Chapter Two – First Impressions

Chapter Two – First Impressions

(Dante POV)

The room was already too small. It always had been. Four steps from the door to the window. Two long strides to cross from one bed to the other. The walls pressed in like they were waiting for an excuse to close the gap entirely. The overhead fluorescent buzzed faintly, the same low drone I’d tuned out last year, and the air still carried that sharp, institutional tang of bleach and new paint trying to cover up years of other people’s sweat and spilled energy drinks.

I’d claimed the left side the second I walked in—dropped my duffel, lined up my cleats under the bedframe, stacked my textbooks in descending order of weight. Everything deliberate. Everything controlled. The way I liked it. The way I needed it.

Then Eli Summers arrived.

He came through the door like he’d been launched from somewhere softer—shoulders hunched under the weight of a cardboard box that looked ready to split at the seams, hoodie sleeves pushed up to his elbows, dark curls sticking to his forehead from the heat outside. He didn’t knock. Didn’t announce himself. Just stumbled inside, caught his toe on the edge of my duffel, and nearly went down in a tangle of limbs and cardboard.

“Seriously?” he wheezed, catching himself on the desk with one hand. The box hit the floor with a dull thud that echoed in my ribcage.

I didn’t move. Just watched.

He straightened slowly, brushing hair out of his eyes, and finally looked at me. Wide hazel eyes. Freckles scattered across the bridge of his nose like someone had flicked a paintbrush at him. A crooked, uncertain smile that arrived too fast, like he’d rehearsed it in the hallway.

“Eli,” he said, offering his name the way someone might offer an open palm to a stray dog—cautious, hopeful. His voice was quieter than I expected. Not timid, exactly. Just… unguarded.

I let the silence stretch. Let my gaze slide over him the same way I’d study game tape: cataloging posture, movement, tells. Skinny wrists. Scuffed sneakers that had seen more pavement than turf. Jeans rolled at the ankle like he couldn’t be bothered to hem them properly. Everything about him screamed coffee shops, late-night study sessions, dog-eared novels. Nothing about him belonged in a room with my playbook binders and protein shaker bottles.

And yet here he was. In my space.

I leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, shoulder blades pressing into the cold cinder block. The paint was chipped in one corner; I could feel the rough edge against my skin. I kept my expression blank. Neutral. The same mask I wore when cameras were rolling or when a coach asked why I’d missed a read.

He didn’t flinch under the stare. Most people did—at least a little. He just exhaled, muttered something I didn’t catch, and dropped to his knees to unpack.

Out came the evidence of who he was.

A ceramic mug shaped like a smug cat wearing sunglasses. Spiral notebooks with covers already bleeding ink doodles—swirling vines, cartoonish monsters, random song lyrics in loopy handwriting. A laptop plastered with stickers: rainbow flags, band logos, a tiny cartoon ghost giving a thumbs-up. He arranged each item on his desk with careful attention, like he was building a small altar to himself.

My side looked clinical next to it. One neat stack of textbooks. My playbook. A single framed photo of me and my dad after my first college start—both of us stone-faced, arms around each other’s shoulders. That was it. No clutter. No excess.

He glanced over at my half of the room, then back at his growing chaos.

“You’re neat,” he said, almost to himself. A small laugh escaped him. “Like… scary neat. Did they teach you that in quarterback school or is it just a personality trait?”

I grunted. Low. Noncommittal.

He took it as encouragement.

He kept talking—words spilling out like he was afraid silence would swallow the room whole. Something about his old dorm being infested with ants last year. About his younger sister who’d mailed him the cat mug because “it looked judgmental like you.” About getting lost on the way here, circling the same third-floor hallway three times before realizing the room numbers went backward.

I didn’t answer most of it. Just listened. Cataloged.

The slight tremor in his fingers when he tried to untangle the string of fairy lights. The way his gaze flicked toward me every few seconds—quick, assessing, then darting away like he’d been caught staring. The way he pressed his lips together when the cord knotted again, then forced that same bright, deflecting grin.

He was trying too hard.

But maybe I was too.

Trying too hard to keep my shoulders relaxed. Trying too hard to keep my jaw from locking. Trying too hard to pretend his presence wasn’t already pressing against every carefully drawn line I’d built around myself.

I reached for my water bottle, twisted the cap off with more force than necessary, took a long drink. The cold shocked my throat. Grounded me.

He finally got the lights untangled. Stood on the desk chair—precarious, one hand braced on the wall—and stretched the strand across the top of his side of the room. When he plugged them in, warm golden light bloomed.

I expected irritation. Expected the instinct to rise up and tell him to rip them down, that this wasn’t a goddamn fairy garden.

Instead the glow hit the walls and something in my chest shifted.

The harsh fluorescent overhead dimmed in comparison. Shadows softened. The sharp edges of the cinder blocks blurred. The room stopped feeling like a holding cell and started feeling… lived in. Like someone had remembered to breathe inside it.

Eli stepped down, brushed his palms on his jeans, and turned in a slow circle, surveying his work with quiet satisfaction.

His reflection appeared in the dark window beside mine.

For a single heartbeat we stood there, doubled in the glass—him loose-limbed and glowing, me rigid and shadowed. He didn’t seem to notice the overlap. I couldn’t look away.

The warmth from the lights crept across the floor toward my side of the room, brushing the edge of my bed like an invitation I hadn’t asked for.

My pulse kicked once—hard—against my ribs.

This wasn’t going to be simple.

He wasn’t going to be simple.

Eli Summers had walked in here with boxes full of chaos and a smile that didn’t know how to quit, and in less than thirty minutes he’d already cracked something I’d spent years reinforcing.

I looked away from the window. Down at my hands. They were clenched into fists on my thighs.

I forced them open. One finger at a time.

He was still chattering—something about whether the lights were too bright, if I wanted him to dim them, if maybe we should figure out whose charger went where.

I didn’t answer right away.

Instead I leaned my head back against the wall, closed my eyes for half a second, and let the golden light settle over me like a weight I didn’t yet know how to carry.

This wasn’t going to be simple.

Not even close.