ログインEli found a table in the back corner of the Bird’s Nest reading room at half past three and had been there forty minutes when someone sat down across from him without asking.He looked up at Lucien, set his books down, pulled out his chair, and opened his laptop. “There are other tables,” Eli said.“Yes,” Lucien said, and said nothing else.Eli looked at him for a moment, then he looked back down at his notes.“You didn’t show up until 2pm, why?” Lucien said without looking up from his laptop.“There was a time and no place, I figured you were just trying to be coy” Eli said in a low tone as he looked at Lucien through his dark curls that rested on his face. “I wondered how long it took you to figure it out,” Lucien said, glancing at him for a moment before looking back at his screen. Eli could see him obviously fighting back a smile. The reading room was the quietest place on campus, it had high ceilings, long wooden tables, most people whispered here without being told to.Lucie
Lucien told himself he was taking a different route. The south path ran parallel to the athletics track and he used it sometimes when the east corridor was congested, which it was on Thursdays, which was why he was here, which had nothing to do with anything else. He told himself that, then he saw Eli and stopped walking. The track was mostly empty at this hour, a few athletes at the far end, a coach with a clipboard, and Eli alone on the straight, just running, like really running. Lucien hadn’t seen Eli run before, this was him without an audience, without the brightness he wore like a second jacket, without any performance. Lucien stood at the edge of the path and watched him, he tried not to think much about the fact that he wasn't walking past like he planned to. Eli ran two lengths before he slowed, hands on his knees, breathing hard. Then he straightened and looked up and found Lucien standing there, they just stared at each other across the distance. Eli didn’t smile, he
Lucien knocked on Cassian’s door before seven.Cassian answered in a t-shirt, not fully awake, and took one look at Lucien’s face and stepped aside without a word.“Let it end, today” Lucien said. “What’s that?.” “The bet” “Is that all you came to say?” Cassian sat on the edge of his bed. “Yes.”Cassian looked at him for a moment. “Luce.”“I’m asking one thing.”“Are you falling for him?”The room went quiet.“No,” Lucien said.“Okay.”“I’m not. It’s thirty days, it’s a bet, it’s” he stopped.Cassian didn't move, he just stared at him. “It ends today,” Lucien said, and walked away.He made it through two lectures before his phone buzzed.@saintaurelius_confessions posted at eleven forty-three. ‘Since we’re all invested in the Lucien Vale situation, here’s something; He and Adrian Cross were a thing? Why did they split up? Is it because of Eli Thorne?’The comments ran fast.‘What?’‘Adrian cross?? fencing captain??’‘Does Eli Thorne know about this?’Lucien put his phone away a
By seven forty three in the evening, the campus had a new post.@saintaurelius_confessions: ‘Lucien Vale just publicly destroyed Hargreaves in the planning meeting for talking about Eli Thorne. I need everyone to understand what I just witnessed. HE SAT DOWN NEXT TO HIM AFTER. like it was nothing. like he does this’The comments were different this time."Okay, I was wrong. This is real’‘the way he just LISTED his credentials at him. surgical’‘somebody protect the scholarship boy because Lucien Vale is down BAD and doesn’t know it yet’Eli baked when things got loud in his head, tonight his head was full, the planning meeting, Lucien’s voice saying you were just leaving and the look on Hargreaves’ face and the way he had sat down beside him.The Bee’s Hive kitchen was mostly used for instant noodles. Eli had claimed it at ten pm with a mixing bowl, flour and butter. He was making shortbread, because it was simple, exactly what the occasion required.At ten forty-five, someone knocke
The photo dropped at seven forty-three in the morning.@saintaurelius_confessions: a slightly grainy shot of Café Maren’s corner table, two figures leaning slightly toward each other over coffee cups, one of them unmistakably Lucien Vale. The caption underneath was short and did not try to be subtle.‘so we’re just letting this happen? Lucien Vale and the scholarship transfer? someone talk to me’The comments came fast;‘he literally just arrived’ ‘what does he even have to offer?’‘i give it a week before lucien gets bored and this kid goes home crying’‘feel bad for him actually. Lucien doesn’t do this. something’s off’By the time Eli read it at breakfast, there were two hundred and fourteen comments and climbing. He scrolled through them with one hand and ate his toast with the other.Noah watched him from across the table.“You okay?”“Yep.” Eli put his phone face down. “Toast is good today.”“Eli”“I grew up being the wrong kind of person in a town that had opinions about every
On Thursday morning, Lucien sent Eli a text; ‘Café Maren on Saturday by 2pm, don’t be late’Eli’s reply came four minutes later; ‘okay but just so you know I’ve never been late for anything in my life’And then, thirty seconds after that;‘also good morning’Lucien stared at the message on his phone, put his phone face down on his desk and went back to his reading, but there was a slight smile on his lips that he didn’t know he was wearing.Eli spent Friday trying not to think about Saturday, he failed completely.“You’re doing the thing,” Noah said, not looking up from his laptop.“What thing?”“The thing where you’re very busy doing nothing.”Eli was lying on his bed staring at the ceiling with his shoes still on. “I’m resting.”“You’ve been resting for forty minutes and you keep checking your phone.”“Noah.”“You know this is going to hurt, right?” Noah said and Eli was quiet for a moment. He thought about the stairwell, about Lucien standing in the doorway saying you’re in my wa







