The knock came at 2:47 PM—three sharp raps that made Adrian's stomach drop like an elevator with cut cables.
Adrian straightened from his perfectly organized desk, shoulders squared, jaw set. War position. The door swung open before Adrian could reach the handle.
Dante Alaric stepped into Room 447B carrying two boxes stacked so high they obscured Dante's face. Taller—that registered first. The boxes lowered, revealing features Adrian knew better than his own reflection, yet somehow didn't know at all.
Broader. Dante's shoulders filled the doorframe, stretched the fabric of a faded basketball tournament shirt. Months of training had carved definition into arms that used to be merely athletic. Dante's hair fell past his ears now, dark waves replacing the military buzz cut from championship night.
"Hey." Dante's voice came out quieter than Adrian remembered. Almost careful.
"Hey." Adrian mirrored the tone without meaning to, wrong-footed already.
Dante moved past Adrian—close enough that Adrian caught clean laundry smell and something else, something unfamiliar—and set the boxes on the empty bed. No eye contact. Dante's gaze tracked the floor, the window, the ceiling tiles. Everywhere except Adrian's face.
Wrong. Everything about this was wrong.
Adrian had scripted this moment during the six-hour drive to Greystone. Dante would swagger in, flash that cocky grin, make some comment about "guess you couldn't escape me" or "ready to lose at college too?" Adrian had prepared seventeen different cutting responses. Spent two hours in the car perfecting the exact tone of amused disdain.
But Dante just unpacked. Efficiently. Quietly. Folding clothes into drawers with the precision of someone who'd done military time. No commentary. No competitive banter. No acknowledgment of their entire shared history.
Adrian perched on his own bed, watching. Dante pulled out textbooks—physics, calculus, some dense biology tome—and arranged them on the shelf. No particular order. Just functional stacking.
"You changed your major?" Adrian asked. Dante had always talked about business school. Following in his father's footsteps. Corporate law.
"Thinking about it." Dante's shoulders tensed. "Maybe biomedical engineering."
"That's—" Adrian stopped. Different. That was different. "—ambitious."
"Yeah." Dante opened another box. Clothes, more clothes. A laptop. No trophies.
Adrian stared at the empty shelf space where awards should go. Where they'd always gone. Middle school had been bad enough—Dante lining up medals and ribbons like a general reviewing troops. High school got worse. The science fair trophy. Three basketball championships. Academic excellence plaques. Each one positioned for maximum visibility, each one a tiny knife reminding Adrian of his permanent second-place status.
Now: nothing.
"You're not—" Adrian gestured at the bare shelves. "—unpacking the trophy collection?"
Dante's hands stilled on a stack of t-shirts. Knuckles white against fabric. "No."
Just that. No explanation, no elaboration. The single syllable dropped between them like a wall.
Adrian counted seventeen seconds of silence. Dante resumed unpacking. Adrian's skin prickled with that watched feeling, the sensation of eyes tracking movement. But when Adrian glanced up, Dante was studying his own belongings with laser focus.
The desk—that came next. Dante positioned the cheap particle board surface perpendicular to the window. Facing Adrian's side of the room. Facing Adrian's bed, Adrian's desk, Adrian's carefully curated space.
"You sure you want it there?" Adrian asked. "Light's better by the window."
"I'm sure." Dante tested the desk's stability, adjusting the legs. Still not looking at Adrian. But positioned to look at Adrian's space for hours every day. "This works."
Adrian's jaw clenched. Strategy. This had to be strategy. Some new psychological warfare technique Dante had developed over the summer. Ignore the opponent until they crack from the silence.
Fine. Two could play that game.
Adrian pulled out his phone, scrolling through orientation photos. Found the one from the pre-med mixer. Isabella Chen, laughing at something someone off-camera had said. Dark hair cascading over one shoulder, smile bright enough to photograph. Pre-med, president of three clubs already, looked like she'd walked out of a magazine spread.
"So I'm thinking about asking out Isabella Chen." Adrian kept his voice casual. Conversational. "You know her? Saw her at orientation. Pre-med."
Dante went statue-still. Every muscle locked. The box Dante held—full of what looked like photos and personal items—crumpled slightly under the pressure of Dante's grip. Knuckles drained white, tendons standing out like cables under skin.
"Isabella Chen?" Dante's voice came out flat. Too controlled.
"Yeah. Why?" Adrian leaned back, performance casual. "You interested too?"
The silence stretched. Adrian counted the seconds. One, two, three, four—
"No." Dante set the box down with exaggerated care. "I just—"
The words cut off. Dante's jaw worked like Dante was chewing through something bitter. Finally: "Good luck with that."
The tone said the opposite. The tone said anything but good luck. The tone said back away, said danger, said mine.
Adrian's stomach did something complicated. Competitive instinct surged—if Dante wanted Isabella, then Adrian definitely needed to pursue her. But underneath that, something else. Something that noticed how Dante's hands shook slightly before Dante shoved them in his pockets.
Marcus Reid arrived at 4:15, all swagger and easy grins. Basketball teammate, based on the matching warm-up jacket. Six-two, built like someone who enjoyed the gym, moved with the loose-limbed confidence of the congenitally charming.
"Dante, my man!" Marcus grabbed Dante in a one-armed hug that Dante returned with visible effort. "This the famous roommate?"
Adrian froze. Famous?
"Adrian Hayes." Adrian stood, offered a hand. Marcus shook it, grip firm but not aggressive.
"Finally meeting the famous Adrian." Marcus grinned at Dante. "This guy talks about you constantly. 'Adrian did this,' 'Adrian said that,' 'remember when Adrian—'"
"Marcus." Dante's voice cracked like a whip. "The boxes."
"Right, right. Boxes. Important box-moving activities." Marcus winked at Adrian. "You coming to the athletics mixer Friday? I promise we're not all as intense as this one."
"Maybe," Adrian said. Couldn't process Marcus's words. Famous. Talks about you constantly. What did that mean?
Marcus hauled boxes and chattered about basketball prospects, campus hot spots, which dining halls to avoid. Normal college conversation. But Adrian kept glancing at Dante, finding Dante already staring. Then Dante would look away, focus returning to whatever task occupied Dante's hands.
When Marcus left—after trying to give Adrian his number "in case you need a real tour guide"—the room fell into tense silence again.
"Why Greystone?" Dante asked suddenly. Still unpacking. Still not looking at Adrian.
"What?"
"Why this school? You got into Berkeley. Full ride." Dante folded a sweater with meticulous precision. "Why here?"
Adrian blinked. "How do you know I got into Berkeley?"
"I—" Dante's shoulders hunched. "My mom mentioned it. She talks to your mom sometimes."
Their mothers had book club together. Right. That explained nothing about why Dante cared.
"Greystone has a better physics program," Adrian said. True, but not the whole truth. The whole truth involved needing distance from California, from expectations, from being Ethan Hayes's disappointing little brother. "What do you actually want to study? Last I heard, you were locked into business."
"Things change." Dante closed an empty box, flattening it with more force than necessary. "What do you want from this year?"
The question landed wrong. Too personal. Too direct. The kind of thing you asked someone you knew, someone you cared about knowing.
"To win something," Adrian said. Honest without meaning to be. "To finish first. Once. That's it."
Dante's head snapped up. Eye contact, finally. Dante's eyes—brown, almost black in the afternoon light—fixed on Adrian with an intensity that made Adrian's breath catch. Searching for something. Reading something Adrian hadn't meant to reveal.
"That's it?" Dante asked softly.
"That's it."
Dante looked away first. "Okay."
The closet incident happened at 6:30. Shared space, narrow dimensions, both of them trying to hang jackets in the same section. Adrian reached for a hanger just as Dante did. Their fingers brushed—barely contact, just skin on skin for a fraction of a second.
Dante jerked back like the touch burned. Stumbled into the desk, breathing harsh and sudden.
"Sorry," Dante gasped. "Sorry, I just—"
But Dante didn't finish. Just grabbed the hanger with shaking hands and backed away, putting three feet of space between them.
Adrian stared. That reaction—disproportionate didn't cover it. That was fear. Or something close to fear.
"You okay?"
"Fine. I'm fine." Dante hung the jacket with excessive focus. "Just tired."
Tired people didn't react to casual touch like it was electric shock. Didn't look at their roommate with expressions that twisted between longing and panic.
What the hell was happening?
Adrian woke at 2:17 AM needing to piss. Stumbled to the bathroom in the dark, brain foggy with interrupted sleep. When Adrian returned, moonlight through the window illuminated the room enough to see clearly.
Dante's bed: empty. Sheets disturbed, pillow still holding the depression of Dante's head. But no Dante.
Adrian moved to the window. Took thirty seconds to spot the figure on the fire escape—black clothes against black iron, nearly invisible. But there. Dante sat on the metal grating three floors up, back against brick, face tilted toward the sky.
Alone. Completely alone. And something about the curve of Dante's spine, the way Dante's shoulders folded inward, looked wrong. Looked lost. Looked like someone had taken the trophy-collecting, always-winning, basketball-championship-stealing Dante Alaric and replaced him with someone Adrian didn't recognize.
Someone lonely.
The thought arrived uninvited. Unwelcome. Adrian didn't want to see Dante as lonely. Didn't want to feel this twist in his chest, this recognition of isolation in someone who was supposed to be the enemy.
Adrian stood at the window for three minutes. Watching. Unable to look away from the image of Dante silhouetted against stars, looking smaller somehow than Dante had ever looked before.
Finally, Adrian turned back to bed. Pulled the covers up. Stared at the ceiling.
Sleep didn't come.