Chapter 7: The Roommate's Advice
The shower water was barely lukewarm, the pipes in his residence hall groaning in protest as Marcus scrubbed at the memory of Chloe’s frozen, wide-eyed expression. He toweled off, the steam fogging the cracked mirror above the sink. His reflection looked different. The same messy hair, the same glasses on the counter, but the eyes held a new, unsteady light. He’d said it. I love you. He’d meant it. The weight of it was terrifying, a boulder in his chest, but it was real.
He dressed in clean jeans and a dark grey Henley, running a hand through his damp hair. He checked his phone. No world-ending texts from Jake. Just a meme from Priya in the group chat. A good sign. Maybe.
Back in her room, Ellie had taken a shower of her own, scrubbing away the sweat and the lingering embarrassment. She’d put on soft, worn leggings and an oversized university hoodie, the fabric swallowing her frame. She was attempting to re-tape a corner of her Cassiopeia poster when the door opened.
Chloe stood there, holding two steaming mugs of coffee. She’d changed into yoga pants and a faded band t-shirt. Her expression was carefully neutral. “Truce beverage?”
Ellie sighed, the tape roll falling from her fingers. “I owe you, like, a lifetime supply of pizza. Or silence. Whatever you prefer.”
“The story will suffice.” Chloe handed her a mug and settled cross-legged on her own neatly made bed, facing Ellie’s chaotic one. She took a sip, watching over the rim. “So. Spill. From the beginning. Not the this morning beginning. The real beginning.”
Ellie groaned, collapsing onto her own mattress and pulling a pillow over her face. The cotton smelled like him, like sleep and skin. She let out a muffled scream.
“That good, huh?” Chloe’s voice was dry, amused.
Ellie lowered the pillow. She stared at the ceiling, at the glowing stars she’d stuck up there her first week. “It was the open day. Last spring. He came with Jake to help me move some boxes.” She described the awkward boy in glasses, his shy smile, the way he’d carefully explained the campus Wi-Fi without being condescending. “I had a crush on him for approximately five minutes, then filed it under ‘impossible’ and forgot about it.”
“Until the party.”
“Until the party.” Ellie sat up, wrapping her hands around the warm mug. The heat grounded her. She told Chloe about the white dress, the feeling of being seen for the first time. The bathroom—the charged silence, the press of his body, the shocking rightness of his mouth on hers. She left some details in the haze they belonged in, but she didn’t shy away from the truth of it: the want, the fear, the dizzying pull.
Chloe listened, her smirk softening into something more thoughtful. She didn’t interrupt.
“Then he avoided me for a week,” Ellie continued, the memory of that ache still fresh. “Which felt like a year. I thought I’d imagined the whole thing. That I’d read it all wrong.”
“But you hadn’t.”
“No.” A small smile touched her lips. “He showed up at the Italian place. Looked like he hadn’t slept. Told me he was scared. Of Jake. Of messing it up. Of me.”
She recounted the walk, the weight of his confession, the streetlamp painting everything in gold. I think I’m falling in love with you. Her own words back to him, brave and true. The night in her bed, which wasn’t just about sex, but about discovery, a conversation without words.
“And then we woke up,” Ellie finished, gesturing vaguely at the room, “and you got a front-row seat to the sequel.”
Chloe was quiet for a long moment. She swirled the coffee in her mug. “He’s crazy about you.”
“You think?”
“Ellie. The man looked devastated when I walked in. Not because he was caught, but because the moment was broken. For you.” Chloe set her mug down. “And you’re crazy about him. That’s rare. That’s the shit people write songs about. Awkward, mortifying, pizza-interrupted songs, but still.”
Ellie felt a tension she hadn’t named begin to unknot in her shoulders. “Jake’s going to lose it.”
“Probably,” Chloe shrugged. “He’s your brother. That’s his job. But he’s also Marcus’s best friend. He’ll get over it. Or he won’t. But that’s their problem to have.” She leaned forward. “Don’t borrow their trouble. You just started this. Enjoy it.”
A genuine laugh escaped Ellie, the sound surprising her. “A ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign might have been a good investment.”
“A deadbolt, maybe,” Chloe grinned. “I’ll Venmo you for half.”
The mood lifted, shifting from confessional to something lighter. Chloe pulled her laptop over, navigating to a bookmark. “Okay, enough heavy. We need palate cleansers. I present: cats who think they’re paratroopers.” She hit play.
They were both leaned against the headboard, shoulders touching, laughing at a tabby cat misjudging a leap from a refrigerator when the door clicked open.
Marcus paused in the doorway. He’d been braced for anything—cold silence, more awkwardness, a negotiation. He wasn’t braced for this: Ellie, swaddled in fabric, her hair a damp auburn cloud, laughing so hard she had tears in the corners of her eyes. Chloe was chuckling beside her, pointing at the screen.
The scene was so ordinary, so disarmingly warm, it winded him.
Chloe spotted him first. Her smile didn’t vanish; it just changed, becoming a little knowing, a little approving. She gave him a deliberate, unambiguous thumbs-up.
Then Ellie turned.
Her laughter faded, but the joy behind it didn’t. It transformed, settling into her features, warming her green eyes as they found his. It was a look of pure, unguarded recognition. A look that said, Oh, there you are. My person. Her smile softened, became something just for him.
His heart executed a slow, hard roll in his chest. This wasn’t the dizzying high of the night before, or the frantic heat of the morning. This was different. This was the feeling of coming home. It was terrifying. It was everything.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he managed, stepping inside and closing the door on the rest of the world.
“Hey,” he managed, stepping inside and closing the door on the rest of the world. He leaned against it, the solid wood at his back, and just drank her in. The cat video ended on a screech, and silence bloomed, warm and a little shy.
Chloe snapped the laptop shut. “My cue to exit.” She slid off the bed with a grin. “I’ve got a lit review to pretend to write at the library. You two… decompress.”
“You don’t have to go,” Ellie said, but the look she flashed Marcus said otherwise.
“Yeah, I really do.” Chloe grabbed her backpack, slinging it over one shoulder. “My presence is currently a walking reminder of traumatic nudity. I’ll be back… later.” She winked and was gone, the door clicking shut with finality.
Then it was just them. The hum of Ellie’s mini-fridge. The faint sound of someone’s music down the hall.
Ellie patted the space on the bed beside her. “Come here.”
He didn’t need to be asked twice. He crossed the small room, the distance feeling immense, and sat. The mattress dipped under his weight. She immediately shifted, curling her legs and settling herself into his lap, her back against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her waist, his chin finding a perfect spot on the top of her head. She smelled like clean skin and her cheap, sweet shampoo.
“Okay?” she murmured, lacing her fingers with his where they rested against her stomach.
“More than.” He let out a long breath, one he felt like he’d been holding since he woke up. Her warmth seeped through their clothes. “Chloe seems… cool about it.”
“She is.” Ellie tilted her head back to look at him. “We talked. She thinks we’re song material. Awkward, pizza-interrupted song material.”
He snorted. “An indie ballad, probably. Acoustic guitar, tragic backing vocals.”
“Exactly.” She relaxed fully against him, a contented weight. They sat like that for a while, not talking, just existing in the quiet aftermath. His thumb traced idle circles on the soft fabric of her hoodie over her hipbone.
“So,” she said eventually, her voice vibrating against his chest. “Jake.”
The name landed like a stone in the still water of the room. Marcus’s hand stilled. “Yeah.”
“We have to tell him.”
“I know.” He’d been running grim scenarios in his head all through his shower. Jake’s disbelief, his anger, the potential wreckage of a friendship that had gotten him through high school. “He’s going to hate me.”
Ellie twisted in his lap to face him, her knees bracketing his thighs. She took his face in her hands. Her eyes were serious. “He might be mad. He might need time. But he won’t hate you. He loves you. And he loves me.” She searched his gaze. “This isn’t you corrupting his innocent little sister, Marcus. This is me choosing you. He needs to get that.”
He wanted to believe her. The certainty in her voice was a lifeline. He turned his head and pressed a kiss to her palm. “When?”
“Not today.” She shook her head, her auburn hair brushing his cheeks. “Let’s just… have today. Before it gets complicated.”
He nodded, pulling her closer until their foreheads touched. “Just today.”
The door opened again, and Chloe poked her head in, looking apologetic. “Sorry, forgot my econ book. Again.” She scurried to her desk, grabbed the thick textbook, and paused. “Also, heads up. Priya’s coming over around seven. For a… study date.” The way she said it left little doubt about the studying’s priority. “So if you two could maybe vacate the premises by then? No rush.”
Ellie laughed, the sound bright in the small room. “Consider it done. We’ll be gone by six-thirty. Your study date will have complete privacy.”
“You’re a saint.” Chloe shot them a grateful smile. “A very quiet, very absent saint.” She disappeared again.
Marcus raised an eyebrow. “Study date?”
“I think the curriculum is more… anatomical,” Ellie said, her grin turning mischievous. She traced the line of his jaw. “We should probably go for a walk or something. Give them space.”
“A walk sounds good.” He didn’t want to move, but the idea of having her to himself outside these walls, with no chance of interruptions, was potent.
They untangled themselves. Ellie swapped her hoodie for a lightweight sweater, and they left the dorm, stepping out into the crisp afternoon. The campus was a lazy weekend tableau: couples lounging on blankets, friends tossing a frisbee, the distant chime of the library clock. He took her hand, their fingers slotting together easily.
They walked without a destination, meandering past lecture halls and through a quiet courtyard garden. Every few minutes, one of them would gently tug the other to a stop, leaning in for a soft, lingering kiss—behind a large oak, near a burbling fountain, in the shadow of the philosophy building. Each kiss was a quiet promise, a reaffirmation.
“It’s still so weird,” Ellie said against his lips after one such stop.
“What is?”
“That I can just… do this.” She kissed him again, quick and sweet. “Whenever I want.”
“I’m a big fan of the new policy,” he murmured, chasing her mouth for another.
They found themselves in a secluded walkway between the old biology greenhouses and a storage shed, a narrow strip of pavement shielded by overgrown laurel hedges. The sounds of the campus faded to a distant murmur. The air here was cool, damp, smelling of wet earth and decaying leaves.
He pushed her playfully against the sun-warmed brick wall of the greenhouse. She went willingly, a gasp of laughter escaping her as her back met the rough surface. Then his mouth was on hers, and the laughter melted into something hotter, needier. This kiss wasn’t soft or sweet. It was all hunger and rediscovery, his tongue sweeping into her mouth, her hands fisting in the fabric of his Henley.
He braced one arm against the wall beside her head, his other hand sliding under her sweater to splay against the warm skin of her back. She arched into him, her hips pressing against his, and he groaned into her mouth. The careful control from the morning, the tenderness, was incinerated by this raw, rushing want.
“Marcus,” she breathed, her head tipping back as his lips travelled down her throat.
“We should go back,” he said, the words ragged. His hand trembled where he held her.
“Your place is across campus.” Her eyes were dark, her pupils swallowing the green.
“Yours is closer.” It was all the negotiation they needed.
They broke apart, their breathing chaotic. He grabbed her hand, and they half-walked, half-jogged back the way they came, their earlier leisurely pace forgotten. Every stolen glance was charged with electricity. They didn’t speak, just moved with single-minded purpose through the gathering twilight, back toward the residence hall.
They took the stairs two at a time, bursting onto her floor slightly breathless. The hallway was empty, quiet. They slowed as they approached her door, number 314, trying to compose themselves. Ellie fumbled in her pocket for her keycard, her hand shaking.
Then they heard it.
A sharp, high gasp. A low, rhythmic thumping against a wall. A choked-off moan that was unmistakably Chloe’s voice, followed by a lower, urging murmur that had to be Priya.
The sounds were muffled by the door but utterly, vibrantly clear. They weren't studying. They were fucking. The intensity was palpable, a raw, urgent soundtrack pouring into the silent hallway.
Ellie froze, her keycard halfway to the reader. Her eyes, wide and shocked, locked with Marcus’s. A deep, crimson blush flooded her cheeks, then her neck. The frantic energy between them twisted, morphing into something else entirely—a shared, stunned paralysis.
From behind the door, a headboard banged a frantic, steady beat against the wall. Priya’s voice, strained and passionate, carried through the wood. “Right there, don’t stop—!”
Marcus reached out, gently closing his hand over Ellie’s, lowering the useless keycard. They stood there in the dim hallway, prisoners to the sounds of their roommate’s passion, their own urgent plans halted before they could even begin.