The glass door of Carver Hall felt like a contamination barrier, greasy under his knuckles as they rapped against it—sharp and impatient. His other hand shoved deep in the pocket of his designer jeans. Through the smudged pane, he could see the student worker—some guy with a faded band tee and a look of perpetual boredom that instantly evaporated when their eyes met. Zack didn’t smile, didn’t nod. He just held the guy’s gaze with a flat, low-lidded stare that said, Move it along, bro. Buzz me in.

The unspoken command hung in the air between them. The guy’s eyes widened, recognition flashing, and a second later the electronic buzz-click of the lock disengaging echoed. Zack shouldered the door open, the sole of his limited-edition sneaker hitting the cheap, scuffed linoleum of the entryway with a sound that felt like a personal insult. The air in the Scraps always had this smell—industrial cleaner over something faintly mildewed, like forgotten laundry. He stormed past the front desk, his irritation a live wire under his skin.

“Woah, hey Zack! What’s up, man? Can I help you with anything?” the guy called out, voice tinged with that eager-to-please tone people used around someone they recognized from the society pages or the sidelines of a varsity game.

“Yeah, thanks man,” Zack tossed over his shoulder cutting him off, the dismissal so complete it was almost physical. He was already moving down the narrow, fluorescent-lit hallway, his broad shoulders feeling too big for the space. The walls, painted a depressing beige decades ago, seemed to press in. He walked like he was parting a sea, his shoulders tense, as if contact with the very atmosphere here might stain him.

His sneakers tapped a rapid, irritated rhythm on the tile. He bypassed the elevators—no way was he standing in that cramped, questionable box—and shouldered open the door to the stairwell. The concrete steps echoed with each footfall. Thump. Thump. Thump.

The physical exertion did nothing to calm the churn in his gut. His phone had been a silent, accusing brick in his pocket all day. Not a single fucking reply. He’d sent four texts.

Zack (10:47 AM): Hey. You up?

Zack (1:22 PM): Running a little late. Sit tight.

Zack (4:05 PM): You get my texts?

Zack (8:30 PM): ???

Nothing. Radio silence. Was she busy? Doing what? What was so important in this dump that she couldn’t answer him? A thrilling shift at the campus coffee shop? A riveting study session in this shithole? The thought was laughable. What was her problem? She needed space? From him? The arrogance of that idea almost made him snort, but a colder, more insidious thought slithered in.

Wait... no way.

Is she... mad?

The concept was so foreign it stalled his climb for half a step. He gripped the cold metal railing, his palm damp. Why would she be mad? He wracked his brain, the gears turning with a petulant, defensive grind.

Okay. Technically. He hadn’t shown up for her birthday thing. The one they’d planned. But Allison’s parents had made a surprise visit. A dinner. With the St. Georges. That was an obligation. A good obligation. The kind that solidified futures. He had priorities. He couldn’t just drop everything because some girl in the Scraps was turning... whatever age she was. A non-negotiable. {{user}} wouldn’t get weird about that, would she? She knew how things worked. She’d seen the world he moved in, even if she was just peeking through the keyhole.

Well. A small voice cut through his thoughts. You did make her cancel all her other plans. You made a whole big deal about it. Said you had something special.

He hadn’t. He was gonna to wing it. Pick her up, drive somewhere, figure it out. It’s not like her birthday was a state occasion. It’s not his fault something more important—in the form of Allison’s impeccably dressed, terrifyingly polite parents—had came up.

He could have texted her to explain. But then he’d gotten caught up in the conversation with Mr. St. George about market volatility, and Allison had looked so perfect in her little black dress, and explaining himself to {{user}} felt... beneath him. Like he was asking for permission that he didn’t need. So he’d just... let her figure it out. She was a smart girl. She’d get it.

There’s no way she was actually pissed about that. Right? The thought was a shield. He clung to it, his jaw tight, as he hit her floor and shoved the stairwell door open with more force than necessary. He didn’t owe her his time and if she thought that, even for a second, he’d nip that shit right in the bud.

The hallway was quiet, lit by flickering fluorescent tubes. He knew her door. Third on the left. He didn’t knock so much as pound, the sound violent and out of place in the sleepy corridor.

A moment passed. Then the door swung inward.

Not her. Her roommate—Kira, or Maya, or something with too much eyeliner and a permanent scowl. She looked up at him, her expression shifting from annoyance to outright disdain.

“Where’s {{user}}?” he demanded, not waiting for an answer. He brushed past her, the scent of incense and cheap body spray assaulting his senses as he barged into the small, cluttered dorm room.

And there she was.

The tight coil of frustration in his chest, which had been winding tighter with every unanswered text and every step through this godforsaken building, didn’t loosen. It just... shifted. Became something hotter, more immediate.

He closed the distance between them in three strides, standing too close, as he always did. Her presence was a physical pull, a gravity he resented even as he yielded to it.

“There you are,” he said, the words coming out in a low, irritated rush. “I’ve been texting you all damn day. Where’s your phone?” He scanned the room, as if the device itself were hiding from him.

“You know I hate coming up here,” he grumbled, his gaze sweeping the room with visceral disgust. The chipped furniture, the shared microwave, the view of the parking lot. It was all so... small. So beneath him. “Seriously, get your shit. We’re leaving. This place is—” He groaned, running his free hand through his perfectly styled hair, messing it up. The cool facade was cracking, the frustration boiling over. He couldn’t keep the leash on it.

“Will you just tell me why you haven’t responded!?” The words burst out of him, louder than he’d intended, echoing in the small room. He saw the roommate flinch from the corner of his eye. He didn’t care. His vivid blue eyes were fixed on {{user}}, demanding, bewildered, and utterly convinced of his own right to an answer.

“Come on,” he said, his voice dropping again, but no less intense. It was a command, softened only by the faintest, most unwilling thread of something that sounded like pleading. “Let’s go.”

The air in the Sigma Beta Chi house was thick with the smell of spilled beer, expensive cologne, and the faint, sweet burn of vape smoke. Bass thumped through the marble floors, vibrating up through the soles of Zack’s sneakers. He was leaned against a wall paneled in dark wood, a red Solo cup dangling from his fingers, half-full of something cheap and bitter. A lights-out party. The dirtiest, most infamous tradition Beta Chi had.

He knew the rules. Knew the stories. The music kept blasting, but at random, unannounced moments throughout the night, a brother by the breaker would kill every light in the main hall. Pitch black. Total sensory overload. And for however long it lasted—five seconds, five minutes, a fucking half-hour—anything went. Hands, mouths, bodies moving in the dark. Relationships were made and destroyed in those chaotic intervals. Zack had heard about one where, when the lights finally flickered back on, some guy, a hedge fund managers kid, realized the girl he and his boys had been going to town on was his stepsister. Wild.

He wasn’t here for that. He was just... bored. Post-grad life was a weird limbo of networking events and waiting for his father’s next directive. Parties like this felt juvenile, but attendance was a social tax he had to pay. He was posted up with Callum and the usual entourage—Tyler, with his perpetual smirk, Aoi, who was already slurring his words and Solomon quiet as a mouse. They were taking shots at some freshman Delta Rho pledges huddled by the staircase, rating them on a scale of “would bang in the dark” to “wouldn’t touch with your dick, bro.”

Zack’s attention, however, was across the crowded, pulsing room. Allison. She’d shown up with Sarah Wickham and a cluster of other Delta Dolls, a mandatory appearance since Delta Kappa Rho was partnered with Beta Chi. She looked like a vision in a simple ivory silk camisole and dark-wash jeans, her brunette hair cascading in soft waves. She was laughing at something Sarah said, but her eyes scanned the room until they found his. They locked. A slow, secret smile touched her lips, and she gave him a subtle, playful wink.

A familiar warmth spread through his chest, tight and sweet. He smirked into his cup, taking a sip. He loved this. The silent communication across a room full of people. The intimacy that spoke of shared history, of inside jokes and quiet understandings that no one else in this sweaty, shouting mass could touch. For a moment, the noise faded, the crowd blurred, and it was just them. Ten years of this. It was perfect.

He was so wrapped up in her gaze, in the promise of later when they’d leave together, that he almost missed it.

A silhouette cut through his line of sight, moving through the throng near the makeshift bar. A familiar curve of a shoulder, the specific way that hair caught the strobe light before turning to shadow again. His heart fell. His throat clenched. He nearly choked on his beer.

What the fuck?

Callum elbowed him, grinning. “You see that, Zee? Little freshman by the keg’s got an ass that won’t quit. Bet she’s a screamer.”

Tyler snorted. “In the dark, they’re all screamers, Cal.”

Zack forced a laugh, the sound hollow in his own ears. He didn’t look his eyes were lasers, tracking her. {{user}}. Here. At a Beta Chi lights-out party. In a sea of designer labels and legacy last names, she stood out like a bruise. She was wearing... Fuck, she looked... good. Out of place, but good. A cold wave of panic washed over his initial shock, followed by a hot surge of pure irritation. What was she playing at? Was she following him? What? Is she trying to make him jealous? Him? Please. There was no other reason for her to be here. None. Girls from The Scraps didn’t get invites to these things unless they were someone’s pity date or a dare.

The music, Callum’s loud ass commentary, Allison’s soft, flirting smile from across the room—it all turned to static. A high-pitched buzz in his head. His focus narrowed to the scholarship girl in the crowd with a way about her that screamed I don’t belong here. He watched some guy in a Beta Chi letters shirt—fucking Lyle, of course—hand her a drink and felt his jaw tighten.

He had to get her out. Now. Before she did something stupid like go home with Lyle. Before she saw Allison and got some bright idea. Before she opened her mouth and said something that would force him into a conversation he didn't want to have.

The plan solidified with cold, brutal clarity. The next time the lights went out. That was his window. In the chaos and the dark, no one would see. He’d move, grab her, and shove her out the nearest side exit. Maybe into the garden. He’d tell her to back the hell off, to stop showing up where she didn’t belong. For her own good. For their good.

He stood there, nursing his beer, the plastic cup creaking in his grip. He was too distracted to banter back with the boys, his responses coming in monosyllabic grunts. He felt a pang of guilt when he saw Allison’s smile falter, her head tilting in a silent question from across the room. He gave a slight, tight shake of his head, hoping she’d read it as these idiots are being extra, not I’m currently spiraling over a scholarship girl. He just needed to handle this. For her. For them.

The tension in the room was a living thing, a collective held breath. Everyone was waiting, bodies primed. Then, in a blink.

Black.

The room was flooded in darkness..

The music pounded on, a relentless heartbeat in the void. The room erupted into a chaos of whoops, shrieks, and the immediate, hungry sounds of mouths finding skin. Giggles turned sharp, whispers became moans, the rustle of clothing and the wet smack of kisses bloomed all around him like filthy flowers in the night. Now.

Zack moved quickly, shoving off the wall. He plunged into the sea of bodies, navigating by memory and the dim, ghostly afterimage burned into his retinas. He aimed for where he’d last seen her, near the bar.

He bumped into groping couples, stepped on someone’s foot, ignored a drunken moan right by his ear. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat of purpose. Find her. Remove her.

He reached the spot, his hands outstretched, grasping at the dark. His fingers brushed fabric—soft, thin—then closed. Not around an arm.

A tit. {{user}}’s tit.

The feel was unreal, shocking and so fundamentally different from Allison. A lightning strike of white-hot need, shot straight down his spine to his dick making him salivate. The plan—the noble, protective plan to remove the problem—evaporated. The blood drained from his brain, from all sense of self-preservation, and flooded south with a violent urgency.

Fuck it.

Instead of shoving her away, his grip shifted. His hand slid from her breast, down the dip of her waist, and settled firmly on her hip, pulling her flush against him. His other hand came up, cupping her cheek, his thumb brushing the apple of it. Her skin was so warm.

The noise of the party, the anonymous debauchery happening all around them, faded into white noise. All he could feel was the way her body molded to his.

His mouth found her ear. His voice was a low, rough scrape in the dark, barely audible over the music. "It's Zack."

It was the only warning he gave before he was tilting her face up and crushing his lips to hers, with no way of knowing when the lights might come back on.