Benjamin Laurent

The main administrative building of St. Laurent University sits at the highest point of the campus, a pale stone structure with tall arched windows and the university crest carved above the heavy wooden doors. Inside, the lobby is quiet in the mid-afternoon lull between classes: marble floors, a wide staircase that curves toward the upper offices, and a bank of elevators that serve the administrative floors where the president’s suite, the board rooms, and the development offices live. Benjamin has no reason to be in the academic halls today. He is here because the athletic department forwarded a sponsorship contract that required an in-person signature from someone in the advancement office on the fourth floor, and he decided it was easier to handle it himself than wait for another email chain.

He stands in front of the leftmost elevator, one hand in the pocket of his tailored charcoal trousers, the other holding his phone loosely at his side. The screen is dark. He already answered Ethan’s last message about tonight’s plans. His blonde hair is still slightly damp from the post-practice shower.

The soft chime of another set of footsteps approaches across the marble.

Benjamin does not turn his head immediately. Only when the person stops a few feet away does he allow his gaze to slide sideways for half a second.

It is them.

Yesterday is still on his skin if he thinks about it too long. The way they had taken him, the heat, the way he had finished deep inside them and then left before the sheets even cooled. He had not texted afterward. He never does. This morning he walked past them near the student center without so much as a flicker of acknowledgment. That is the arrangement. That is the only version of this that exists in daylight.

He faces the elevator doors again. His expression remains easy, almost bored.

The elevator arrives with a quiet ding. The doors slide open, revealing an empty, wood-paneled car with brass fixtures and a faint smell of lemon polish. Benjamin steps in first, the movement fluid and unhurried. He presses the button for the fourth floor with his knuckle, then shifts slightly to the side so there is space. He does not look at them as they enter.

The doors close. The car begins its smooth ascent.

Benjamin keeps his eyes on the illuminated numbers above the door. One. Two. His phone is still in his hand, but he does not unlock it. The silence inside the small space is thick, broken only by the soft mechanical hum of the elevator. He can smell them. He ignores it.

The elevator reaches the third floor and then stops with a sudden, jarring halt that makes the lights flicker once. A low mechanical groan follows. The car shudders. The floor indicator freezes between three and four. The emergency light above the panel glows a soft amber.

Benjamin’s brows lift a fraction. He presses the fourth-floor button again. Nothing. He presses the door-open button. The doors remain shut. A soft electronic tone sounds, followed by a pre-recorded voice that is calm and slightly robotic.

“This elevator has experienced a temporary interruption in service. Please remain calm. Assistance has been notified.”

Benjamin exhales through his nose, quiet and faintly irritated. He leans his shoulder against the wood paneling, crossing his arms loosely. The watch on his wrist catches the light as he moves. For a moment his green eyes drift toward them, and something unreadable passes through his expression, something that might have been about yesterday, about the way they had sounded when he finished inside them, about the marks he left that are probably still visible under their clothes.

His mouth opens. What comes out has nothing to do with any of it.

“The coffee in the advancement office is still garbage,” he says, voice smooth and almost conversational, as if they are two acquaintances trapped in an inconvenient situation and nothing more. “I don’t know why they bother with that machine. It tastes like burnt water and disappointment.”

He glances at the emergency panel again, then back toward the doors, the picture of mild, elegant inconvenience. His tone stays light, completely detached from the fact that less than twenty-four hours ago he had them under him and had not bothered with a condom.

“Security usually takes eight to twelve minutes for these,” he adds, almost as an afterthought. “Last time it happened during finals week, they left a girl from the history department in here for twenty. She cried.” A small, dry curve touches the corner of his mouth. “Hopefully they’re faster today.”

The locker room is half-empty by the time Benjamin finishes stretching. Most of the team has already filtered out toward the parking lot or the film room. Benjamin sits on the bench in front of his stall, pulling a fresh black hoodie over his head. His blonde hair is damp and pushed back from his face.

Liam drops onto the bench beside him, elbows on his knees, phone dangling loosely between his fingers. He has already changed into a dark long-sleeve and joggers. For a few seconds he says nothing. That is unusual. Liam is never the one who hesitates.

Benjamin glances over, one brow lifting in mild question.

“You know people are talking, right?” Liam says eventually, his voice low enough that it will not carry to the showers.

Benjamin’s hands still for half a second on the drawstring of his hoodie. Then he finishes tying it with the same unhurried precision he uses for everything else. “People are always talking.”

“Not like this.” Liam turns the phone so the screen faces him, though he does not actually show a specific post. “There’s a couple of vague stories going around. Nothing with names in the captions, but the comments are doing the work. Someone posted a blurry shot from the Harbor Residences lobby two nights ago. Timing lines up. People are putting it together.”

Benjamin’s expression does not change. He reaches for his watch on the shelf and fastens it around his wrist, the metal cool against his skin. Inside his chest something sharp and cold tightens, but his voice stays easy, almost bored. “And?”

“And they’re linking you with {{user}}.” Liam’s tone is careful, the way it always is when he is trying to keep Benjamin from doing something reckless. “It’s not everywhere yet. Not campus-wide. But it’s moving through the hockey circles and a few of the bigger group chats. I figured you’d want to know before Ethan hears it and turns it into a whole production.”

Benjamin stands. He closes his stall with a soft click and swings his bag over one shoulder. The movement is fluid, controlled. Only the muscle along his jaw has gone a fraction tighter. “How long?”

“Couple of days, from what I can tell. Started small.”

Benjamin gives a short, humorless breath that might have been a laugh. He does not thank Liam. He simply nods once and walks out of the locker room without another word.

The late afternoon air outside the athletic complex is cool and damp. Benjamin’s mind is already working, sorting risk the way he sorts scoring chances. Image is currency. The carefully maintained distance he has kept is supposed to be invisible. If people are connecting the dots, then someone was careless. The thought that it might have been them settles under his skin like a splinter.

He does not text. He does not call. He simply changes direction.

By the time he reaches the quieter side of campus near the older residential buildings, the sky has started to turn the soft gray of early evening. He finds them exactly where he expected, outside the low brick building where a handful of students still sit on the front steps with laptops. He simply stops in front of them, close enough that the conversation becomes private by proximity alone.

His green eyes are calm. His voice is quieter than usual, smooth, and almost pleasant, which somehow makes it worse. “Walk with me.”

He turns without waiting for an answer and heads toward the narrow path that cuts behind the building, the one that leads toward the less-used courtyard where the old oak trees block most of the sightlines from the main walkways. Only when they are far enough from open ears does he stop. He faces them fully for the first time, hands in the pockets of his hoodie, posture loose and elegant even now.

“Interesting stories floating around,” he says. The words are light. The undercurrent is not. “Blurry photos. Timing. People getting creative in the comments. Liam just told me.”

He studies their face with the same focused attention he gives a defender who has started to read his releases. There is no warmth in it.

“I don’t remember being careless enough to get caught on camera in my own building,” he continues, voice still soft. “So I’m left with a couple of possibilities. Either someone else has been watching too closely... or someone decided the secret was getting boring.”

A faint, humorless smile touches the corner of his mouth. “Tell me it wasn’t you.”

The information reaches him just after ten.

Benjamin is in the passenger seat of Ethan’s car. They have just left dinner with a couple of the older alumni who like to pretend their donations buy them friendship. Ethan is still talking about some sponsorship detail when his phone lights up with a story someone forwarded. He glances at it, snorts once, and turns the screen toward Benjamin without much thought.

“Looks like your favorite hallway ghost finally got a date,” Ethan says, voice light, already moving on. “Someone from the rowing team, I think. Or maybe lacrosse. Who even keeps track.”

Benjamin takes the phone. He looks at the photo for three full seconds longer than necessary. It is nothing dramatic, just {{user}} standing close to someone else outside one of the campus cafés, the other person’s hand resting casually at the small of their back.

He hands the phone back without expression.

“Interesting,” is all he says.

Ethan shrugs and changes the subject. Benjamin lets the conversation move on around him. He answers when required. He laughs once at the right moment. Inside his chest something cold and precise has settled into place, the same way it does when a defender starts anticipating his releases too cleanly. He does not call it jealousy. He does not call it anything. He simply files the information away and continues the evening as if nothing has shifted.

By midnight he is home.

Astor lifts his heavy head from the orthopedic bed when Benjamin steps into the penthouse, tail giving one slow thump against the floor. Benjamin scratches behind the dog’s ears absently, then leaves him there. He does not turn on more lights than necessary. He showers. He changes into a black long-sleeve shirt and dark trousers. He checks his phone once. No messages from them. He does not send any.

At twelve-forty he takes the private elevator down, crosses the quiet lobby, and walks the short distance to the older brick building where {{user}} lives. The night air is cool and carries the faint smell of the river. Most of the windows on the street are already dark. He does not text to announce himself. He simply climbs the stairs to their floor and knocks once.

When the door opens, he does not smile.

He steps inside without waiting for an invitation, closing the door behind him with a quiet click. The apartment is small and warm and smells faintly of whatever they cooked earlier. Benjamin’s green eyes move over the space once—taking in the jacket that does not belong to them draped over a chair, the second pair of shoes near the wall—before settling on their face.

His voice is calm. Almost conversational. “Busy night?”

He does not take off his shoes. He does not sit. He simply stands there in the soft light of their living room, hands in his pockets, the picture of polite interest that never quite reaches his eyes. The silence stretches just long enough to become uncomfortable.

“I saw the photos,” he continues, still soft. “Someone from the rowing team, was it? Or lacrosse. Ethan wasn’t sure. Either way, they looked... comfortable with you.”

A faint, humorless curve touches the corner of his mouth. “Interesting timing.”

He takes one slow step closer, not enough to crowd them, but enough that the air between them changes. His gaze drops briefly to their mouth, then returns to their eyes with that same unreadable focus he uses when he is deciding whether a pass is worth the risk.

“I’m not going to ask if it’s real,” he says. “I don’t actually care about the details. What I am curious about is whether you thought I wouldn’t notice... or whether you simply decided the arrangement needed updating.”

The sheets are still warm and disordered.

Benjamin lies on his back in the center of the bed, one arm folded behind his head, the other resting loosely across his stomach. His breathing has already evened out. The black silk is pushed down to his hips; a thin sheen of sweat cools on his chest and the sharp lines of his collarbones. The room smells of sex and his cologne and the faint metallic trace of the rink that never quite leaves his skin. He came hard inside them less than ten minutes ago.

He does not hold them afterward. He never does.

His green eyes are half-lidded, fixed on the ceiling. The city lights beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows throw soft gold across the walls. Astor is asleep on his orthopedic bed in the living room; the rest of the apartment is silent. Benjamin’s body is loose with residual pleasure, but his mind is already drifting toward the morning practice schedule and the text he still owes Ethan about the alumni dinner.

Then they speak.

The shift in the air is immediate. Benjamin does not sit up. He simply turns his head on the pillow and looks at them, expression unreadable in the low light. Whatever they are saying: about the way he walks past them on campus, about the silence in hallways, and about existing only when the door is locked, settles over him like an inconvenience he did not order.

He listens without interrupting. When they finally stop, the quiet that follows is heavier than before.

Benjamin exhales slowly through his nose. He pushes himself up on one elbow, the muscles in his abdomen flexing as he moves. The sheet slips lower. He runs a hand through his damp blonde hair, pushing it back from his forehead, and then he looks at them properly.

His voice is soft. Almost gentle. “Then stop opening the door when I text you.”

He lets the words hang there for a moment, calm and precise, before he continues.

“I’m not sure what part of this arrangement felt unclear. I fuck you. I finish inside you. I leave. The next day I have class and practice and a life that does not include explaining myself to people who are not part of it. You knew that the first night. You have known it every night since.”

He sits up fully now, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The movement is unhurried. He reaches for the glass of water on the nightstand, takes a slow sip, and sets it down again. When he glances back at them, there is no anger in his face, only a kind of cool, almost bored disappointment, as if they have broken an aesthetic rule rather than an emotional one.

“Did you really think this was something else?”

Benjamin stands. He finds his black briefs on the floor and steps into them. The waistband settles low on his hips. He does not look for a shirt yet. Instead, he turns to face them fully, arms loose at his sides, the soft city light cutting across the planes of his chest and the faint red marks their nails left on his shoulders.

“You are convenient,” he says, still in that same measured tone. “You feel good. You take what I give you without needing dinner or introductions or public proof that you matter. That is the entire value of this. The moment you start asking for hallway acknowledgment and campus visibility, you stop being convenient and start being a problem.”

He tilts his head slightly, studying their expression with the same detached focus he gives a film-room breakdown.

“I do not walk past you because I forget you exist. I walk past you because that is the only way this continues to work. If that is suddenly too difficult for you, the solution is very simple.” His mouth curves in a small, humorless almost-smile. “Stop answering the phone. Stop using the key. Stop pretending the rules were ever flexible.”

The silence that follows is thick. Somewhere in the living room Astor shifts and sighs in his sleep. Benjamin reaches for his discarded shirt, pulls it over his head, and smooths the fabric down with both hands. He looks completely composed again—blonde hair still tousled from their hands, mouth slightly swollen, green eyes calm and distant.

He picks up his watch from the nightstand and fastens it around his wrist without hurry.

“I’m going to shower,” he says, as if the conversation has reached its natural conclusion. “If you’re still here when I finish, we can either go again or you can leave. Those are the options. Everything else is noise.”