LOGINNoah~I was still half-asleep when my phone started buzzing against the nightstand, the screen lighting up the dark corner of the dorm room in short, insistent flashes. Theo’s breathing stayed steady beside me, one arm thrown loosely across my waist like he had claimed the space in his sleep and refused to give it back. I reached for the phone carefully, not wanting to wake him, and squinted at the notifications stacking up one after another.A campus account I barely followed had posted a photo. Blurry. Taken from a distance. Two figures walking near the edge of the quad, hands linked, shoulders close. The caption was short and pointed.Who’s this?I stared at it longer than I should have. The quality was bad enough that faces were hard to make out, just the shape of us, the way Theo’s thumb hooked over mine, the familiar tilt of my head toward him. Anyone who knew us well would see it. Anyone who didn’t would only see two guys holding hands on a Thursday morning like it was the most
Theo~I dropped the last box onto the floor of the dorm room and straightened up, rolling my shoulders against the ache that had settled there from carrying everything up three flights of stairs. The space was small, two beds pushed against opposite walls, a shared desk under the window, and a closet that would never hold all of our clothes. But it was ours. The university had finally sorted the rooming mess after weeks of forms and quiet pressure from people who preferred not to have Theo Morrison living off-campus with his boyfriend. We got the same room. I had spent the afternoon moving the rest of my things in, stacking books on the shelf Noah had cleared for me and hanging my jackets next to his.Noah stood in the middle of the room with a half-unpacked bag at his feet, watching me with that soft look he got when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. The late afternoon light cut across the floor in long strips, catching the dust we had kicked up. It felt ordinary and brand new a
Reina~I spread the files across my kitchen table under the harsh overhead light and stared at the name printed in bold at the top of the first folder. Morrison. The same name that had started appearing in quiet conversations around the club, the same name attached to the sudden pressure on Theo, the same name that kept turning up in places it had no business being. My coffee had gone cold hours ago. I didn’t care. The stack of printouts, old articles, and sealed court documents felt heavier than paper should.I had started digging the moment the anonymous emails about Theo reached my desk. Something about the timing felt wrong. Too clean. Too convenient. Sponsors asking questions right after Theo walked away from the old contract and started being seen with Noah. I had seen smear campaigns before, but this one carried the sharp edge of someone with real resources and no patience for subtlety.The first few hours turned up nothing useful. Public records showed Theo’s father as a succe
Reina~I spread the files across my kitchen table under the harsh overhead light and stared at the name printed in bold at the top of the first folder. Morrison. The same name that had started appearing in quiet conversations around the club, the same name attached to the sudden pressure on Theo, the same name that kept turning up in places it had no business being. My coffee had gone cold hours ago. I didn’t care. The stack of printouts, old articles, and sealed court documents felt heavier than paper should.I had started digging the moment the anonymous emails about Theo reached my desk. Something about the timing felt wrong. Too clean. Too convenient. Sponsors asking questions right after Theo walked away from the old contract and started being seen with Noah. I had seen smear campaigns before, but this one carried the sharp edge of someone with real resources and no patience for subtlety.The first few hours turned up nothing useful. Public records showed Theo’s father as a succe
Benito~I sat on the edge of the bed in the small room I rented above the corner shop and stared at the floor until the light from the window shifted across it. The guilt had been sitting in my chest for days now and it was getting heavier. Every time I checked my phone and saw another message from the number I was not supposed to answer I felt it press harder. I had started this. That was the part I could not push away no matter how many times I told myself the money had been necessary.Theo’s father had found me weeks earlier. I still remembered the first meeting clearly because nothing about it had felt normal. He had sent a short text with an address and a time. No name. No explanation. Just the location of a quiet café on the edge of the industrial area where the tables were far apart and the staff did not linger. I almost did not go. Then I thought about the hospital bills that kept arriving and the way my mother had stopped answering the phone when the collection agencies calle
Coach~I closed the folder when Theo sat down and kept my hands flat on top of it. Sponsors had started asking questions. They wanted to know if the new signing was going to become a problem before the season even began. I had answered each of them the same way so far, but the answers were starting to feel thin.Theo looked calm enough. He always did when something was wrong. I had watched him long enough to know the difference between a quiet day and a day when he was holding things in. Today was the second kind.“We need to talk about some emails that have been going around,” I said. “Anonymous ones. They claim you have been involved in inappropriate conduct. No details that hold up, just enough to make people wonder. A few of the sponsors have already seen versions of them and they are asking me if the stories are true.”He did not look surprised. That told me more than anything he might have said. I waited a moment to see if he would fill the silence. He stayed quiet, so I kept go
Melody~By the third week of pretending I was fine, I was ready to admit I was terrible at it.Not out loud, of course. Out loud I was doing great. I went to class. Answered questions, held conversations. I even laughed a few times when people expected me to. From the outside, I probably looked com
Noah~I’d seen a lot of people try to fake control before.Athletes, especially. Hockey guys were the worst for it. All that chest-beating, loud voices and hard eyes, like if they looked confident enough nobody would notice they were falling apart inside. I had absolutely no idea why the fuckers co
Theodore~I should've fucking said no. That was the first thought that hit me when I saw the moving truck pull up but the second thought was far worse.Why is he actually here?I stood by the window of my dorm, arms crossed, watching like it was some kind of bad joke the universe was trying to sel
CHAPTER 4Theodore~“Mom, you can’t do that!”My voice cracked and pitched higher than I meant it to. I cleared my throat, forcing myself to breathe through my nose before I completely embarrassed myself. Jesus Christ. How could she possibly think this was okay? Sharing a dorm was one thing.Sharin







