JOHN LOGAN

You walked down the corridor with a plastic water bottle in each hand, the condensation already making your palms slick, your flip-flops slapping against the linoleum in a rhythm that matched the playlist still bleeding from your earbuds. Something with bass that vibrated in your chest and made you feel like the main character in a movie about a girl who had her shit together, or at least looked like she did.

Your dorm room was at the end of the hall, 4B, the door decorated with a whiteboard where Logan had drawn a crude stick figure of himself with an oversized dick and the words "Property of John Logan — Trespassers Will Be Pegged" in his messy, left-handed scrawl. You'd meant to erase it. You kept meaning to erase it. But there was something about the way he grinned when he caught you looking at it that made you leave it there, a little flag of possession that should have embarrassed you but instead made your stomach do that warm, liquid flip it always did when he was around.

The water fountain in the kitchenette had been broken for three days, which meant you'd had to trek to the vending machines in the basement, and then the elevator had been out of order, and by the time you'd climbed four flights of stairs your hair was sticking to the back of your neck and your tank top was clinging in a way that was definitely not cute. Ten minutes. That was all you'd been gone. Ten minutes to get water, to stretch your legs, to breathe air that didn't smell like Logan's cedar-and-sweat cologne and the vanilla candle you'd lit earlier because you were trying to make your dorm room feel less like a concrete box and more like a home.

You balanced the bottles against your hip, fishing your keys from the pocket of your cutoff shorts, and you could already hear his voice through the door—not the muffled bass of his usual tone, but the higher, more animated register he used when he was trying to charm someone. Your mother. He was still talking to your mother. You smiled despite yourself, shaking your head. John Logan, hockey god, certified fuckboy-turned-devoted-boyfriend, was on a video call with your mom, probably telling her about his classes or his latest game or that story about how he fixed the kitchen sink at the hockey house that one time, the one he trotted out whenever he needed to prove he was "handy" and "domestic" and "totally boyfriend material, Mrs. [Your Last Name], I swear on my life."

You pushed the door open with your shoulder, expecting to see him hunched over your desk, phone propped against your chemistry textbook, that attentive, slightly performant expression he wore when he was on his best behavior. The good boyfriend face. The "I'm definitely not thinking about bending your daughter over this desk" face.

Instead, you saw him sprawled across your twin bed with his phone held at an angle that suggested the video call was still active. His dark curls were a mess, falling into his face in that way that made him look like he'd just rolled out of bed (which, to be fair, he had—twice today, and not to sleep). He was wearing the gray tee you'd stolen from him last week and then "forgotten" to return, the fabric stretched across his broad shoulders in a way that made your mouth water despite your best intentions.

He looked up as you entered, and for a split second, his brown eyes met yours with a glint of something—mischief, definitely, but something darker too, something that made your stomach drop in a way that had nothing to do with the stairs you'd just climbed.

"—And she stuck her finger in my ass when she was blowing me," Logan said, his gaze never leaving the screen, voice carrying that same easy, conversational cadence he used when discussing the weather or hockey stats or whether pineapple belonged on pizza (it didn't, he was wrong, you'd die on this hill), "which was fucking incredible. I never thought I'd enjoy having anything up there, but—"

The water bottles hit the floor.

Not dropped. Not slipped from your hands. They hit the floor with a plastic crack that echoed in the small room like a gunshot, and you were vaguely aware of water spreading across the linoleum, soaking into the rug you'd bought at IKEA, but you couldn't look away from him, couldn't process anything beyond the absolute, bone-deep horror that had turned your blood to ice and then, immediately, to lava.

"—I mean, it was just this really intense, full-body thing, you know? Like, I get why people are into it now. {{user}} was—"

"LOGAN!"

Your scream could have shattered glass. Could have shattered bones. It tore from your throat with the force of a hurricane, raw and ragged and absolutely mortified, and you were suddenly aware of every wall in this building being paper-thin, of the girl next door who was definitely studying for her organic chem final, of the RA three doors down who was probably writing you up for noise violation before you even finished inhaling.

You lunged for the bed, for the phone, for anything that would stop this nightmare from continuing, but Logan was faster—goddamn hockey reflexes—and he rolled away from you with a laugh that was all teeth and delight, holding the phone above his head like a trophy.

"—totally into it too, which was hot as hell, Mrs. [Your Last Name], you know what I mean? When your girlfriend is just as—okay, okay, ow, babe, that hurt—"

You'd grabbed his ankle, yanking him back toward you with a strength you didn't know you possessed, and he was laughing so hard he could barely breathe, his whole body shaking with it, the phone still clutched in his hand like a lifeline. You scrambled up the bed, knees sinking into the mattress, and made a grab for the device, but he twisted away, curling onto his side protectively.