Chapter 6: The Dormitory Interrogation
The walk back to his own dorm was a journey through a muted, dreamlike world. The evening air was cool, a sharp contrast to the damp heat of Abby’s skin still clinging to his. His body felt both heavy and weightless, every nerve ending softly humming, a pleasant ache settling deep in his muscles. He could smell her on his hoodie—a mix of clove cigarette smoke, vanilla perfume, and something indefinably, uniquely Abby. He pulled the collar up over his nose and breathed it in, a stupid grin breaking across his face in the dark.
He took the stairs two at a time, his usual lethargy gone. He fumbled with his key at the door, the metal click sounding absurdly loud in the quiet hallway. He pushed it open.
The room was a cave of frenetic energy. The stale popcorn smell was there, but overpowered by the tang of Red Bull and the sharp, green scent of highlighter ink. Marcus was hunched over his desk, textbooks spread in a chaotic corona, a battered mechanical keyboard clacking under his furious fingers. He didn’t look up.
“Die in a fire, you asynchronous piece of shit,” Marcus muttered to his screen, stabbing the backspace key.
Leo stepped inside, letting the door sigh shut behind him. He toed off his shoes, the simple action feeling profoundly strange, as if he’d returned from a distant country.
Marcus’s typing slowed. He stopped. His chair squeaked as he rotated, pushing his blue-light glasses up onto his forehead. He took in Leo’s disheveled hair, the new looseness in his posture, the way he stood just inside the doorway as if unsure of his own territory.
A slow, knowing smile spread across Marcus’s face. “Well, well,” he drawled. “Look what the cat dragged in. Or, more accurately, what the feral art student dragged out.”
Leo felt the blush start at his collar. “Hey.”
“Hey? Hey?” Marcus sprang from his chair, abandoning his code. He circled Leo like a shark. “Dude. You look like you got hit by a truck. A very sexy, very alternative truck.” He leaned in, sniffed dramatically. “You smell like a nightclub and… is that vanilla? You smell like a girl, Leo. You reek of heterosexual success.”
“Shut up,” Leo said, but there was no force behind it. He dumped his backpack, which he hadn’t even opened, onto his perpetually unmade bed.
“I will not shut up. This is historic.” Marcus planted himself on the edge of his own desk, crossing his arms. “Start talking. You left here looking like a scared rabbit. You come back looking like…” He gestured vaguely at all of Leo. “This. What is ‘this’? I need data points. Times, locations, classifications of kiss. Spill.”
Leo sank onto his bed, the springs groaning. He looked at his hands. He could still see faint traces of black eyeliner smudged on his thumb. The memory was a physical shockwave. “We went to that diner. The Eclipse.”
“Okay. Solid, unpretentious choice. Good fries?”
“I got a grilled cheese.”
Marcus nodded as if this were critical intelligence. “And?”
“And we talked. She draws. Graphic design stuff. Dark, surrealist things. She showed me on her phone.” Leo’s words came out in a quiet, disjointed stream. He was reliving it as he spoke. “She’s nothing like I thought. I mean, she is. But she’s also… not.”
“Fascinating. Profound. Continue.”
“We walked back. Ended up in that little alley behind the science building. By the dumpsters.” Leo could feel the cold brick against his back, her warm weight pinning him there. “We… uh.”
Marcus’s eyes were wide. “By the dumpsters? Vance, you animal. Was there tongue?”
Leo shot him a look. “Yes, Marcus. There was tongue.”
“YES!” Marcus punched the air. “I knew it! I told you! The quiet ones! Okay, alley make-out. Advanced maneuver for a first date. I’m impressed. Then what? You parted ways with a gentle peck on the cheek? A firm handshake?”
Leo looked down at his lap, a new, deeper heat flooding his face. The silence stretched, thick and telling.
Marcus’s triumphant grin froze. It shifted, morphing into something closer to disbelief. “No.”
Leo said nothing.
“No way.” Marcus slid off the desk, taking a step closer. “You did not. Leo. You are a virgin. Were. You were a virgin. Tell me you were.”
Leo gave a single, almost imperceptible nod.
The reaction was not what he expected. Marcus didn’t whoop. He just stared, his mouth slightly agape. He slowly sat down in his desk chair again, as if the news required a seated position. “Holy shit,” he breathed, all the bravado gone. “Seriously? With Abby Holloway? The girl who, according to campus lore, once gave a handjob in the library stacks during finals week?”
“I don’t know about that,” Leo mumbled, a strange knot of jealousy and pride tightening in his chest.
“Forget the lore. Tell me. How? I mean, logistics. Her place?”
Another nod. “Her dorm. Her roommate Chloe walked in.”
“SHUT UP.”
“She did. Abby was… shirtless. I was… tracing her tattoo.” Saying it out loud made it sound insane. Poetic and insane.
Marcus put his head in his hands. “This is the best story I have ever been told. Ever. Then what? Did the roommate join in? A ménage à trois by the utility closet?”
“She left. Went to the vending machine. For, like, an hour.” Leo’s voice dropped to a whisper. “We locked the door.”
The cluttered dorm room seemed to hold its breath. The hum of the mini-fridge was suddenly very loud.
“Okay,” Marcus said, his voice uncharacteristically soft. “Okay. So. You. And her. In her room.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. His expression was unreadable—a mix of awe, concern, and sheer curiosity. “How was it?”
Leo searched for the word. The code in his brain offered thousands of lines of logic, but no single variable to capture the feeling. The shudder of her skin under his mouth. The shocking wet heat of her. The way she’d commanded him, and he’d obeyed, and it hadn’t felt like submission but like partnership in a strange, urgent dance.
“It was…” He trailed off, helpless.
“That good, huh?” Marcus’s smile returned, gentler now. “Or that bad?”
“It wasn’t bad,” Leo said quickly. “It was… overwhelming. I didn’t know what I was doing. Like, at all. She had to tell me everything.” The admission should have been humiliating. Here, in the safe, messy confines of his own space, with Marcus just listening, it felt like just another fact. A technical limitation he was working on.
“And she was cool with that?”
“She said…” Leo replayed the words in his head, their raw honesty. “She said that’s why it was good. Because I wasn’t pretending.”
Marcus let out a long, low whistle. He leaned back, running a hand through his hair. “Damn, Leo. Damn.” He was quiet for a moment, absorbing it. Then the familiar, boisterous energy snapped back into place. “So you’re telling me you, Leo Vance, code-monkey extraordinaire, just lost your virginity to a campus legend who liked it because you were a clueless virgin? Dude.” He stood up, clapping Leo so hard on the shoulder it stung. “You’re not a legend. You’re a goddamn folk hero. An inspiration to introverts everywhere!”
Leo finally laughed, the tension seeping out of him. “It was just one night, Marcus.”
“One night that will be sung about for generations!” Marcus crowed. He grabbed a half-empty energy drink from his desk and thrust it toward Leo in a toast. “To you! Conqueror of the goth queen! May your syntax always be clean and your women always be weird!”
Leo took the can, took a sour, bubbly sip. The celebration felt absurd, but warm. A sharing of the secret.
His phone, buried in his hoodie pocket, buzzed.
He fumbled for it, his heart doing a sudden, hard slam against his ribs. The screen glowed in the dim room.
A text from ABBY.
It wasn’t words. It was a picture. A close-up of the dragon tattoo on her back, taken in a mirror. The lighting was low, the blue and gold ink gleaming. He could see the faint red marks—love bites, scratches—scattered across the pale skin around it. His marks.
Underneath, a single line of text:
Still thinking about your hands.
Leo stared. The noise of the room, Marcus’s continued victory lap, the hum of electronics—all of it faded into a distant blur. The image was a claim. A shared secret more intimate than any explicit shot could ever be. It was a callback to where it started, his hesitant fingers on her ink, and a bold statement of where it had gone.
“She text you?” Marcus asked, peering over.
Leo angled the phone away on instinct, but the grin he couldn’t suppress gave him away.
Marcus threw his hands up. “I see! Secrets! Fine, keep your cryptic goth love notes.” He turned back to his computer, shaking his head in mock exasperation. “Some of us have to actually work for our accolades. Unlike some people who just have to know how to trace a dragon.”
Leo didn’t answer. He was typing a reply, his thumbs clumsy.
I can’t stop thinking about… all of it.
He hit send. The three dots appeared immediately. They pulsed. Vanished. Reappeared.
His whole world narrowed to that tiny, glowing screen, waiting for her next move in the quiet of his own chaotic room, the scent of her still on his clothes, and the echo of her commands still vibrating in his bones.
His whole world narrowed to that tiny, glowing screen, waiting for her next move in the quiet of his own chaotic room, the scent of her still on his clothes, and the echo of her commands still vibrating in his bones.
Abby lay on her stomach across her rumpled bed, the sheets still tangled and damp in places. She was still in her black lace thong and socks, the cool air from the window raising goosebumps on her bare back and legs. A soft, unguarded smile played on her lips as she stared at her phone, Leo’s message glowing up at her.
I can’t stop thinking about… all of it.
She bit her lower lip. Her thumbs hovered over the screen. She typed a sentence, deleted it. Typed another. She wanted to get the tone right—playful but sincere, a little wicked but not detached. It was a new feeling, this careful curation.
The door clicked open. Abby didn’t bother to cover up. She just tilted her head, watching as Chloe slunk back in, her earlier dramatic exit now replaced with a conspiratorial gleam.
“Coast is clear,” Chloe announced, dropping her bag with a thud. She leaned against her dresser, arms crossed, her eyes sweeping over Abby’s prone, tattooed form and the specific disarray of the room. The headboard was still slightly askew from where it had knocked the wall. “So. You’re alive. He’s alive. The structural integrity of the building seems compromised, but we’ll manage.”
Abby just hummed, going back to her phone. She finally sent her reply.
Abby: good. my back is a masterpiece of your making. it aches.
“Earth to Abby,” Chloe sing-songed. She pushed off the dresser and sat on the edge of her own bed, directly facing Abby. “Details. Now. I did my part. I wandered three floors, I bought a diet coke I didn’t want, I listened to Mia in 3B complain about assignments. I’ve earned the debrief.”
“There’s no debrief,” Abby said, but her voice was light. She set her phone face down on the mattress, propping her chin on her hands. The smile was still there, softening the sharp lines of her makeup.
“Bullshit.” Chloe leaned forward, her voice dropping to a theatrical whisper. “I heard the headboard, Abigail. I heard the… finale. It was acoustically vivid. But I need context. Was he a weepy finish? A silent, intense one? Did he say something embarrassing like ‘oh baby’?”
Abby laughed, a short, genuine sound. “No. It wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it like? Because normally, it’s pretty standard.” Chloe counted off on her fingers. “Gym Bro Brad, all ego and no rhythm. Lacrosse Liam, thinks jackhammering is a technique. Fratty Finn, falls asleep immediately after. That’s your usual roster. Quick, fun, forgettable.” She gestured at Abby. “You don’t look forgettable. You look… contemplative. It’s freaking me out.”
Abby rolled onto her side, pulling a sheet partway over her hip. She thought about Leo’s hands—clumsy at first, then desperate, then so perfectly responsive. She thought about the raw shock on his face, the way his confession (I don’t know what I’m doing) had felt like a gift instead of a weakness.
“He was nervous,” Abby said, her gaze drifting to the window. “Like, heart-pounding-out-of-his-chest nervous. I could feel it.”
“And that’s a good thing?” Chloe’s nose wrinkled.
“Yeah.” Abby looked back at her, her eyes bright. “Because he wasn’t pretending not to be. He wasn’t performing. He just… felt it. All of it. When I told him to do something, he did it, but not in a submissive way. In a ‘I-trust-you-to-show-me’ way.” She paused, searching for the right comparison and finding none. “It wasn’t a transaction. It was a collaboration.”
Chloe was silent for a long moment, absorbing this. The usual post-hookup analysis was snark and gossip. This was something else entirely.
“Huh,” Chloe finally said. Her teasing facade had fully dropped. “So you actually like him.”
The statement hung in the sex-heavy air. Abby didn’t deflect. She just gave a small, slow nod, her cheek pressing against the pillow. “I think I do. He’s different. He listens. He sees the art, not just the decoration.”
Her phone buzzed on the mattress. Abby snatched it up.
Leo: I want to see it again. The masterpiece.
Her grin returned, wider this time. She typed back quickly, not overthinking it.
Abby: prove it. my dorm. tomorrow night. 8. don’t be late.
She showed the screen to Chloe.
“A second date?” Chloe’s eyebrows shot up. “Scheduled? Abby ‘No-Repeat-Rule’ Holloway? Who are you?”
“Shut up,” Abby said, but she was still smiling. She felt a flutter in her stomach that was entirely unfamiliar. It wasn’t lust. It was anticipation. “He’s coming over to watch a movie or something.”
“Or something,” Chloe echoed, a slow smile spreading. “Okay. I’ll make plans. Actually, I’ll announce plans to be gone. Very loudly. To give you privacy for your movie.” She flopped back on her bed, staring at the ceiling. “This is weird. I’m weirdly happy for you. It’s disgusting.”
Abby’s phone buzzed again.
Leo: I’ll be there at 7:59.
She held the phone to her chest, the simple commitment settling deep, a warm, solid weight beneath her ribs. She looked across the small space at her best friend, at the familiar chaos of their shared room, and felt everything tilt, just slightly, into a new and unknown alignment.