Chapter Two – First Impressions

Chapter Two – First Impressions

(Dante POV)

The room was already too small. It always was—tight walls, buzzing overhead light, the faint tang of disinfectant clinging to the cinder blocks. Four steps from door to window. Two strides to cross from bed to bed. Now, with Eli Summers hauling in boxes like he was moving into a vacation cottage instead of a shared dorm, it felt suffocating.

I leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, my shoulder blades digging into the cold paint. I let my gaze track him the way I’d study an opponent warming up before a game: sharp, assessing, waiting for the tell.

Skinny frame drowning in an oversized hoodie. Sneakers scuffed, more from wandering sidewalks than running drills. Hair curling against his forehead like he hadn’t bothered to fight it into place. He looked like someone who lived in coffee shops and bookstores, not locker rooms. Not in my world.

And yet here he was, in my space.

He tripped over my duffel bag, muttered something under his breath, then looked up with a smile. Wide, awkward, too quick. A peace offering. It shouldn’t have caught me off guard, but it did.

He wasn’t scared. At least, not enough to hide it.

“Eli,” he’d said, sticking out his name like it needed anchoring. His voice was softer than I expected. Not weak, but unarmored.

I gave him nothing. Not yet. Just a glance, enough for him to know I’d heard.

He kept moving anyway. Box open, contents spilling out like confessions: a chipped cat mug, spiral notebooks covered in doodles, fairy lights tangled in a knot he worked free with steady fingers. He set each item on the desk like small claims on territory. My side of the room looked sterile by comparison—one stack of textbooks, my gear, my duffel. Nothing more. Nothing that said “me.”

“Fairy lights?” The words slipped out before I could stop them.

He glanced over, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Ambience matters,” he said, eyes sparking like he was daring me to laugh.

I didn’t. Not exactly. But my mouth betrayed me with the faintest twitch.

He noticed. I could tell. His shoulders loosened a fraction, like my reaction gave him permission to breathe.

Lightness. That’s what it felt like—strange, foreign. He had no idea what he was stepping into, and somehow that ignorance wasn’t irritating. It was… unsettling.

He filled the silence with chatter, voice bouncing around the small room. About his old dorm, about his younger sister who’d mailed him the mug, about how he got lost on his way here and ended up circling the same hallway three times. His words tumbled out too fast, like he was afraid of what silence might reveal.

I didn’t answer most of it. Just cataloged him instead.

The way his hands shook slightly when he plugged the lights in. The way his eyes darted toward me and then away again, like he wanted to read me but couldn’t handle the answer. The way he pressed his lips together when the cord tangled again, then forced a grin to cover it.

He was trying too hard. But maybe I was, too. Trying too hard to look unaffected, like his presence wasn’t already pressing against the edges of my patience, my walls.

I lifted my water bottle, forced my jaw to stay loose as I took a sip. If I let it tighten, if I let anything slip, he’d see more than I wanted him to.

Finally, the string of lights blinked on. Warm gold shimmer spilled across the walls, chasing away the sterile brightness of the overhead lamp. I expected to hate it. Expected to snap and tell him to take them down.

Instead, I sat there, caught in it. The glow softened the sharp corners of the cinder blocks, blurred the edges of the room. It looked less like a cell, more like something lived in.

Eli stepped back, satisfied, brushing his hands on his jeans. His reflection overlapped mine in the dark window. For a second, we stood there side by side, doubled in the glass. He didn’t seem to notice. I did.

And in that instant, the truth settled heavy in my chest.

This wasn’t going to be simple. Not even close.