All Chapters of Loving Him For 30 Days: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

“You’re going to get eaten alive.”“Good morning to you too.” Eli Thorne dropped his bag onto the bed nearest to the window and looked around the room. Two beds, two desks, one wardrobe that was clearly already claimed, and a view of a beautiful courtyard. He loved it at Saint Aurelius from the start.“I’m serious.” His new roommate, Noah Beckett, according to the name card on the door, watched him unpack.“Saint Aurelius eats transfers alive, especially scholarship kids, especially the ones who show up looking like” he gestured at all of Eli, “that.”Eli looked down at himself, his plain white shirt, track pants, and one shoe slightly untied.“Like what?” He said, curious.“Like you don’t know yet,” Noah replied, with the same look on his face. “Know what?”Noah opened his mouth and closed it, shook his head slowly, deciding that the truth would be unkind. “Orientation is in twenty minutes. Try not to smile at anyone too directly.” He said after a moment, raising his head to see El

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

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

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

The student council always met at nine on Thursday mornings in the seminar room on the third floor, which had good light, and a table long enough that seven people could sit around it without being too close to anyone they didn’t want to be close to.Lucien was at the head of the table and at exactly eight fifty-eight the agenda opened.Cassian came in at nine exactly and sat two seats down without looking at him, which was its own kind of answer about how the morning was going.The meeting started.Item one The Winter Festival Budget. Item two Alumni Seating. Item three The Conduct Review Process for the spring semester.Lucien read through the agenda seamlessly and for the next twenty-three minutes, nothing interrupted that.Then at nine twenty-four, every phone in the room went off at once.Not one notification or two, it was a consistent ding of different phones at once and their best guess was that something was going off on @saintaureliusconfessions.Lucien kept his eyes on th