I Fell For My Roommate The Second I Saw Him Shirtless

The last box landed on the hardwood floor with a final, definitive thud. You straightened up, pressing the heels of your hands into the small of your back, every muscle screaming in protest. Dust motes danced in the late afternoon sun slanting through the large, bare windows of your new living room. It was done. After a week of packing, a six-hour drive, and three trips up a winding staircase, you were finally home. Or, at least, half-home.

The apartment was bigger than you’d expected, with high ceilings and a faint, pleasant scent of salt and old wood. It was an empty canvas, waiting for your life to fill it. All that was missing was the other half of the equation, the roommate you’d found through a series of emails and a single, blurry profile picture. Liam. His photo had been nondescript—a grainy shot of a man on a hiking trail, face obscured by shadow and a baseball cap. You’d chosen him based on his polite emails and a shared desperation for affordable rent near the coast.

You heard a key turn in the lock. The front door swung open, and he stepped inside, his arms full of a single paper grocery bag. He stopped short when he saw you standing amidst the cardboard towers.

“Oh, hey. You made it.”

The voice was low and smooth, and it did not match the blurry photo in your mind. Nothing about him did. The man in the doorway was tall, with broad shoulders that filled out his simple grey t-shirt. His dark hair was damp and slightly curled, as if from a recent run in the humid air, and his jeans were worn and faded. But it was his face that made the air leave your lungs in a silent rush.

He set the grocery bag on the kitchen counter and turned back to you, a slow, genuine smile spreading across his features. It wasn't a polite, practiced smile; it was warm, crinkling the corners of his eyes. And his eyes—they were the color of the ocean on a clear day, a startling, brilliant green that seemed to see right through the tired, sweaty mess you knew you were.

“I’m Liam,” he said, extending a hand. His grip was firm, his skin warm.

“I know,” you managed, your voice sounding ridiculously small. “I’m…”

“I know,” he finished for you, his smile widening just enough to show a hint of a dimple. He let go of your hand, though you could still feel the phantom pressure of his palm against yours. “You look exhausted. Can I get you a water? Or a beer? I think you’ve earned it.”

You stood there, your heart doing a strange, unfamiliar rhythm against your ribs, and realized the blurry photo hadn’t just been a bad picture. It had been a lie. A wonderful, terrible, breathtaking lie.

A few days passed in a blur of unpacking and organizing. You and Liam fell into a quiet, polite orbit, careful not to bump into the invisible boundaries of your new shared space. The initial shock of his appearance had settled into a low-grade, constant awareness. You learned the sound of his soft footfalls in the morning, the low strum of his guitar from behind his closed door in the evening. You were acutely aware of him in a way that felt both dangerous and inevitable.

The afternoon was heavy and overcast, the sky threatening a storm that never quite broke. You’d spent hours arranging your books, the familiar spines a comfort in the newness of it all. Deciding you needed to wash the dust and sweat from your skin, you grabbed a towel from your room and headed down the short hallway toward the bathroom.

His door was ajar. You didn’t mean to look, but your eyes were drawn to the sliver of movement within the room. He was standing with his back to you, a towel in his hands, vigorously drying his dark hair. He was shirtless. The air that drifted out into the hall was thick with the scent of damp earth from his run and the clean, sharp smell of his sweat.

You froze, your hand still on the strap of your towel. The muscles of his back were clearly defined, a series of sculpted lines and planes that shifted with the movement of his arms. A long, elegant spine disappeared into the low-slung waistband of his grey running shorts. Droplets of water clung to his skin, tracing paths over his shoulder blades. He was lean, but strong, every inch of him honed and purposeful. It was a private, unguarded moment, and you were an intruder.

He must have sensed you there, a shift in the air, a shadow in the doorway. He paused, his arms still raised, and started to turn his head.

Panic seized you. A hot flush crept up your neck and flooded your cheeks. “Sorry,” you breathed out, the word barely a whisper. “I—the door was open. Sorry.”

You didn’t wait for him to fully turn, didn’t wait to see the expression on his face. You spun around and fled back into your bedroom, shutting the door with a quiet click that sounded like a gunshot in the silent apartment. You leaned against the cool wood, your heart hammering against your ribs. You squeezed your eyes shut, but it did no good. The image was burned onto the back of your eyelids: the powerful curve of his shoulders, the damp sheen on his skin, the intimate, potent scent of him that seemed to cling to the air in your lungs. You had lived with men before, had seen them in various states of undress. But this was different. This felt like stumbling upon a secret you were never meant to know, a secret that had now irrevocably altered the landscape of your new home.

You waited in your room, listening to the sounds of the apartment. The silence stretched, thick with your embarrassment. Then, you heard the faint hiss of the shower starting, and a wave of relief washed over you. He was occupied. You could emerge from your self-imposed exile without having to face him immediately.

Taking a deep breath, you opened your door and slipped into the living room. The threatened storm had finally arrived, rain streaking down the large windows and casting the room in a soft, grey light. It was cozy, muffling the sounds of the world outside. You curled up on the end of the sofa, pulling your knees to your chest and opening the book you’d left on the cushion. It was a collection of poetry, a familiar comfort you’d read a dozen times. You tried to lose yourself in the verses, but your mind kept replaying the image of his back, the scent of rain and sweat.

You didn’t hear him come back into the room until his voice, low and close, startled you.

“I’m making tea. Would you like a cup?”

You jumped, your head snapping up. He was standing a few feet away, dressed now in a soft, dark sweater and jeans, his hair still damp from the shower. He wasn't looking at you with amusement or annoyance. His expression was placid, his sea-green eyes holding a quiet kindness that somehow made your mortification worse. You could only manage a nod.

He disappeared into the kitchen, and you heard the soft clink of ceramic mugs, the rush of water filling the kettle. You tried to force your attention back to the page, your heart still beating a frantic rhythm against your ribs. He returned a few minutes later, holding two steaming mugs. He set one down on the end table beside you, his fingers brushing against the wood. The scent of chamomile and mint filled the air.

He didn't move away immediately. His gaze fell to the book open in your lap. He tilted his head, a flicker of recognition in his eyes.

“Mary Oliver,” he said, his voice softer than before. “She has a way of writing about the world as if she’s the first person to have ever really seen it.”

The words struck you with the force of a physical blow. It was such a simple observation, yet it captured the exact reason you loved the poet so fiercely, a feeling you’d never been able to articulate so perfectly yourself. It felt less like a comment on the book and more like a comment on you. You slowly lifted your eyes from the page to meet his. He was watching you, his expression unreadable but intense.

“Yes,” you breathed, the word feeling inadequate. “That’s… exactly it.”

A small, knowing smile touched his lips. “It takes a certain kind of stillness to appreciate that,” he said. “A willingness to just… look.”

He held your gaze for a moment longer, the space between you humming with a sudden, sharp tension. It was a fragile, intimate connection forged over a book of poetry, and it felt more revealing than if he had seen you naked. He finally broke the contact, giving a slight nod before moving to the armchair across the room with his own mug. You were left with the sound of the rain, the warmth of the tea seeping into your hands, and the deeply unsettling feeling of being truly seen.