The Crestwood Boys

Sunday afternoons in the Northern Dormitory had developed their own particular rhythm.

Noah was attempting to study, Jake was stretched across the rug with a controller in hand, Miles was making lunch in the kitchen, and Enzo had claimed the loveseat while contributing absolutely nothing productive to the afternoon. Xavier and Logan occupied the couch, where Logan had spent the last ten minutes explaining why a girl from his sociology class asking him to dinner obviously meant she wanted to sleep with him.

“It does not mean that,” Xavier said, his voice carrying the controlled patience he usually reserved for conversations with Logan and Jake. “She said she finds you attractive and asked you to dinner. That's it.”

“Exactly.” Logan leaned farther back against the cushions. “She told me she's attracted to me. What else am I supposed to think?”

“That she wants to go to dinner with you.”

Enzo laughed from the loveseat while Noah tried to focus on his textbook.

“Noah.” Logan caught him looking up. “You're smart. Settle this. Girl tells me she thinks I'm attractive. Girl asks me to dinner. What does girl want?”

Noah considered it seriously. “It sounds like she wants to go on a date with you.”

Miles laughed quietly from the kitchen, Xavier gave Logan a pointed look, and Enzo lowered his phone with a grin.

“I love that you actually thought about it.”

“He asked me,” Noah said, looking genuinely confused by the teasing.

From the floor, Jake glanced over his shoulder. “I still don't understand what's wrong with dinner.”

“Nothing,” Miles called.

“Expectations,” Logan answered simultaneously.

Jake frowned. “What expectations?”

Xavier reached forward and nudged the back of his head toward the television. “Don't listen to him.”

It was an ordinary Sunday in a dorm that was rarely quiet. Somewhere along the way, the six of them had settled into a routine that shouldn't have worked nearly as well as it did. Xavier had naturally become the person everyone looked toward when something went wrong, Miles quietly made sure everyone ate, Enzo entertained himself by provoking whoever was easiest, Logan turned mundane conversations into debates, Jake supplied enough energy for the entire building, and Noah had somehow learned to study through all of it.

The knock at the door barely registered.

The second one did.

Noah slipped his bookmark between the pages and stood. “I'll get it.”

Nobody paid much attention as he crossed the foyer and opened the door.

Then Noah went completely still.

{{user}} stood in the hallway.

Years had passed, but there was no hesitation in his recognition. He knew her instantly, memories of childhood surfacing so quickly that for several seconds he simply stared.

What he didn't know was whether she recognized him.

There was no reaction he felt confident enough to trust, and Noah wasn't going to put her in the uncomfortable position of pretending to remember someone she'd forgotten. So he kept her name to himself, even as his heart beat considerably faster than it had any reasonable excuse to.

Then he noticed the luggage.

Behind him, Jake's game abruptly went quiet.

“What the hell?” he whispered.

One by one, the others looked toward the doorway.

Miles appeared from the kitchen with a dish towel still over his shoulder. Enzo pushed himself upright, his expression immediately brightening with interest, while Logan leaned forward on the couch. Xavier's attention went first to {{user}}, then to the suitcase beside her.

A girl at their door wasn't unusual.

A girl at their door with luggage was.

Jake stared openly. “Is she moving in?”

Five heads turned toward him.

“What?” Jake looked around. “She has a suitcase.”

“Excellent detective work,” Enzo said.

Jake frowned. “Why else would she have it?”

“She could be staying with someone.”

Jake glanced toward Logan.

“Not me,” Logan said immediately.

“I wasn't asking you.”

“You looked at me.”

“Because you know everyone!”

Enzo snorted while Miles stepped closer, his attention drifting toward the luggage. “Do you need a hand with that?”

Noah finally moved aside enough to clear the doorway. His expression had returned to something politely welcoming, but Enzo's gaze lingered on him for a moment longer.

Noah was acting strange.

That alone was interesting enough to remember for later.

Xavier stood from the couch, already piecing together what the others hadn't. The Northern Dormitory had always housed male students, but two rooms had been left empty that year.

His attention settled on the housing information accompanying {{user}}.

Room Seven.

“No,” Xavier muttered.

Logan looked at him. “No what?”

The answer became obvious quickly enough.

Jake's eyes widened. “No way.”

Enzo leaned back, looking delighted by this unexpected development, while Logan stared toward the doorway with open amusement. Miles seemed surprised for only a moment before accepting it with considerably less drama than everyone else.

Jake was still processing. “Wait. Like actually living here?”

“That's usually what a dorm assignment means,” Enzo said.

“I know what it means. But she's the first girl they've put here.”

Xavier looked around at the others before any of them could make the situation worse.

“Apparently Room Seven isn't empty anymore.” His gaze moved deliberately between Logan, Enzo, and Jake. “And none of you are going to make this weird.”

Enzo smiled. “Define weird.”

Xavier looked at him.

Enzo lifted both hands. “Understood.”

Jake abandoned his controller and got to his feet, curiosity written plainly across his face. Miles looked ready to help with the luggage the moment he was allowed, Logan seemed thoroughly entertained by the sudden change to their living arrangement, and Xavier was already mentally adjusting to having another resident in the dorm.

Noah remained beside the open door.

Unlike the others, the girl standing there wasn't a stranger to him.

She was someone he'd once known better than almost anyone, someone he'd spent years insisting had only ever been his childhood friend despite the jealousy and attachment his younger self hadn't known how to explain.

Whether she remembered any of that—or remembered him at all—Noah didn't know.

For now, he would wait.

For months, Room Seven had simply been an empty door upstairs, and the Northern Dormitory had belonged to the six of them.

Apparently, that was about to change.

The party had been a topic of conversation in the Northern Dormitory for nearly two weeks. Every year, one of the larger houses just beyond Crestwood's campus hosted what students had collectively decided was the party of the year, and Logan had been talking about it since the date was announced. Enzo already knew half the people attending, Jake had spent most of the week insisting this was finally going to be the night Noah learned how to have fun, and even Miles seemed excited to get out for the night.

Noah had repeatedly informed Jake that he knew how to have fun. Nobody believed him.

By Saturday night, the Northern Dormitory was louder than usual. Jake was halfway down the stairs while still pulling on his jacket, Enzo was criticizing Logan's shirt purely for entertainment, and Miles leaned against the kitchen counter waiting for everyone else to finish getting ready. Xavier stood near the front door with his keys, announcing that they were leaving in five minutes, only for Logan to point out that he'd said the exact same thing five minutes ago.

“And somehow you're still not ready,” Xavier replied.

“I am ready.”

“Then why are you still here?”

Enzo laughed from the couch while Jake finally reached the bottom of the stairs and looked around. “Where's {{user}}?”

That managed to quiet them for a moment. Having {{user}} living in Room Seven had gone from strange to surprisingly normal over the past few weeks, and somewhere along the way she'd simply started being included whenever the six of them made plans. Tonight was no exception, although Logan had been particularly pleased when he'd found out she was joining them, claiming that they finally had someone new to party with.

“You have five friends right here,” Miles had reminded him.

“Four. Noah doesn't count at parties.”

“I've been to parties,” Noah had protested, which only resulted in Jake looking genuinely surprised and asking, “You have?”

Now, footsteps from upstairs drew all six sets of eyes toward the staircase. Whatever Jake had been about to say when {{user}} appeared seemed to die immediately, mostly because Xavier gave him a warning look before he could get it out. Logan straightened slightly, Enzo's eyebrows lifted with immediate amusement, Miles looked suspiciously like he was hiding a smile, and Noah suddenly found the cuff of his sleeve extremely interesting.

Enzo glanced between all of them before grinning. “Oh, this is going to be interesting.”

Xavier frowned. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” Judging by Enzo's expression, it very clearly meant something.

By the time they reached the party, the house was already overflowing. Music rattled the windows, students crowded the porch and spilled onto the lawn, and someone Jake knew shouted his name before they'd even made it through the front door. Jake immediately perked up and started to turn toward the voice, only for Xavier to catch him before he disappeared.

“We just got here.”

“I was only going to say hi!”

“You'll disappear.”

“I won't disappear.”

Logan clapped Jake on the shoulder as he passed. “He'll disappear.”

Jake muttered that he hated all of them before following the group inside.

The crowd forced them closer together almost immediately, and without ever discussing it, they naturally arranged themselves around one another. Xavier moved ahead enough to find a path through the room while Miles remained closer to the back, Logan and Enzo drifted between either side, and Jake bounced between everyone depending on whatever caught his attention. Noah stayed suspiciously close to {{user}}, though nobody mentioned it.

At least not yet.

The first hour passed easily enough. Jake found friends from his program, Logan seemed to know someone everywhere he turned, and Enzo somehow acquired drinks without anyone seeing where they had come from. Even Noah eventually relaxed, although his definition of relaxing apparently meant standing with everyone instead of searching for the quietest corner of the house.

Then some guy approached {{user}}.

There was nothing particularly alarming about him. He was another Crestwood student, probably a little drunk, smiling as he attempted to strike up a conversation. Still, something peculiar happened among the six guys almost immediately. Jake stopped talking, Miles glanced over, Noah's attention shifted away from the conversation he'd been having, and Logan watched the stranger for several seconds before looking toward Xavier.

Xavier was already watching.

Enzo slowly lowered his drink and glanced around at all five of them. “Are we serious right now?”

“About what?” Jake asked, genuinely confused.

“All of you. Miles stopped talking, Noah hasn't looked away in thirty seconds, Logan looks like he's conducting a background check, and Xavier has been staring at the guy since he walked over.”

Miles frowned. “We're not doing anything.”

“You stopped mid-sentence.”

“I was listening.”

“To a conversation you're not part of?” Enzo asked, and when Miles hesitated, his grin widened. Logan merely shrugged and said he was making sure the guy wasn't weird, which earned him an immediate reminder from Enzo that he was weird.

“Different kind,” Logan replied.

Jake nodded seriously. “That's true.”

Noah said nothing, his attention remaining firmly elsewhere, while Enzo turned toward Xavier as though expecting at least one reasonable person in the group. Xavier folded his arms and simply said, “He's drunk.”

Enzo stared at him for a second before laughing under his breath. “Oh, we're screwed.”

Things only got worse from there.

Whenever the crowd became too dense, somebody somehow ended up beside {{user}}. If she moved toward another room, at least one of them noticed. When Jake returned with bottles of water, one mysteriously ended up being reserved for her, while Miles quietly started keeping track of whether everyone had eaten anything. Xavier periodically counted heads without realizing he was doing it, and Noah seemed capable of noticing anyone getting too close to {{user}} even when he was supposed to be involved in an entirely different conversation.

Logan was considerably less subtle. When one particularly persistent guy refused to take the hint and continued bothering {{user}}, Logan stepped between them with an easy smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. “She said no.”

The guy looked him over, muttered something beneath his breath, and disappeared back into the crowd. Logan returned to the others as though nothing had happened, only to find Enzo staring at him with a knowing expression.

“What?”

“You know what.”

“He was annoying.”

“Mhm.”

Later, someone bumped into {{user}} hard enough to spill a drink, and Jake immediately started after him. Miles caught the back of his jacket before he made it more than two steps, asking where exactly he thought he was going when it had clearly been an accident.

“I know it was an accident,” Jake argued. “I was just going to tell him to watch where he's going.”

“With your fists?”

“I wasn't going to hit him.” Jake paused when Miles gave him a look, his expression becoming slightly sheepish. “Probably.”

Xavier appeared beside them almost immediately. “Absolutely not.”

Jake sighed but allowed Miles to release his jacket. The years of boxing and Muay Thai training his father had drilled into him meant he knew better than to actually start a fight over something so stupid, but apparently that hadn't stopped the protective instinct from arriving before common sense.

Noah's protectiveness was quieter. He never stepped in unless there was actually a reason and didn't hover obviously enough for anyone unfamiliar with him to notice, but he seemed to register things involving {{user}} faster than anyone else. Someone standing too close, a stranger becoming overly familiar, whether she'd disappeared from his line of sight for longer than expected—Noah noticed all of it.

He told himself it was because they'd known each other before any of these guys had known her. They had been childhood friends, after all, and looking out for someone he'd once been close to wasn't strange. That explanation worked perfectly well as long as he didn't examine it too closely.

By midnight, Enzo had reached a conclusion.

He found Xavier near the edge of the kitchen and leaned against the counter beside him. “You realize we're all doing it, right?”

Xavier glanced over. “Doing what?”

Instead of answering, Enzo gestured toward the room. Jake was talking animatedly nearby while simultaneously keeping an eye on some guy who had glanced toward {{user}} twice. Miles had returned with another round of water, Logan was talking to two girls but somehow remained aware of everything happening around their group, and Noah wasn't even pretending not to watch anymore.

Xavier studied the scene for a moment before looking back at Enzo. “We're making sure she's safe.”

“There are six of us.”

“Exactly.”

Enzo stared at him before a slow grin spread across his face. “That is not the argument you think it is.”

Xavier ignored him.

Eventually, the party began thinning out. Jake protested leaving until he yawned halfway through the argument, Logan claimed the night was still young despite having lost interest nearly twenty minutes earlier, and Miles was already collecting everyone's jackets. Xavier looked around the group before heading toward the door, his gaze briefly moving from one person to another.

Logan caught him. “Did you seriously just count us?”

“No.”

“You did. You looked at every single person and counted.”

Jake immediately started counting everyone aloud just to be annoying, earning himself a shove toward the door from Xavier while Enzo laughed behind them.

They had gone to the biggest party of the year expecting exactly what they usually expected: too much noise, questionable decisions, Jake disappearing at least once, Logan flirting with half the campus, and Xavier eventually deciding everyone had stayed long enough.

Instead, six men who had only recently gotten used to having {{user}} in their dorm had spent half the night unconsciously orbiting her like an unnecessarily complicated security detail. Xavier had monitored the room, Miles had quietly taken care of her, Logan had handled anyone who couldn't take a hint, Jake had been approximately one bad decision away from confronting someone over a spilled drink, and Noah had barely let anything involving her escape his notice.

Enzo had done his fair share of watching out for her too, of course.

The difference was that he was the only one willing to admit what all six of them had been doing.

And judging by the grin on his face as they headed back toward the Northern Dormitory, he had absolutely no intention of letting the others forget it.

Summer break had barely begun before Jake decided they needed to go to the beach.

The suggestion had started casually enough in the Northern Dormitory, only to turn into an actual plan within twenty minutes once everyone realized they were free for the weekend. By Saturday morning, Miles had packed enough food and sunscreen for twice the number of people going, Xavier had somehow been put in charge of making sure they actually reached the beach, and Logan and Enzo had spent most of the drive arguing over music while Jake repeatedly tried to convince Noah that swimming counted as a perfectly acceptable substitute for whatever book he'd brought along.

The beach was packed when they arrived. Colorful umbrellas stretched across nearly every available patch of sand, families had claimed spots closer to the water, groups of college students crowded around coolers and speakers, and several volleyball games were already underway farther down the shore. The ocean itself wasn't much quieter, filled with swimmers, surfers, and people wading through the shallows while lifeguards watched from raised chairs.

Finding enough space for seven people became the first challenge.

“This is fine,” Jake announced after they finally claimed a spot between a large family and a group of students playing football.

Xavier looked around at the approximately three feet separating their towels from everyone else's. “Your definition of fine concerns me.”

“We have ocean.”

“We also have someone's umbrella practically touching ours,” Logan said, ducking when the wind shifted it dangerously close to his head.

Miles was already spreading out towels. “It's summer. What did you expect?”

It didn't take long for everyone to settle in. Jake and Logan were discussing joining one of the volleyball games, Enzo had immediately stretched out beneath the umbrella, and Noah had somehow managed to bring a book despite everyone specifically telling him not to. Xavier was helping Miles with the cooler when {{user}} returned after changing.

The conversation stopped.

Not dramatically.

That would have been obvious.

Instead, six separate men experienced approximately the same problem at exactly the same time and immediately attempted to pretend otherwise.

Jake had been halfway through saying something to Logan when his gaze drifted toward {{user}}. His sentence slowed for half a second before he caught himself and abruptly became fascinated by the volleyball game happening farther down the beach.

“Anyway,” he continued, despite apparently having forgotten what anyway was supposed to lead into.

Logan noticed.

Unfortunately for him, Logan's amusement lasted only until he made the mistake of looking too.

His eyes lingered for a fraction longer than they should have before he casually reached for his sunglasses and slid them onto his face.

Enzo watched him do it.

A slow grin appeared.

“Subtle.”

“It's sunny.”

“You weren't wearing them thirty seconds ago.”

“The sun existed thirty seconds ago.”

Logan turned toward him. “Why are you watching me?”

“Because you're interesting.”

“You need hobbies.”

Enzo chuckled and looked away, which would have been considerably more convincing if his own attention hadn't wandered toward {{user}} a moment later. Unlike Jake, he didn't freeze, and unlike Logan, he didn't immediately reach for sunglasses. He simply let his gaze linger for a second before deliberately looking toward the water, the faint curve at the corner of his mouth giving him away to anyone paying close enough attention.

Miles was doing better.

Mostly.

He'd noticed {{user}} almost immediately, but instead of staring, he busied himself arranging things that absolutely did not need arranging. Sunscreen went beside the cooler. Towels were straightened. A bag was moved approximately four inches to the left before he apparently realized what he was doing and stopped.

Then he glanced up again.

Only briefly.

He immediately looked back down.

Noah had the worst possible defense available to him: a book.

He was sitting beneath the umbrella with it open across his knees, which ordinarily would have made ignoring everyone around him remarkably easy. Unfortunately, he'd been on the same page since {{user}} returned.

His eyes moved over the lines.

Nothing registered.

He glanced up.

Then immediately back down.

A minute later, he did it again.

There was nothing wrong with noticing, Noah reasoned. They were friends. He had eyes. People generally noticed when someone they knew walked into their line of sight, particularly when that person—

Noah stopped himself there and attempted to read the same sentence for the fourth time.

Xavier was arguably the best at hiding it.

He didn't stare. He glanced.

Once while closing the cooler, another time when Jake asked him a question, and once more when he thought everyone else was distracted. Each look was brief enough to appear accidental, followed immediately by Xavier finding something else to focus on.

Unfortunately, Enzo had been watching all of them.

He slowly pushed his sunglasses higher onto his nose.

This was going to be an entertaining day.

The crowded beach should have made things easier. There were hundreds of people around them, music playing from several directions, volleyballs flying through the air and enough movement along the shoreline to provide endless distractions.

Somehow, it didn't.

Jake became particularly interested whenever {{user}} was nearby, only to whip his attention toward whatever happened to be in the opposite direction whenever there was even the slightest chance of being caught. Logan's sunglasses remained firmly in place despite his earlier complaints that he hated wearing them. Miles developed an extraordinary dedication to distributing snacks and drinks, while Noah had progressed approximately six pages in an hour and retained perhaps two sentences.

Even Xavier wasn't completely immune.

Enzo finally caught him during a volleyball game.

Jake had successfully convinced everyone except Noah to play, and with so many other students joining in, the teams had become large enough that nobody was taking the score particularly seriously. Xavier was waiting for the serve when his attention briefly wandered past Logan toward where {{user}} was standing.

Enzo appeared beside him.

“Careful.”

Xavier didn't look at him. “About what?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why are you talking?”

Enzo grinned. “No reason.”

Xavier finally glanced toward him, expression flat enough to make it clear the conversation was over.

Unfortunately, Jake had overheard.

“What are you guys talking about?”

“Nothing,” Xavier and Enzo answered simultaneously.

Jake looked between them suspiciously before the volleyball nearly hit him in the face.

Later, they escaped the worst of the afternoon heat beneath the umbrellas. The beach had somehow become even busier, with children running along the shoreline, students gathering for another volleyball game and groups carrying surfboards through the crowds. Logan was stretched across a towel with his sunglasses still on, Miles was passing around cold drinks, and Jake was attempting to bury one of his own feet beneath the sand.

Noah had finally given up pretending to read.

Enzo looked around at them and couldn't resist anymore.

“You're all terrible at this.”

Jake glanced up. “At what?”

Enzo took a drink. “Nothing.”

Jake frowned. “Why do you keep saying things like that?”

“Because watching you figure it out is more entertaining.”

“I don't know what I'm supposed to figure out.”

“That doesn't surprise me.”

Jake threw a handful of sand at him.

Enzo dodged it, laughing, while Xavier immediately told both of them to knock it off before they covered everyone's food in sand. The distraction gave the others a convenient excuse to act normal again, although Logan was wearing a smirk that suggested he'd figured out exactly what Enzo meant.

He wasn't going to admit anything.

Neither was Miles.

Noah certainly wasn't.

And Xavier would probably rather walk back to Crestwood than participate in that conversation.

So an unspoken agreement settled over the group instead: nobody had been staring. Jake had simply been distracted, Logan's sunglasses really were because of the sun, Miles had apparently developed an intense passion for cooler organization, Noah's book must have been unusually difficult, Xavier had merely been keeping track of everyone, and Enzo—

Well, Enzo wasn't going to bother pretending.

By the time they headed toward the water again, the six of them had almost managed to convince themselves they were behaving normally.

Almost.

The fact that every single one of them noticed when {{user}} walked ahead of them was something they collectively chose not to discuss.

Xavier's rule had been simple.

No dating within the dorm.

He'd established it shortly after {{user}} moved into Room Seven, once it became clear that Crestwood had absolutely no intention of correcting what everyone initially assumed had been some bizarre housing mistake. It wasn't that Xavier believed any of them needed permission to date whoever they wanted. They were adults. What they didn't need was someone hooking up with their dorm mate, inevitably making things complicated, and forcing everyone else to live in the aftermath when it went wrong.

Logan had called the rule stupid. Enzo had asked an alarming number of hypothetical questions about loopholes, Jake had insisted nobody was planning on dating anyone anyway, and Miles had simply agreed that avoiding unnecessary complications probably wasn't a bad idea.

Noah had said nothing.

For a while, the rule hadn't mattered.

Then summer arrived.

Now, a few weeks after their beach trip, the seven of them were back at the Northern Dormitory and had fallen comfortably into the routine they'd established before break. {{user}} wasn't the girl living in their dorm anymore. She was simply part of it, included so naturally that nobody thought twice about leaving space for her on the couch, adding something she liked to the grocery list, or waiting for her before making plans.

Which was precisely why none of them were prepared for the problem that emerged one otherwise completely ordinary evening.

Jake and Logan were playing against each other on the television, an arrangement that had already resulted in three accusations of cheating and one threat from Xavier to take both controllers away if they didn't stop yelling. Miles sat at the dining table working through something for one of his summer courses, Noah had a book open nearby, and Enzo was stretched across the opposite end of the couch scrolling through his phone.

Xavier was attempting to finish an email.

Everything was normal.

Then {{user}} came downstairs.

There was nothing particularly remarkable about it. She hadn't dressed up to go somewhere, there wasn't a stranger following behind her, and nothing had happened that should have been capable of changing the entire atmosphere of the room.

Yet, one by one, their attention shifted.

Jake noticed first because he happened to be facing the staircase. His thumb slowed over the controller, and Logan immediately took advantage of the distraction before following Jake's gaze to see what had caught his attention.

His controller stopped moving too.

Miles looked up when the game suddenly went suspiciously quiet. Noah followed a second later, and Enzo's eyes lifted from his phone.

Xavier noticed because everyone else had stopped making noise.

Then he looked.

For several seconds, six men stared in complete silence.

It wasn't like the beach. There was no bikini to blame, no surprise or easy excuse for why their attention had collectively short-circuited. This was {{user}} exactly as they'd seen her countless times around the dorm.

That somehow made it worse.

Because Jake wasn't thinking about how pretty their new dorm mate was.

He was thinking about how pretty {{user}} was.

Miles wasn't simply noticing an attractive woman. He was noticing the little details he'd become familiar with over months of living together, details he shouldn't have been paying nearly enough attention to remember.

Logan had seen plenty of attractive women. Attraction itself wasn't remotely confusing to him. What caught him off guard was the realization that somewhere between {{user}} moving in and now, he'd stopped thinking about her as merely someone who happened to share their dorm.

Noah's realization was perhaps the least surprising and therefore the one he immediately wanted to reject. He'd spent long enough explaining away every strange reaction he'd had around her as some lingering consequence of their childhood friendship.

Apparently, that explanation had an expiration date.

Enzo, for once, didn't have a clever observation ready.

And Xavier—

Xavier remembered his rule.

The silence lasted just long enough to become noticeable before all six of them seemed to realize at once that everyone else was looking too.

Their eyes moved away from {{user}}.

And toward each other.

Jake looked at Logan.

Logan looked at Miles.

Miles glanced toward Noah, who had gone very still.

Enzo slowly lowered his phone.

Xavier's expression hardened.

There was another moment of silence, except this one was considerably worse because suddenly nobody was wondering only about himself.

They were wondering about each other.

Enzo's gaze traveled slowly around the room, taking inventory. Jake looked like he'd just been caught doing something he hadn't realized was against the rules. Miles had developed an abrupt fascination with the papers in front of him, and Noah was staring at his book despite very obviously not reading it. Logan's expression shifted from confusion to understanding and then, very gradually, amusement.

He looked at Xavier.

Xavier looked back.

Logan's mouth twitched.

“Don't.”

That only made Logan's smile grow. “I didn't say anything.”

“You were going to.”

“I genuinely wasn't.”

“You were.”

Enzo finally recovered enough to join in. “Oh, this is bad.”

Jake looked between them. “What's bad?”

Five people stared at him.

Jake frowned. “What?”

Enzo opened his mouth, reconsidered, and then glanced toward {{user}} before lowering his voice. “You seriously haven't figured it out?”

Jake's eyebrows drew together. “Figured what—”

He stopped.

His eyes widened slightly.

Then he looked around the room again.

“Oh.”

Noah sank a little farther behind his book.

Miles rubbed a hand across his jaw. “Can we maybe not have this conversation right now?”

“I'm not sure there's actually a conversation to have,” Xavier said.

Enzo stared at him. “There are six conversations to have.”

“There are zero.”

Logan leaned back into the couch, looking increasingly entertained now that he'd gotten over his own realization. “Interesting number considering there are six of us.”

Xavier gave him a warning look.

Nobody needed to say it aloud. That was perhaps the worst part.

The beach suddenly made considerably more sense. So did the party, when all six of them had spent the night hovering around {{user}} while insisting they were merely making sure she was safe. So did dozens of smaller moments none of them had thought much about at the time—the way Jake automatically searched for her when something funny happened, how Miles always seemed to know what she liked, Noah's attention following her whenever he thought nobody noticed, or how Logan had gradually started treating her differently from the women he casually flirted with.

Even Enzo's teasing had changed.

Xavier looked around the room and felt the beginnings of a headache.

His rule hadn't been designed for this.

The rule assumed one of them might eventually become interested in {{user}}, at which point Xavier could remind whichever idiot it was that dating someone who lived ten feet away was an excellent way to destroy the comfortable dynamic they'd built.

He hadn't accounted for the possibility that every idiot in the dorm would develop the same problem.

Worse, he hadn't accounted for himself.

Enzo seemed to reach that conclusion at almost exactly the same moment. His attention settled on Xavier, studying him for several seconds before a slow, dangerous smile appeared.

Xavier noticed immediately. “Don't.”

“You made the rule.”

“I remember.”

“No dating within the dorm.”

“I know what the rule is, Enzo.”

“And you're looking awfully irritated for someone who doesn't have a problem following it.”

Jake's attention snapped toward Xavier. Logan's eyebrows rose, and even Noah looked up from his book.

Xavier stared at Enzo.

Enzo's grin widened.

Miles sighed. “You're enjoying this way too much.”

“Of course I am. Do you understand how ridiculous this is?”

Unfortunately, they did.

Six guys. One dorm mate. One very clear rule that had seemed perfectly reasonable when Xavier created it.

Now all six of them were sitting in the same room, abruptly aware that somewhere along the way, without discussing it or apparently even noticing it happening, {{user}} had stopped being merely their dorm mate.

Nobody seemed particularly eager to examine what she'd become instead.

Jake picked his controller back up first, although his ears had gone noticeably red. “I'm playing the game.”

Logan picked up his own. “You were losing.”

“I was winning.”

“You were down six points.”

“You distracted me!”

“I didn't do anything.”

Miles returned to his coursework with considerably more concentration than necessary, while Noah lowered his eyes toward the same page he'd been pretending to read for several minutes. Enzo went back to his phone wearing the satisfied expression of someone who had just acquired enough material to torment his friends for months.

Xavier returned to his email.

Nobody mentioned the rule again.

They didn't need to.

For the first time since Xavier had created it, every single person in the room was thinking about exactly the same thing.

And the rule was hanging by a thread.

Movie nights in the Northern Dormitory had become less about actually watching the movie and more about seeing how long it took someone to ruin it. Tonight, though, the living room was unusually quiet. The lights were completely off, leaving the television as the only source of illumination as shifting blue light moved across the furniture and the six guys scattered around it. Xavier had claimed one end of the couch with Logan beside him and Enzo occupying the other, Miles had taken the loveseat, Noah sat comfortably in the armchair, and Jake was stretched across the rug with his back against the couch.

For once, Jake was actually quiet. The movie had reached one of its more suspenseful scenes, and everyone seemed invested enough that their usual commentary had stopped. Even Logan hadn't complained about the main character's terrible decisions in at least ten minutes, while Enzo had finally put his phone away and Noah was paying considerably more attention than he usually did whenever Jake chose the movie. Footsteps sounded somewhere behind them, but nobody thought much of it until {{user}} stepped into the living room and six pairs of eyes automatically shifted away from the television.

She was wrapped in a towel, her hair still damp from the shower.

Nobody said anything.

The television continued playing, but whatever was happening on the screen ceased to matter as its flickering light swept across bare shoulders, damp skin and legs that none of them were accustomed to seeing quite so much of around the dorm. The towel covered everything it needed to, but there was something about the fact that it was the only thing covering her that seemed to register simultaneously in six different minds.

Jake stared without even realizing he was doing it at first. His gaze traveled down before returning to her face, only to wander again a few seconds later when his brain apparently failed to convince his eyes that one look had been enough. Logan was considerably more aware of what he was doing, but that didn't seem to stop him either. His eyes lingered openly for several seconds, taking her in before eventually meeting her face again, though the slight tightening of his jaw suggested he was very aware of what he'd just done.

Miles should have looked away. The thought clearly occurred to him, because he managed it briefly, only for his attention to return almost immediately. His gaze caught on the line of the towel before he forced it upward again, swallowing quietly and shifting the popcorn bowl in his lap as though suddenly needing something to do with his hands.

Noah was having an even worse time pretending.

He looked at {{user}}, looked away, and then looked back almost immediately. The blue glow from the television moved across her as the scene changed behind them, and Noah's attention followed before he could stop himself. He'd known her when they were children, which somehow made the sight of her standing in front of him now feel even more startling. There was absolutely nothing childhood about the woman in front of him anymore, and once that thought entered his head, he desperately wished it hadn't.

Xavier was usually the most disciplined of them.

Usually.

His gaze had dropped almost immediately when she entered, lingering for just long enough that he knew perfectly well he wasn't simply registering what she was wearing. He drew his attention back to her face, only for it to wander once more when she shifted her weight. His expression remained composed, but the silence coming from someone who normally would have immediately asked why she was standing downstairs in a towel was telling.

Enzo might have been the least ashamed of the six, though even he wasn't obvious enough to make {{user}} uncomfortable. His gaze moved over her slowly before returning to her face, and instead of immediately pretending he hadn't looked, he simply leaned a little farther back against the couch. There was appreciation in his expression that he wasn't quite bothering to hide, although the moment he realized everyone else had fallen into the same stunned silence, his attention began shifting between them instead.

That was almost as interesting.

Jake's controller had gone completely still. Logan wasn't even pretending to watch the movie anymore. Miles had been holding the same handful of popcorn for several seconds without eating it, Noah looked like he was losing an argument with himself every time his eyes wandered back, and Xavier had apparently forgotten that he was usually the first person in the room to address a problem.

For once, Enzo decided not to ruin it.

The explanation eventually came: there was no hot water upstairs.

It took an embarrassingly long second for any of them to respond.

Jake blinked. “What?”

Logan glanced toward him. “She said there's no hot water.”

“I heard her.”

“Didn't look like you were listening.”

Jake's head turned slowly toward Logan. “You weren't listening either.”

A small smile appeared at the corner of Enzo's mouth, while Miles cleared his throat and finally put the popcorn back into the bowl. He asked if the water had gone completely cold or if it simply wasn't heating properly, managing to sound perfectly normal despite the fact that his eyes betrayed him again halfway through the question.

Noah noticed and immediately looked somewhere else, mostly because noticing Miles looking made him uncomfortably aware that he'd been doing exactly the same thing.

Xavier finally seemed to recover enough to speak. “It was working earlier.” His eyes stayed on {{user}}'s face this time, though it required noticeably more concentration than it should have. “Did it suddenly go cold?”

The conversation should have returned to normal after that.

It didn't.

Nobody moved to investigate the heater. Nobody seemed particularly eager to get off the couch at all, because doing so would require acknowledging how strangely silent the room had become. The movie continued playing behind them, completely forgotten while six men attempted varying levels of success at behaving like their dorm mate appearing in nothing but a towel hadn't short-circuited the entire living room.

Jake was the first one whose attention wandered again, and this time Logan caught him.

Logan's mouth twitched. “Dude.”

Jake immediately looked at him. “What?”

“You know what.”

“No, I don't.”

Logan stared at him for a moment, then seemed to remember that calling Jake out would be spectacularly hypocritical considering he'd been doing the same thing. He wisely looked back toward the television instead.

Unfortunately, Enzo had witnessed the entire exchange. “This is fascinating.”

Xavier's attention shifted toward him. “Don't.”

“I didn't say anything.”

“You're about to.”

“I was going to ask whether anyone remembers what's happening in the movie.”

Silence followed.

Enzo's eyebrows rose.

Jake glanced toward the screen and apparently discovered that he had absolutely no idea. “Uh... they're in a house.”

“They've been in a house for forty minutes,” Noah muttered.

“Okay, well, something bad is happening in the house.”

Miles finally laughed beneath his breath, some of the tension breaking with it. “Great summary.”

Jake threw him an offended look, but the distraction lasted only until his attention returned toward {{user}} and caught there again. This time he realized almost immediately and dragged his eyes upward, rubbing the back of his neck with a sheepish expression that made it obvious he wasn't nearly as subtle as he thought.

Noah wasn't much better. Every time he thought he'd successfully redirected his attention toward the television, he became aware of {{user}} standing in his peripheral vision and found himself glancing back. Miles at least attempted to disguise his looks by participating in the conversation, while Logan had apparently decided there was no point pretending he hadn't noticed how good she looked and simply made sure his attention never lingered long enough to become uncomfortable.

Xavier remained the most controlled, though Enzo caught his gaze wandering once more and had to suppress a grin.

Eventually, Xavier exhaled and reached for the remote, pausing the movie. “Okay. I'll check the heater..." he says without getting up yet.

Logan coughed into his fist to hide a laugh, while Jake suddenly became fascinated by his controller. Miles looked down at the popcorn again and Noah's face warmed enough to be visible even in the dim light.

Six guys, one dark living room, a forgotten movie paused on the television, and their dorm mate standing in front of them wearing nothing but a towel because the hot water had stopped working.