All Chapters of The Quarterback's Roommate : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

Chapter 61 – New City, Same Lights (Eli POV) The apartment smelled like fresh paint and someone else’s life. I dropped the last box the one labeled “FRAGILE (mostly books and feelings)” in my own messy handwriting onto the laminate floor and immediately regretted it. The thud echoed louder than it should have in a space this small. One bedroom, one bathroom, one window that looked directly into another building’s brick wall. Home sweet starter home. The kind of place people move into when they’re trying to prove they can survive on their own, even when every instinct screams to run back to the person who makes surviving feel easy. I stood in the middle of the bare living room, hands on my hips, trying to decide whether the emptiness felt like freedom or just loneliness with better lighting. Probably both. The single lamp I’d plugged in threw long shadows across the wall—no posters yet, no bookshelves, no croissant pillow, no trace of the life we’d built together over the last few y

Chapter 63 – Long-Distance Rules (Eli POV) I wrote the rules on a sticky note. Not because I actually believed sticky notes had magical jurisdiction over human emotion, but because writing things down has always made me feel like I have a fighting chance against chaos. The paper was neon yellow—impossible to ignore—and I used the black Sharpie I’d found in the junk drawer that still smelled faintly of permanent marker and old takeout receipts. I stuck it to the fridge anyway, right at eye level so I’d see it every time I opened the door for water or leftovers or just to stand there staring at nothing. **Long-Distance Rules (Tentative Draft #4)** 1. Video calls at least 4× a week. No canceling unless someone is literally bleeding. 2. No scrolling through each other’s social media at 2 a.m. looking for clues. 3. If either of us is having a bad day, we say it. No “I’m fine” bullshit. 4. Care packages must contain at least one stupid thing (croissant pillow optional). 5. No je

Chapter 65 – Making It Right (Eli POV)I bought the ticket at 1:14 a.m.Not impulsively. Not exactly.I’d spent the previous four hours staring at the ceiling, rereading our last text thread until the words stopped making sense, then rereading them again anyway. The silence after “I’m sorry” had stretched into something solid, something I could feel pressing on my ribs every time I breathed.So I opened the airline app. Picked the cheapest red-eye Friday night. Hit purchase before I could talk myself out of it.No heads-up. No warning text. Just a screenshot of the boarding pass saved to my phone like contraband.I told myself it was logistics. I told myself he’d be happy to see me. I told myself a lot of things.Mostly I told myself that if I waited for him to fix it first, we might both get too good at being apart.The flight was delayed forty minutes. I spent the extra time in the terminal bathroom splashing cold water on my face and practicing what I would say w

Chapter 67 – Coming Out, Round Two (Eli POV)Monday morning my inbox had 14 new emails from people I barely knew.Subject lines ranged from polite curiosity (“Hey, saw the pic—congrats?”) to passive-aggressive fishing (“Didn’t realize you were dating a football player 👀”) to one single-word monstrosity from a former classmate I hadn’t spoken to since sophomore year: “Really?”I deleted that last one without opening it.Then I made coffee. Very bad coffee. The kind that tastes like regret and scorched beans because I was too distracted to measure anything properly.I sat at the tiny kitchen table—still just a folding thing I’d bought off a curbside listing—and stared at my laptop like it might apologize.It didn’t.The photo was everywhere now. Not front-page-of-ESPN everywhere. Not yet. But campus group chats, Twitter threads with 8k likes, a couple of low-follower sports gossip accounts, even a Reddit post in r/CollegeFootball with the title: “Dante Cruz spott

Chapter 69 – The Ring Box (Eli POV)I wasn’t snooping.That’s the story I’m sticking to.I was simply… reorganizing. Very responsibly. Like an adult who has lived with another adult for years and therefore knows exactly where everything belongs.Dante had gone out for a quick run “just five miles, I’ll be back before you finish the chapter” and I’d decided the duffel he’d left half-unpacked in the corner was a fire hazard. A public safety issue, really.So I unzipped it.Just the top.Just enough to fold the hoodie that was spilling out like it was trying to escape.That’s when I saw it.Small. Black velvet. Tucked into the side pocket like it was no big deal.My heart did something violent and uncoordinated inside my ribcage.I stared at it for approximately seven seconds without breathing.Then I very carefully using only the tips of two fingers, like it might explode pulled it out.It was heavier than it looked.I didn’t open it.I’m not a monster.I just… held it.In