Two weeks. Fourteen days of Isabella's lunch plans mysteriously interrupted by fire alarms. Movie dates canceled because someone—always someone—needed urgent help with physics homework. Study sessions at the library cut short when Dante appeared at the next table, creating atmosphere so tense Isabella made excuses and left.
Three sabotaged dates. Adrian had counted.
11 PM. Adrian opened the door to Room 447B expecting darkness, solitude, maybe an hour to himself before Dante returned from whatever basketball thing kept Dante out until midnight these days.
Instead: Dante at his desk, laptop screen casting blue light across Dante's face, shoulders hunched over whatever assignment consumed Dante's attention.
Adrian froze in the doorway. "I thought you had that team meeting."
"Canceled." Dante didn't look up. "Coach got the flu."
"Right." Adrian stepped inside, let the door close with a click that sounded too loud in the small space. "Of course."
Silence stretched. Adrian moved to his own desk, pulled out organic chemistry notes Isabella had lent him. Tried to focus on molecular structures. Failed. The back of Adrian's neck prickled with that constant awareness—Dante's presence like static electricity charging the air.
Ten minutes. Adrian lasted ten minutes before something inside snapped.
"What is your problem?" Adrian's voice came out sharp enough to cut.
Dante's fingers stilled on the keyboard. "I don't have a problem."
"Bullshit." Adrian shoved back from the desk, chair scraping against linoleum. "You've sabotaged three of my dates with Isabella. You show up everywhere I go. You—"
"I haven't sabotaged anything." Dante's tone stayed flat, controlled. "The world doesn't revolve around you."
Adrian's hands clenched into fists. "Then why are you ALWAYS THERE?"
The question hung between them like a grenade with the pin pulled.
Dante stood. Not fast, but deliberate. Chair rolling backward, laptop forgotten. Dante crossed the six feet separating their desks in three strides that ate up space like gravity.
Adrian backed up. Instinct. Survival. But the room offered nowhere to retreat—just wall hitting Adrian's spine, cold plaster through his t-shirt.
Dante kept coming. Didn't stop until Dante loomed over Adrian, using every inch of height advantage, shoulders broad enough to block out the desk lamp behind. Close enough that Adrian caught the scent of Dante's laundry detergent, the faint sweat from whatever workout Dante had done earlier.
Adrian's breath caught. Actual physical sensation—lungs seizing, oxygen suddenly insufficient.
"You think this is about her?" Dante's voice dropped low. Dangerous. The tone someone used right before throwing a punch or saying something unforgivable.
Adrian's mouth opened. Closed. Brain short-circuiting under the weight of Dante's proximity, the heat radiating from Dante's body, the way Dante's eyes had gone dark—pupils blown wide enough to swallow the brown.
Dante stared at Adrian like Adrian was a puzzle missing crucial pieces. Like Adrian was water and Dante was drowning. Like Adrian held answers to questions Dante hadn't figured out how to ask.
"You absolute idiot."
The words landed like physical blows. Dante's jaw clenched tight enough that the muscle jumped, tendons standing out in Dante's neck. Then Dante grabbed his jacket from the chair and walked out.
Just—left. Door slamming, footsteps echoing down the hallway, gone at 11 PM with nowhere obvious to go.
Adrian stood against the wall, heart hammering against his ribs like it was trying to escape his chest. Brain replaying the last three minutes in loop—the wall, Dante's proximity, those eyes, that question.
You think this is about her?
What else would it be about?
Adrian slid down the wall, sat on the floor with his knees pulled up. Tried to breathe like a normal person. Failed.
The look in Dante's eyes—Adrian knew Dante's competitive look, had seen it across basketball courts and science fair displays and finish lines. Knew Dante's anger, sharp and controlled. Knew Dante's triumph, that flash of satisfaction when Dante won.
This had been none of those things.
This had been raw. Vulnerable. Terrifying in its nakedness.
Adrian pulled out his phone. Hands shaking badly enough it took two tries to unlock the screen. Found Sage's contact, pressed call, didn't care that it was past midnight on a Wednesday.
Sage answered on the fourth ring. "Someone better be dying."
"I—" Adrian's voice cracked. Started again. "Dante just—we had a fight. Sort of. I don't know what it was."
Rustling sounds. Sage sitting up, probably. "What happened?"
"I confronted him. About sabotaging my dates with Isabella. About following me everywhere." Adrian ran his free hand through his hair, pulled until the sting grounded him. "And he—he backed me against a wall and said 'you think this is about her' and called me an idiot and left."
Pause. Long enough that Adrian checked if the call had dropped.
"He basically pinned you to a wall and called you an idiot?" Sage's voice carried the particular tone that meant Sage was processing something obvious that Adrian was missing.
"Yes."
"And you still don't get it?"
Adrian's stomach dropped. "Get what?!"
"Oh my god." Sage laughed, sharp and disbelieving. "You're both idiots."
"That's not helpful, Sage. I need—I don't know what I need. Explanation. Translation. Something." Adrian pressed his head back against the wall, stared at the ceiling tiles with their water stains. "What did he mean 'you think this is about her'? What else would it be about?"
"Adrian." Sage's voice gentled. "I love you, but you're the smartest dumb person I've ever met. I can't—you need to figure this out yourself. But maybe ask yourself why Dante would care who you date."
"Because—" Adrian stopped. Because why? Because Dante wanted Isabella? But Dante had said it wasn't about her. "I don't know."
"Think about it." Sage yawned. "And maybe also think about why you notice every time Dante walks into a room. Why you know his coffee order without thinking. Why you're this worked up over a fight with someone you supposedly hate."
"That's—" Different. That was different. Except it wasn't, and Adrian knew it wasn't, and the knowledge sat in his chest like concrete.
"Get some sleep," Sage said. "Or at least try. This'll still be a mess in the morning."
The call ended. Adrian sat on the floor, phone screen fading to black.
You think this is about her?
The question circled Adrian's brain, a shark looking for weakness. If it wasn't about Isabella, what was it about? What else was there?
Dante showing up at coffee shops. Dante at basketball games. Dante at parties. Dante everywhere, always watching, always present.
Dante's expression in the café—that deliberate look across the shattered mugs.
Dante's body going rigid when Adrian mentioned Isabella's name.
Dante backing Adrian against a wall, eyes dark and desperate and—
No. Adrian shut down that thought before it could form fully. That direction led somewhere Adrian couldn't follow. Wouldn't follow.
The clock on Adrian's phone read 11:47 PM. Dante had been gone for thirty-four minutes.
Adrian got up from the floor. Moved to his bed, lay down fully clothed. Stared at the ceiling. Counted water stains—seven, plus one that might be a stain or might just be shadow.
Midnight came. 1 AM. 2 AM.
Adrian's mind ran endless loops: the wall, Dante's proximity, the question, the look in Dante's eyes. Tried to solve the equation with insufficient variables. Tried to make sense of data that refused to form patterns Adrian recognized.
3 AM. 4 AM.
You think this is about her?
You absolute idiot.
Adrian's eyes burned. Body exhausted but brain too wired for sleep, trapped in that horrible space between awake and unconscious where nothing made sense and everything hurt.
4:23 AM according to his phone's lock screen. Adrian gave up on sleep. Just lay there, existing, waiting for dawn.
The door opened at 5:47 AM. Adrian heard it—the quiet turn of the handle, the careful creak of hinges, footsteps trying for silence.
Adrian kept his eyes mostly closed. Just barely cracked enough to see through lashes.
Dante moved like a ghost. Set down keys without sound, placed wallet on desk with precision. Shrugged out of the jacket, hung it on the chair back. Then sat on Dante's bed, back to Adrian, shoulders curving inward.
Dante's head dropped into Dante's hands. Elbows on knees, whole body folding into itself.
Then: shaking. Dante's shoulders shook in the pre-dawn darkness, silent but unmistakable. The kind of shaking that came from crying without sound, from breaking down in what Dante thought was private space.
Something in Adrian's chest cracked. Clean break, sharp-edged, the sound of understanding shattering.
Because Dante didn't cry. Adrian had known Dante for eighteen years, had seen Dante lose exactly three times, had watched Dante break his wrist in eighth grade without shedding a tear. Dante didn't fall apart. Dante didn't shake with silent sobs while thinking no one could see.
But Dante was doing it now. Sitting three feet away, falling apart in the gray light filtering through their window.
Adrian kept his eyes closed. Kept his breathing even. Maintained the fiction that Adrian was asleep, that Dante's breakdown remained private and unwitnessed.
But Adrian saw. And seeing changed something fundamental that Adrian couldn't unchange, couldn't unsee.
Whatever was happening between them—it wasn't rivalry. Wasn't competition. Wasn't about Isabella or winning or any of the frameworks Adrian had built to make sense of Dante's place in Adrian's life.
It was something else. Something that made Dante cry in the dark. Something that made Dante back Adrian against walls and ask questions Adrian didn't have answers for.
Something Adrian was apparently too much of an idiot to understand.
Dante's shoulders stilled. Breathing evened out. Dante lay down on Dante's bed, clothes still on, not bothering with blankets.
Adrian listened to Dante's breathing slow into what might be sleep. Watched gray dawn light turn golden, morning arriving whether they were ready or not.
The crack in Adrian's chest widened. Let in light. Let in understanding Adrian didn't want and couldn't refuse.
You think this is about her?
No. Adrian was starting to suspect it wasn't about Isabella at all.
And that realization terrified Adrian more than any competition ever had.