Yorkside

POV: Silver Preston

I have barely managed to pull my toiletries from the depths of my duffel bag when Americus materializes beside my bed like a sequined genie, hands planted on her hips.

"We need a bonding night."

I look up from the narrow desk where I am attempting to arrange the handful of things I brought. A few textbooks. My phone charger. A small prescription bottle I slide quickly toward the back corner, out of easy view.

"Mandatory roommate tradition," she continues, already pulling out her phone. "Non-negotiable."

"Mandatory?"

"Obviously."

Her fingers move across the screen with the speed of someone who treats texting as a competitive sport.

"Dorm decorating can wait. Fairy lights will still be fairy lights tomorrow. Tonight we need pizza. Nothing bonds two people faster than grease, cheese, and questionable decisions made after nine PM."

Before I can form a single coherent objection, she is already spinning toward the door.

"Riley's coming too. You're going to love her."

"Riley?"

"My other half. The calm to my chaos. The method to my madness."

She pauses with one hand on the door handle, grinning like she already knows exactly how this evening is going to go.

"You'll see."

Yorkside Pizza sits on Broadway, squeezed between a used bookstore and a laundromat, exactly the kind of place that every college town seems to produce by necessity.

The smell reaches me before we are even through the door.

Melted mozzarella. Garlic. Yeast. The deep, specific warmth of a pizza oven that has been running since before most of Yale's current students were born.

Inside, mismatched vinyl booths line the walls, their red surfaces cracked with age and patched with duct tape applied more with hope than skill. The floor is black and white checkerboard tile, several squares replaced over the years with pieces that do not quite match. Signed photographs of Yale students cover nearly every inch of wall space, decades of them, overlapping at the edges.

Yorkside is a New Haven institution. Yale students have been coming here long enough that the place feels like part of the campus itself.

Americus orders without looking at the menu.

"Two large pies. Pepperoni mushroom and one with everything that will not actually kill us. Three Cokes. Real ones. We are living dangerously tonight."

We claim a booth by the window just as a girl with soft chestnut hair appears in the doorway.

She spots us immediately.

Her smile is the kind that reaches her eyes without any effort, the kind that cannot be performed. She slides into the booth across from me and sets down three sodas with the practiced ease of someone who has spent time in food service.

"Silver, this is Riley Giles," Americus announces, gesturing between us like she is introducing diplomats. "The yin to my glittery yang. The voice of reason that keeps me out of actual legal trouble on a weekly basis."

Riley rolls her eyes, but the affection underneath it is obvious.

"Hi. Americus told me you were mysterious and possibly dangerous to know."

I blink.

"Dangerous?"

"She has a tendency toward hyperbole," Riley says, shooting Americus a look that manages to be both fond and tired simultaneously. "I divide everything she says by three to get the actual truth. It is safer for everyone."

Something in my chest loosens slightly without my permission.

"I'll keep that in mind."

The pizzas arrive in a wave of steam that makes my stomach react in a way that reminds me I have eaten almost nothing since the airport.

Americus claims a slice loaded with enough toppings to constitute a small ecosystem. Pepperoni, olives, pineapple, three visible cheese varieties.

I reach for a plain cheese slice and let the conversation move around me for a while.

Which professors are rumored to be impossible. Which dining hall has the best coffee situation. Whether Branford's courtyard is charming or just cold once the temperature drops.

Americus carries most of it, her voice bright enough to compete with the neon signs buzzing in the window. Riley adds quieter observations that somehow land harder, grounding Americus's more dramatic statements in something approaching reality.

I mostly listen.

It is strange in a way I was not prepared for, sitting in a booth with girls my age who are not competitors or training partners. Who do not know my ranking or my personal best scores or what my free skate program looks like in slow motion replay.

No one mentions triple Lutzes.

No one looks at my knee brace with that particular combination of pity and morbid curiosity I have been navigating for three months.

They are just college freshmen worrying about textbook prices and whether professors actually take attendance.

It is so ordinary it almost hurts.

After both pizzas have been reduced to crusts and grease-soaked paper plates, Americus turns her full attention to me.

"Okay, mystery roommate. What is your actual thing?"

I poke at a piece of pizza crust.

"Nothing much."

"Absolute lies."

She points at me with a ring-covered finger.

"Everyone has a thing. Riley's thing is being quietly brilliant at everything while pretending she has no idea what she is doing. Mine is being fabulous and spreading joy through glitter. Yours is what, exactly?"

Riley leans forward slightly.

"You do not have to answer. Americus means well but she operates at one speed."

"Mystery is fine," Americus says, completely unbothered. "It adds intrigue to any social dynamic. I will figure you out eventually, Preston. I am like a detective but with significantly better fashion choices."

I shake my head.

But the smile that breaks through my carefully maintained composure is real, and I cannot entirely stop it.

The neon signs outside paint the window in alternating washes of red and blue. The sounds of a college town settling into its evening routine filter through the glass. Students crossing Broadway. Car doors. Distant music from somewhere up the block.

For the first time since Nationals, the tightness in my chest eases.

Just slightly.

Just enough to notice.

Americus leans back against the cracked vinyl, cleaning pizza grease from her rings with a stack of napkins.

"I am officially declaring this a success. We are a trio now." She points at Riley. "Secret genius." She points at herself. "Chaos agent." She points at me. "Brooding mystery girl with hidden depths."

"I don't brood."

"You absolutely brood. It is practically a signature move. Very dramatic. I respect it deeply."

Riley laughs. Soft and genuine.

"She kind of has a point."

I shake my head again, but the warmth spreading through my chest is becoming difficult to argue with.

Then Americus sits forward, and her eyes take on that particular dangerous sparkle that I am already learning to recognize as the precursor to either a great idea or a terrible one.

She lowers her voice to what she clearly believes is a whisper but which carries easily to the next booth over.

"I know exactly how to make this bonding experience legendary. Want to meet my brothers?"

I look at her.

"Your brothers go to Yale?"

Her grin spreads slowly, deliberately, like she has been saving this moment.

"Not exactly brothers. More like chosen family. The kind of boys who have collectively adopted me as their little sister and would absolutely commit crimes if anyone ever made me cry."

She pauses.

Lets the silence sit there.

"Hockey players."