Accidental Roommate with the Frat King

I stared at the screen, my blood running cold at the pinned photo of a completely bald cactus.

Right next to it, a succulent bristled with needles like a pincushion.

[Who the hell vandalized my plants?!]

The campus bad boy demanded in his enraged post.

The air caught in my throat.

Last night, while screaming at my dirtbag ex on the phone, my restless fingers had plucked every single needle off that cactus and shoved them straight into the succulent

Chapter 1

[Who plucked the needles off my cactus?]

Attached was a photo of the bald plant.

Scrolling past this pinned wanted poster on the campus anonymous forum, my grip slipped. The phone smacked right into my face. I shot up from my mattress like a loaded spring.

Yesterday, I was pacing outside the frat houses, tearing my ex a new one over the phone. My hands needed something to destroy, so I completely wrecked the potted plants on the first-floor balcony.

But I left a sticky note with my number to pay for the damages.

The wind must have blown it away. Holy crap, thank god it blew away. Who knew those plants belonged to Vance, the absolute terror of the campus?

My hands shook. I swapped to my burner account and typed a reply:

[Just a bystander here. Pretty sure cactus needles fall off naturally. My condolences. Again, just passing by.]

Vance replied instantly:

[And the succulent next to it just magically grew those needles too?]

Another photo loaded. The heavily pierced succulent.

The comment section exploded with rubberneckers demanding justice:

[LMAO this is tragic but hilarious.]

[Who even does something this psychotic?]

[Ugh tell me this creep isn't from our department]

[Holy shit, my succulent was right next to yours. It's definitely ruined. I hope this psycho fails their finals!]

[]

I hit my breaking point.

My thumbs flew across the screen:

[Bullshit! I saw it perfectly clear last night. There was only ONE succulent!]

[]

The rapidly refreshing comment section flatlined. Dead silence.

A notification popped up. A friend request.

[Vance.]

I figured I could just grovel and apologize. I braced myself to accept the request when my roommate spoke up from the bottom bunk.

"Did you guys see the drama? Someone actually messed with Vance's cactus. I heard he swore that once he catches the plant killer, he's going to stab every single needle right into their skin. I'm dead."

The rest of the dorm burst into laughter. They turned to look at me, confused. "Why aren't you laughing?"

My stomach dropped to my knees. "I'm not laughing because I just don't find things funny."

Like hell I was accepting that request.

I slammed my phone face-down on the mattress. I started praying to every god listening that if I just ignored him, he would never find me.

But Vance bypassed all that. He tapped straight into his frat connections, tracked my IP, followed the digital trail of my burner account, and zeroed right in on my class schedule.

Today, right in the middle of Botany, I let out a yawn. My peripheral vision caught movement outside the hallway window. My gaze locked with a pair of pitch-black eyes.

Vance's massive frame blocked the back door of the classroom. His broad, aggressive shoulders suffocated most of the light spilling in from the hallway. Those dark eyes stared a hole straight through me, practically dripping with hostility.

Like the Grim Reaper clocking in for his shift.

I snapped my head away, wiping my damp palms against my jeans.

Before my brain could even process a survival plan, the bell rang.

Crap, crap, crap.

"Alright, class dismissed," the old professor announced.

My survival instincts kicked into overdrive. I bolted to the podium. "Professor," I pleaded, plastering on my best academic desperation. "I really need to discuss that last theory with you."

The old man beamed with pure academic pride. He nodded. "Of course. Come with me to my office."

I nodded so hard my neck popped.

Following the professor out the door, I shrank myself down, practically using the frail old man as a human meat shield.

But Vance matched my pace. He tracked me from the classroom door all the way down the hall to the office entrance. He leaned against the frame, keeping that deadly, unblinking gaze locked tight on my face.

Chapter 2

I wiped the cold sweat off my forehead.

The old professor took a slow sip of his tea. "What's this pressing academic question of yours? Go ahead."

I sat in dead silence for a full sixty seconds. "If a walnut gets crushed by a door, does it still boost your brain power?"

The professor stared at me. His face hardened into a severe scowl. "Miss Maeve, I expect you to take this office seriously."

I risked a glance out the hallway window.

Vance stared right at me, his face a deadpan mask. He slowly raised his hand, dragging a long, deliberate finger across his throat in a highly threatening motion.

Shit, he's still there.

I watched the professor start packing up his leather briefcase. If I walked out that door right now, I was an absolute dead woman.

My fingers curled into fists. What do I do? What do I do?

The professor's phone lit up on the desk. He checked the screen and pressed down to record a voice note. "I know, I know, I'm heading home for dinner right now."

I lunged forward and gripped his tweed sleeve. "Professor! I'm starving too."

The old man just stared at me.

I ended up shamelessly tagging along to the professor's house for pot roast, narrowly dodging my own funeral.

The next day, I slinked into class, my radar on high alert. No sign of Vance. Did he actually let me off the hook?

I didn't even get the chance to exhale before my phone buzzed. A text from my roommate demanding I check the campus forum immediately.

My stomach plummeted. I opened the app.

Pinned at the top was a selfie of Vance. In his hand, he held a pair of heavy-duty gardening shears, the blades hovering directly over my cherry tomato sproutmy entire final grade for the semester.

The caption read:

[Maeve from Botany 101. You have thirty minutes to rescue your final project.]

The timestamp? Twenty-five minutes ago.

FUCK!

I sprinted out of the building, tearing across the quad like a bat out of hell. My deranged, death-defying sprint even made it onto the campus gossip page later that day. Some romantic idiot started a rumor that I was running toward the love of my life.

Bullshit. I was running a hostage negotiation. My pathetic life in exchange for my tomato sprout.

I skidded into the greenhouse. Vance was crouched right in front of my plant, a single finger reaching out to poke a fragile yellow blossom.

I slammed on the brakes, my hand shooting out. "Don't you dare touch her!"

Vance glanced over his shoulder, unbothered. "Done hiding?"

He took a step forward. That suffocating, aggressive aura of his instantly swallowed me whole. He towered over me, locking onto my eyes with absolute dominance.

I slapped my palms together in pure desperation. "I'm sorry. I messed up."

He let out a dark, mocking scoff. "If apologies fixed anything, we wouldn't need cops. I'm a vindictive bastard. You murdered my Mia, so I'm taking out your kid."

A couple of students passing by shot us utterly bewildered looks.

Psycho! Who the hell names a cactus Mia?!

He picked up the heavy shears again, the metal scraping together. Adrenaline spiked through my veins. "Wait! I can fix her!"

The shears froze.

I didn't stop to breathe. "Your cactus was already dropping needles! It's sick. This is literally my major, I can cure her!"

Vance narrowed his dark eyes, calculating the lie. Slowly, he lowered the shears.

The breath I'd been holding finally rushed out of my lungs. I opened my mouth to negotiate a real truce

But as Vance pushed himself up, his heavy combat boot slipped on the damp dirt. He stumbled forward, planting his foot squarely into my tomato pot and crushing the fragile stem flat against the soil.

Vance stared at the mangled mess.

I stared at him. "You know something?" I asked, my voice deadly calm.

"What?"

I flashed him a terrifying, manic smile. "I'm a vindictive bitch too."

Inside the campus clinic, the nurse stared down at the massive, purpling bruise swelling across the top of Vance's foot. She looked up, utterly deadpan. "You're telling me he was born with this?"

I kept that same innocent, psychotic smile plastered on my face. "Sure was."

Vance's face was turning a darker shade of purple than his foot.

Chapter 3

Stepping out of the campus clinic, Vance leaned casually against the brick wall. "I crushed your project, you crushed my foot. We're even. But you're still taking responsibility for Mia and Daisy"

"Taking responsibility for what?" I cut him off, narrowing my eyes.

"My Mia"

"Whose Mia?"

"My"

"Your what?"

""

I locked eyes with Vance. Neither of us said a word. We were both playing a dirty game of chess, and neither was falling for the other's bluff.

Sure, I was seeing red when I trashed his plants during my phone call, but even a blind person could see those things were already on their deathbeds.

The cactus was shedding needles and rotting at the roots, and the succulent was basically a shriveled corpse. If Vance wasn't intentionally starving them to death, the guy was a straight-up botanical serial killer.

Besides what kind of grown man names his cactus Mia and his succulent Daisy?

This bastard trampled my final grade, put my GPA on life support, and now he was trying to extort me. Not a chance in hell. I didn't give a damn if he was some frat kingpin or the campus terror.

Anyone who messed with my finals was about to find out what a real psycho looked like. My empathy was dead and buried. Let the world burn.

Maybe the absolute murder in my eyes finally tipped him off, because Vance actually kept his mouth shut.

That night, I tossed and turned on my dorm mattress, obsessing over my mangled tomato sprout. I'd replanted the crushed stem that afternoon, but I had no idea if she was going to make it. The anxiety gnawed at my stomach until I finally gave up on sleep, threw on a hoodie, and hiked out to the greenhouse plots in the dead of night.

I couldn't fucking believe it.

Before I even reached my designated dirt patch, a shadowy figure was already crouched over my plant, reaching out to finish the job. Blood rushed to my ears. I sprinted forward, launching myself through the air in a blind dropkick. "Die, you bastard!"

Back in the familiar sterile lights of the campus clinic.

The same nurse stared deadpan at Vance's twisted leg. "Let me guess. He was born with a fractured tibia, too?"

I started to nod, caught the absolute lethal glare Vance was shooting me, and quickly shook my head. "I did it," I muttered, my fingers picking nervously at my hoodie sleeves.

The nurse gave me a long, appraising look. "Wow. Didn't know you were an MMA fighter."

"I missed the dropkick, lost my balance, and accidentally used his knee as a landing pad" I mumbled.

The nurse just sighed. He gave Vance a deeply sympathetic pat on the shoulder, splinted the leg, and handed him a pair of heavy aluminum crutches.

I tried to play the role of the concerned citizen. "Is there anything specific he should avoid while he heals?"

The nurse looked me dead in the eye. "You."

I pressed my lips together. Rude.

By the time I hauled Vance out of the clinic, curfew was closing in. I glanced down at his splinted leg, a tiny sliver of Catholic guilt actually flaring up in my chest. "Look just give me Mia. I'll see if I can bring her back from the dead."

Vance stared blankly ahead. "What was that?"

"I said, give Mia to"

"Give Mia to who?"

"Me"

"Give what to you?" Vance deliberately tapped his aluminum crutch against the pavement.

I ground my teeth together. "Mia. And Daisy."

"Deal. Meet me outside the Science Building after your last morning class." Vance dumped half his massive body weight onto my shoulders, expecting me to carry him back to his frat house.

If this guy weighed a hundred and eighty pounds, a hundred and seventy-nine of it was pure manipulation.

What an absolute grifter.

Chapter 4

The next morning, Vance was waiting outside the academic building bright and early.

I carefully wrapped the dying cactus and succulent, tucking them safely into my tote bag. Just as I was about to leave, the sky ripped open. Massive raindrops slammed into the concrete, instantly forming a torrential downpour.

I didn't have an umbrella. I was bracing myself to sprint all the way back to the dorms when I caught Vance in my peripheral vision.

He was leaning heavily on his aluminum crutches, his dark brow furrowed as he stared down the wall of water.

The other students were either making a run for it or huddling closely under shared umbrellas. Standing there with his untouchable, aggressive aura, Vance actually looked isolated.

I have no idea why I suddenly felt a twinge of empathy for this violent, brawl-happy frat kingpin.

My brain short-circuited. I marched over to the campus convenience store, grabbed their massive golf umbrella by the door, and hauled it right up to Vance. "Let's go. I'm walking you back."

At that exact moment, every single eye in the courtyard locked onto us.

Vance stared at me, his dark eyes unreadable. Without a word, he stepped under the canopy, and we headed out into the storm.

The rain roared against the pavement. Vance limped beside me and muttered something I couldn't catch over the downpour.

"What did you say?" I yelled.

Vance looked straight ahead. "I said you're special."

That sounded way off script.

I cleared my throat, deliberately taking a half-step away from him. I tilted my chin up, shooting him a warning look. "Let's get one thing straight. Don't think sharing an umbrella is some kind of romantic hint. I'm not into walking anger-management issues."

Vance went dead silent.

A few seconds later, he ground his teeth together. "Do I literally have to call you a psycho for you to get the point?"

I glanced at his broad shoulder, now completely soaked from the rain because I'd stepped away with the umbrella. I pressed my lips together, staring at the wet pavement.

Back in the dorm, I inspected the casualties. Mia's roots were definitely rotting. To get to the bottom of this, I swallowed my pride, accepted Vance's friend request, and shot him a text:

[Were you actually taking care of Mia?]

He replied instantly:

[Are you questioning me?]

With that level of arrogance, the plants shouldn't look like rotting corpses.

Another text popped up:

[I watered her eight times a day!]

I stared at the glowing screen.

[I can see you're very proud of yourself, but maybe dial back the pride.]

Eight times a day. The only thing drowning was his brain cells. It was a tough fix, but not impossible. I surgically removed the rotting roots, repotted them in fresh soil, and left the rest to fate.

While Mia and Daisy were in the ICU, Vance spammed me with about eight hundred texts a day demanding condition updates. He even ordered me to pin his chat to the top of my feed so I wouldn't miss a single notification.

I responded by putting his number on 'Do Not Disturb'.

Once the cactus sprouted new roots, I kept them in rehab for another week before finally handing them back to Vance.

Debt settled. We were completely even.

Vance didn't say much during the handoff. But the next day, I walked into my lecture hall and stopped dead. Hanging front and center on the pristine white wall was a massive, custom-made silk banner. In bold, gold lettering, it read:

[To Maeve, for her miraculous healing hands. Thank you for saving my most precious root. Forever grateful.]

I stood paralyzed in front of the banner for a solid minute.

Was I touched? I was terrified.

Precious root, my ass.

This was a literal public execution