My Online Boyfriend Lives In The Next Room Chapter 03

My Online Boyfriend Lives In The Next Room Chapter 03

I stared at my phone. His name lit up the screen. Calling again.

I hesitated. Then picked up.

His breath came through first, uneven, a little ragged. “Baby… did you hang up by accident?”

My ears burned. I always hid under the covers for these calls.

I also pitched my voice up: breathy, flirty, nothing like how I actually sounded. The complete opposite of the real me.

A good girl pretending she wasn’t one.

I shook it off, crawled back under the covers, and slipped back into character. “Yeah, I hit the wrong button. My bad.”

“Baby, you kept me up so long I’m half-delirious. Think I’m gonna pass out…”

The comments flooded in. [LMAO she really knows how to torture a man.]

[The ML is down SO bad right now.]

[You can’t just stop in the middle?]

Alistair’s tone shifted—careful, almost bargaining. “Baby, give me twenty more minutes. Then it’s a full hour.”

“Mm,” I murmured.

…

Exactly twenty minutes later, I ended the call.

A tight knot formed in my chest.

The plan was simple. Tomorrow at work, I’d hand the account back to Sloane. She’d take over—meet him in person, become the real girlfriend.

I’d collect the rest of my money, and none of this would ever leave my mouth.

I used to think my online boyfriend was just that: online. Someone who existed in a completely separate world from mine.

But now I knew he was Alistair.

And that changed everything.

A year ago, my apartment lease was up. I wanted to live closer to work, so I started looking for a roommate in one of the nicer buildings near the bank.

I showed up with the printed listing in hand. A woman working in a nearby office tower had posted it.

But I got off on the wrong floor and rang the wrong doorbell.

Alistair opened the door in a bathrobe, still damp from the shower, and looked at me like I was completely lost. “Can I help you?”

He was six-foot-three, built like he’d just stepped off a runway. Drops of water still traced lazy lines down his chest.

I had never in my life been that close to a man who looked like that.

My face instantly burned. “I… I’m here about the room. I think I ‘m on the wrong floor.”

He said nothing. Just closed the door.

The actual room was already taken. I spent the next few days scouring the building for other rentals, but came up empty. I couldn’t afford a solo place, and my old landlord had given me three days to pack up.

That afternoon, I sat on a bench outside the building, trying not to think about how screwed I was.

When would I actually have somewhere that was mine? Somewhere no one could kick me out of?

Alistair walked out of the building’s lobby. He stopped when he saw me. “Still looking?”

“No. My landlord wants me out by tomorrow.” I forced a smile. “I’ll figure something out.”

I stood up, squared my shoulders, and started to walk away.

Alistair stopped me. “I’ve got a spare room. Rent’s cheap if you want it.”

That was how I ended up living with Alistair.

His place was a three-bedroom condo, all clean lines and expensive minimalism. The kind of apartment that looked like it belonged in a magazine.

He kept the primary bedroom and the study. The third bedroom came with its own terrace.

I loved it.

But the real selling point was the rent. Two thousand dollars a month.

In this part of Larkhaven, that was unheard of. The same layout in this building went for ten thousand a month. A fair split would’ve been four or five thousand.

Two thousand was practically charity.

My guess was that Alistair came from old money—the quiet, untouchable kind. This place was probably just one of many he owned.

His clothes were all niche designer labels, the kind that ran into the five figures.

Even a random bottle of body wash in his bathroom ran over two hundred dollars. Mine cost maybe ten.

One time, I caved and used his. Just a tiny squeeze, barely enough to smell.

That night, the scent followed me into my sleep: something light and warm and impossible to name.

Like Alistair was holding me…

If I stayed here, the truth about what I’d been doing would come out eventually.

I needed to find a new place. Soon.

I couldn’t stay.