Under One Roof

Chapter 5: Under One Roof

Asher

Elias had a system for the bathroom. Towel on the left hook, toothbrush at a precise forty-five-degree angle in the cup, shower first, always exactly six minutes, like he was still racing a clock even when nobody was timing him.

I learned all of this in four days of sharing a wall, and I found every part of it stupidly entertaining.

“You’re doing it again,” he said Tuesday morning, catching me leaning in his doorway watching him knot his tie.

“Doing what.”

“Staring.”

“Studying my competition. New house rules.” I pushed off the doorframe, unbothered, and reached past him for the towel he’d just hung with military precision. He caught my wrist before I could mess with it.

“Don’t.”

“Relax, Kann.” Down the hall, I heard Diane’s voice, something about breakfast, close enough that Elias’s whole posture shifted in half a second, cold and careful, the version of himself he kept ready for parents. I matched it without missing a beat, dropped the towel, stepped back like we’d just been passing in a hallway instead of standing close enough to argue about hand towels.

“Morning,” I said, louder, for the benefit of whoever might hear.

“Morning,” he said back, flat, and disappeared into his room.

I watched the door close and thought, not for the first time this week, that living with Elias Kann was going to be either the best decision of my semester or the worst one, and I genuinely couldn’t tell which yet.

---

Practice gave me new material every single day. Today it was a pull set, easy pace, nothing that should have required this much focus from either of us, except Elias was swimming like the water had personally wronged him, and I knew exactly why.

“Tight shoulders today,” I said at the wall, casual, just for him. “Something on your mind, partner?”

“Swim your own lane.”

“We’re in the same lane. New rules, remember.” I let that sit a beat, watched something flicker behind his eyes before he shut it down. Reyes blew the whistle for the next interval and Elias pushed off like he was trying to outrun the conversation entirely, which only made me grin.

By the end of the set we were both wrecked in the specific way that had nothing to do with the yardage. He toweled off without looking at me, jaw tight, and I leaned in just enough to murmur, “See you at home,” low enough that only he caught it, watching the muscle in his jaw jump before he walked off toward the locker room.

The house emptied out that evening — Marcus and Diane at some dinner thing, gone until late — and I found Elias in his room with the door half open, still keyed up from practice in a way six hours hadn’t fixed.

“You’re still wound tight,” I said, pushing the door the rest of the way open.

“I’m fine.”

“Didn’t say you weren’t.” I crossed the room anyway, and he didn’t tell me to leave, which was its own kind of answer.

This one was slower than the kitchen, slower than the locker room, both of us with actual time for once instead of racing a clock or a set of parents down the hall. I kissed him first, hard, and he kissed back harder, all teeth and frustration. His hands shoved under my shirt. I got his off completely and pushed him toward the bed, but he flipped us halfway there, landing on top, mouth already at my throat.

I let him have the moment, then rolled us again so I was the one looking down. He glared up at me like the position itself was an insult. I kissed him once more, then dropped lower, dragged my mouth across his chest, and took one nipple between my teeth.

He sucked in a sharp breath and tried to push me off. I held him there, tongue working the sensitive peak until his hips jerked up against mine. His cock was already hard, thick and pressing against my stomach through the fabric. I reached down, shoved both our shorts low enough, and lined us up so the heads of our cocks dragged against each other — hot, slick, no barrier left.

“They all think you’re locked in,” I said against his chest, voice low, “untouchable. Nothing gets to him on deck.” I rolled my hips, grinding our dicks together with deliberate pressure. “Wonder what the team would say if they saw you like this.”

“Shut up.”

He fought for it anyway — flipped our positions twice, got a hand around both of us and stroked hard enough that I lost my rhythm for a second. For a moment it was even, both of us thrusting into the tight space of his fist, cocks sliding together, wet and frantic. Then I pinned his wrist, took the grind back, and used the angle that always undid him.

“Keep playing the perfect rival for them.” I sucked his other nipple into my mouth, hard enough to make him arch. “I’ll keep this version. Just for me.”

He tried one more time near the end, hips snapping up, trying to force me to finish first. I matched him stroke for stroke until the friction tipped, and he came first with his face pressed into my shoulder to muffle the sound, spilling hot between us. I followed close behind, quieter than I meant to be, something about the empty house and the actual time we’d had making it feel different from the rushed, stolen versions before it.

Neither of us moved right away.

That was new. Usually one of us was already reaching for clothes by now, already rebuilding the distance. Instead I stayed where I was, propped on one arm, watching him catch his breath with his eyes closed, come cooling on both our stomachs, and I let myself watch a beat longer than the rule technically allowed.

“You’re staring again,” he said, without opening his eyes.

“Studying.”

“Studying what.”

I didn’t have an answer that didn’t sound stupid out loud, so I didn’t give one. He opened his eyes eventually, found me still watching him, and something passed between us that wasn’t dominance and wasn’t a fight for control, just a second too long, a second neither of us named.

He sat up first, put distance back where it belonged. “You should go back to your room.”

“Yeah.” I didn’t move as fast as I should have.

Later, in my own room with the door shut, I lay there longer than I wanted to admit, running the evening back in a way I didn’t usually bother doing. Two months of this and I’d never once stayed to watch him breathe.

The bet crossed my mind, uninvited. Get in his head. Crack the composure before Nationals, for Noah’s entertainment and my own bragging rights. It had sounded easy a week ago, sitting in an empty hallway with nothing on the line but pride.

It didn’t sound easy anymore. It sat wrong somewhere behind my ribs, close to wherever the urge to watch him a beat too long had come from, and I didn’t like that the two things were suddenly living in the same place.

I told myself it didn’t mean anything. Same arrangement, same rules, just a bigger house making it easier to slip into. I almost believed it.

Down the hall, I heard his door click shut for the night, and I lay there a long time after, listening to a house that was supposed to make all of this simpler, and feeling, for the first time, like it had done the opposite.