close you two are."
Jason opened his mouth, then stopped.
That was the problem.
He could answer honestly, but honesty suddenly had too many consequences attached to it.
Vivian seemed to realize the same thing. Her gaze dropped briefly before returning to Sarah.
"We’re not dating," she said.
Sarah’s eyebrows lifted.
"I didn’t ask that."
"I know."
Another silence.
Jason rubbed the back of his neck.
This was supposed to be the easy part.
Then Sarah’s expression changed.
Not anger.
Not jealousy.
Something much more dangerous.
Suspicion.
"Wait," she said slowly. "Did either of you ever talk about me?"
Jason’s stomach dropped.
Vivian went completely still.
And that was enough of an answer.
Sarah’s eyes moved from Vivian to Jason, her suspicion sharpening. "You did."
"Not exactly," Jason said.
"That’s not a no."
Vivian exhaled quietly. "We talked about people in our lives. I just didn’t know you were talking about him."
Jason felt his headache arriving early.
Sarah leaned forward. "What exactly did you talk about?"
Jason glanced at Vivian.
She glanced back.
Neither spoke.
For the first time since entering the apartment, Jason wished he’d listened to Sarah and simply stayed home.
Six days.
That was all he had.
And somehow, in less than ten minutes, Saturday had gone from meeting his girlfriend’s roommate to standing in the middle of a situation that could blow up everything.
Sarah’s gaze hardened.
"Someone better start explaining."
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