Chapter Three – The Shirtless Problem

Chapter 3 – The Shirtless Problem

(Eli’s POV)

I’d read somewhere that literature prepares you for every human emotion. Clearly, whoever wrote that never had to share a dorm room with a six-foot-something athlete who thinks shirts are optional.

The first time Dante peeled his practice jersey off in front of me, I told myself I’d be cool. Just another body. Just… shoulders, chest, abs. Perfectly normal human anatomy. Nothing to write sonnets about. Except my treacherous brain immediately began composing iambic pentameter about the curve of his collarbone.

And Dante didn’t just strip. He stretched afterward, like he was auditioning for some slow-motion sports drink commercial. My gaze was supposed to be on my book—Milton, no less, which felt like divine punishment. Paradise lost? Yeah, Milton, I get it.

“Why’re you staring?” His voice came rough, but not unkind.

Heat shot up my neck. “I wasn’t. I was… uh… rereading this passage.” I tilted the book so he could see. Which would’ve been more convincing if the book wasn’t upside down.

The corner of his mouth twitched, like he wanted to smile but couldn’t quite allow it. “Right. You do that a lot.”

“Do what?”

“Talk too much when you’re nervous.”

“I’m not nervous,” I said, which was the truest lie I’d ever told.

He dropped into his desk chair, towel draped over his shoulders, hair still damp from the shower. He smelled faintly of clean soap and whatever cologne made frat boys look like magazine ads. I hated that I noticed. I hated more that I liked it.

The silence between us stretched. Usually, I filled it with chatter—rambling about my lit classes, my professor’s obsession with modernist misery, how I couldn’t decide whether T.S. Eliot was brilliant or just pretentious. Tonight, words stuck in my throat.

“Don’t you have a paper to finish?” he asked.

“I do.” I tightened my grip on the pen. My handwriting had turned into incomprehensible squiggles, like my brain had gone on strike.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught him leaning back in the chair, watching me. Not with his usual irritation, but with something softer. Curious. It sent my pulse into freefall.

I forced my eyes back to the page. One sentence. Just write one sentence. Instead, my pen sketched the shape of his shoulders in the margin. Fantastic. Now I was doodling him like a lovesick teenager.

“You’re weird,” he muttered.

The word should’ve stung, but the way he said it wasn’t cruel. More… bemused. Like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to push me away or pull me closer.

I decided to push back, because humor was my only weapon. “Weird is just another word for interesting. You’re welcome.”

That earned me a huff of laughter—barely audible, but real. And the worst part? That single sound felt like victory. Like scoring a touchdown in a game I hadn’t known I was playing.

The room settled again. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, scrolling his phone. I pretended to study, but every few seconds my gaze betrayed me, darting back to the slope of his back, the muscles shifting under his skin.

I wondered what it would feel like to trace them with my fingertips.

And then I hated myself for wondering.

Because Dante Cruz was a walking complication. A closed book I had no business trying to annotate. I’d only just met him, but already I knew—he was the kind of story you couldn’t put down, even if it destroyed you.

So I buried my head in Milton again, whispering the line that felt too fitting: The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

Yep. Hell of heaven. Exactly.