Two weeks passed in a blur of increasingly bizarre interruptions.
The volunteer orientation with Isabella—Dante showed up claiming he was considering joining, despite having no interest in pre-med anything.
The movie night Adrian organized with people from his dorm floor—Dante appeared with Marcus Reid and somehow ended up sitting directly behind Adrian and Isabella, making quiet comments throughout that completely destroyed Adrian's focus.
The study session at the library where Adrian had finally worked up the courage to ask Isabella about maybe going to the fall formal together—Dante materialized at their table with a "group project emergency" that required Adrian's immediate help, which turned out to be a complete fabrication.
Three dates. Three interruptions. Three times Adrian had been this close to something real with Isabella, only to have Dante insert himself into the situation like a human wrecking ball.
By the end of week two, Adrian was ready to combust.
He'd spent the evening with Isabella at the campus art gallery opening, actually managing a full two hours without Dante appearing. They'd looked at student paintings, talked about color theory and emotional expression, and Isabella had laughed at his jokes and touched his arm twice and Adrian had felt like maybe, maybe this could work.
Then he'd returned to the dorm at eleven PM to find Dante sitting at his desk, headphones on, working on his laptop like nothing was wrong.
Like he hadn't spent two weeks systematically destroying every chance Adrian had at happiness.
Something in Adrian snapped.
"What is your problem?" he demanded, slamming the door harder than necessary.
Dante pulled off his headphones slowly, turning in his chair to face Adrian. His expression was carefully neutral, perfectly composed. "I don't have a problem."
"You absolutely have a problem. You have multiple problems. You're a walking collection of problems."
"That's dramatic."
"You've sabotaged three of my dates with Isabella," Adrian said, his voice rising. "You show up everywhere I go. You watch me constantly. You knocked over an entire coffee display just to interrupt our conversation. You—"
"I haven't sabotaged anything," Dante interrupted, his voice maddeningly calm. "The world doesn't revolve around you, Adrian."
"Then why are you ALWAYS THERE?" Adrian was practically shouting now, weeks of frustration and confusion pouring out all at once. "Why do you care what I'm doing? Why does it matter if I'm spending time with Isabella?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Then why—"
"It doesn't matter to me what you do or who you do it with," Dante continued, standing up from his chair. His voice was still controlled, but Adrian could see tension in every line of his body. "If you want to pursue Isabella Chen, that's your choice."
"So why do you keep interrupting?"
"Maybe I just happen to be in the same places. Maybe you're paranoid. Maybe you're so obsessed with thinking everything I do is about you that you can't see reality."
"That's not—you're gaslighting me right now. You're literally gaslighting me."
"I'm stating facts."
"Facts? You want facts?" Adrian pulled out his phone, pulling up his calendar. "Monday the fifteenth, volunteer orientation, you showed up. Wednesday the seventeenth, movie night, you showed up. Friday the nineteenth, library study session, you showed up with a fake group project emergency. Tuesday the twenty-second—"
"I get it," Dante cut him off. "I was there. So what?"
"So what? So you're deliberately—"
"I'm deliberately what? Existing? Going places on campus? Living my life?" Dante took a step toward Adrian. "Or am I supposed to check with you first? Get your permission for where I'm allowed to be?"
"That's not what I'm saying."
"Then what are you saying?" Another step closer. "Say it clearly, Adrian. What exactly are you accusing me of?"
"I'm saying you're trying to—to sabotage my relationship with Isabella."
"What relationship?" Dante's voice had an edge now. "You've been on three dates. You're not in a relationship."
"We could be. If you'd stop interfering."
"I'm not interfering with anything."
"Yes, you are!" Adrian's hands clenched into fists at his sides. "Every time I get close to her, every time something might happen, you're there. Like you can't stand the idea of me being happy with someone."
Dante laughed, the sound harsh and bitter. "You think this is about you being happy?"
"What else would it be about?"
Dante crossed the remaining distance between them in two strides. Adrian found himself backed against the wall before he could process the movement, Dante's hands braced on either side of his head, caging him in.
Adrian's breath caught. Dante was taller now—at least six feet, maybe more—and broader from months of intensive basketball training. He filled Adrian's vision completely, dark eyes blazing with something Adrian had never seen before.
"Then why are you ALWAYS THERE?" The question came out barely above a whisper this time, because Adrian couldn't get enough air into his lungs with Dante this close, occupying his space in a way that made his heart hammer against his ribs.
Dante's jaw clenched. He was close enough that Adrian could count his eyelashes, could see the faint scar on his left eyebrow from when he'd fallen off the monkey bars in third grade, could smell his shampoo—something clean and pine-scented that Adrian had been trying very hard not to notice for two weeks.
"You think this is about her?" Dante's voice dropped, dangerous and raw, vibrating with barely controlled emotion.
Adrian opened his mouth to respond. No words came out.
The silence stretched between them, heavy and electric. Dante's eyes were dark, pupils blown wide, looking at Adrian like he was a puzzle that needed solving or a lifeline in a storm. The intensity was suffocating, overwhelming, made Adrian want to simultaneously run away and stay exactly where he was.
"You absolute idiot," Dante breathed finally.
Then he pushed off the wall, grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair, and left.
Just walked out at eleven PM on a Wednesday night into the October cold, slamming the door behind him hard enough to rattle the windows.
Adrian stood frozen against the wall, heart hammering, brain trying desperately to process what had just happened.
Dante had been so close. Close enough that Adrian had felt the heat radiating off his body, had seen the way Dante's chest rose and fell with quick, shallow breaths, had watched something vulnerable and terrifying flicker across his face before the anger took over.
You think this is about her?
Adrian replayed the words, the tone, the way Dante had looked at him like—like—
His phone buzzed. He answered without checking the caller ID.
"Sage," he said, his voice shaky. "Something just happened."
"Good something or bad something?"
"I don't know. Maybe both? Neither? I can't think."
"Okay, slow down. What happened?"
Adrian explained the confrontation, stumbling over his words, trying to capture the intensity of the moment without fully understanding it himself.
"He basically pinned you to a wall and called you an idiot?" Sage asked when he finished.
"Yes. Well, not exactly pinned. His hands were on the wall, not on me. But I was definitely trapped."
"And you STILL don't get it?"
"Get what?" Adrian's voice rose in frustration. "Get that my roommate has completely lost his mind? Get that he's acting like a possessive psycho for reasons I don't understand? Get that—"
"Oh my god," Sage interrupted. "You're both idiots."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Adrian. Babe. Love of my life. Light of my existence." Sage's voice was a mix of exasperation and affection. "I'm going to say this very clearly, and I need you to actually hear me. Are you listening?"
"Yes."
"Dante isn't jealous of you. He's jealous of Isabella."
Adrian's brain stuttered to a halt. "That doesn't make sense."
"Why not?"
"Because—because he's not interested in Isabella. He said so specifically. Multiple times."
"Right. He's not interested in Isabella." Sage spoke slowly, deliberately, like explaining something to a small child. "He's interested in you."
"That's—no. No, that's not—why would you even—"
"'You think this is about her?' What else could that possibly mean, Adrian?"
"It could mean—I don't know what it means! Maybe he's trying to say it's about something else entirely. Maybe it's about our competition. Maybe he can't stand the idea of me winning something, even if it's just a relationship. Maybe—"
"Or maybe," Sage cut him off gently, "the guy who's been watching you constantly, showing up everywhere you go, and looking like his world is ending every time you talk about Isabella, might possibly have feelings for you."
Adrian's knees felt weak. He sat down hard on his bed. "That's not—Dante doesn't—we've been rivals for eighteen years, Sage. We compete. That's what we do."
"What if that's not all you've been doing?"
"What else would we be doing?"
"I don't know, maybe circling each other for two decades because you're both too emotionally stunted to admit you have feelings?"
"I don't have feelings for Dante." The words came out automatic, defensive.
"Really? Because you talk about him constantly. You know his coffee order. You notice when he's not in your shared room. You had a physical reaction to seeing him shirtless that made you flee into a hallway."
"That was—I was surprised, that's all."
"Adrian."
"What?"
"When was the last time you thought about Isabella when Dante wasn't somehow involved in the thought?"
Adrian opened his mouth to respond. Closed it. Tried again. "That's not a fair question."
"Why not?"
"Because Dante keeps inserting himself into every situation with Isabella. Of course he's involved in my thoughts about her."
"Okay, different question. When you replay moments from the past two weeks in your head, what are you actually thinking about? Your conversations with Isabella, or your interactions with Dante?"
Adrian didn't answer.
"That's what I thought," Sage said softly.
"This is—you're reading too much into things. Dante is just being weird because of our history. He doesn't know how to not compete with me, so he's making everything into a competition even when it shouldn't be."
"Or he's desperately trying to get your attention because he doesn't know how else to communicate."
"That's not—people don't communicate by sabotaging dates."
"Healthy people don't. But you two aren't exactly experts at healthy communication, are you?"
Adrian lay back on his bed, staring at the ceiling. The room felt too quiet without Dante in it, which was a thought he didn't want to examine too closely.
"I need to go," he told Sage. "I need to think."
"Okay. But Adrian? Consider the possibility that you've been competing for the wrong thing all these years."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Figure it out yourself. I've given you enough hints for one night."
After they hung up, Adrian lay in the dark, mind racing.
You think this is about her?
What else could it be about?
The question circled his brain like a song he couldn't stop humming, pulling up memory after memory, recontextualizing eighteen years of rivalry into something else entirely.
The way Dante had looked at him in kindergarten when Adrian used the orange crayon instead of red—not triumphant but almost sad, like he'd lost something he didn't know how to ask for.
The track and field race at age ten when Dante had won by one second, then immediately turned to find Adrian in the crowd, dark eyes searching his face for something Adrian hadn't understood.
The basketball championship three months ago when Dante had made that final shot and gotten lifted onto his teammates' shoulders, but the first thing he'd done when they put him down was look for Adrian, ignoring everyone else trying to congratulate him.
And now—following Adrian around campus, showing up at every event, looking devastated every time Adrian mentioned Isabella, getting so worked up he'd literally walked out into the October night at eleven PM rather than finish a conversation that was getting too real.
He's interested in you, Sage had said.
Adrian's heart hammered against his ribs.
No. That was impossible. Dante Alaric, golden boy, basketball star, person who won everything—there was no universe where he'd be interested in Adrian Hayes, perpetual second place, the guy who couldn't quite measure up.
Except.
Except Dante had looked miserable for two weeks. Dante had stopped displaying his trophies. Dante had admitted basketball didn't make him happy anymore. Dante had been sitting alone on a roof at 3 AM looking lost.
What if all of that was somehow connected to Adrian in ways he'd been too blind to see?
The hours crawled by. Midnight came and went. One AM. Two AM. Three AM.
Dante didn't return.
Adrian tried to sleep, couldn't, gave up and stared at the ceiling instead. His mind kept replaying that moment—Dante's hands on the wall, Dante's eyes dark and vulnerable, Dante's voice rough with something that sounded almost like desperation.
You absolute idiot.
Who was the idiot in that scenario? Adrian for not understanding? Or Dante for—for what, exactly?
Four AM crept past. Still no Dante.
Adrian's stomach twisted with worry. Where would Dante go at eleven PM on a Wednesday? It was cold outside, probably forty degrees, and Dante had just grabbed his jacket without thinking, might not have his phone or wallet or keys.
What if something had happened? What if Dante was hurt or in trouble and Adrian was just lying here replaying conversations instead of—
The door opened at 5:47 AM, just as gray dawn light started filtering through the window.
Dante slipped inside quietly, moving like he didn't want to wake Adrian.
Adrian kept his eyes mostly closed, watching through his eyelashes.
Dante sat down on his bed without turning on any lights. His shoulders were hunched, head dropped forward into his hands. He stayed like that for a long moment, completely still.
Then his shoulders started shaking.
Adrian's breath caught. Was Dante—was he crying?
He watched through the dim morning light as Dante pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, trying to physically hold himself together. His whole body trembled with the effort of staying silent, of not making a sound that might wake his supposedly sleeping roommate.
Adrian had never seen Dante cry. Not when he'd skinned both knees falling off his bike in second grade. Not when his grandfather died in eighth grade. Not even when they lost the state championship junior year, which everyone said Dante had been counting on.
But he was crying now, sitting five feet away from Adrian, falling apart as quietly as possible in the gray morning light.
And Adrian had absolutely no idea what to do about it.