Accidentally Yours, F222

Enjoying the view? Come up to F222 and look all you want.

Low. Bored. Like he'd caught me doing it a hundred times before.

That was the first thing he ever said to me, and I hadn't even gotten out a hi.

Back up ten seconds.

I'm on a game call with my best friend, both of us talking trash, when he gets up for the bathroom and clips his webcam on the way out.

The room swings into frame. And so does his new roommate.

Dark eyes. The kind of face you don't recover from. Not looking at anything in particular, which somehow made it worse.

I made a sound. Out loud. Into the mic.

His eyes lifted. Found the camera. Found me.

Then he reached over, killed the feed, and left that one line just hanging in the air.

F222.

Yeah. I was done for.

Chapter 1

I sent Brody about six texts in a row.

Me: [Listen. Seventeen years of friendship. Have I ever once asked you for anything?]

Me: [Just this once. One time. Help me out.]

Me: [Send me your hot roommate's number. Please please please.]

He replied in a second.

Brody: [Wait, when did you even find out I got a new roommate?]

Me: [Just now. Your camera was still on.]

Brody: [...]

A few seconds later a contact card popped up, with a note attached.

Brody: [Wipe the drool. And when you go after him, do NOT tell him you know me.]

Of course the guy was hot. Even his profile picture was hot.

There wasn't a profile picture. It was a black square. I don't make the rules. Black squares are hot now.

I lay there flipping my phone over and over, studying his contact like it was a final.

Name: one single period. Photo: pure black. No bio. Nothing.

He didn't accept my follow request either.

So I went back to bugging Brody.

Me: [your roommate won't accept my request, i'm withering away]

Brody: [He says you don't look like a good person. Says you were drooling at him earlier.]

Me: [...]

Slander. Pure slander, and he knew it.

I added him in the end anyway.

Because I paid Brody twenty bucks to make it happen, and Brody paid his roommate five to accept.

The middleman cleared fifteen dollars off my desperation.

Anyway. Bumpy road, happy ending.

From Brody I got the basics. His name was Knox. Computer science, second year. Just moved out of his off-campus place and into the dorms this term.

I sent Knox a cute little grizzly-bear sticker.

Nothing.

Still nothing. I waited until the sun dropped behind the buildings. Nothing.

So I started reaching.

Me: [Hi! I'm Brody's friend. I'm Frankie.]

Me: [I go to the college right next to yours. Sophomore too.]

Me: [This is my black cat. His name is Tank. He's named Tank because he's huge. That's the entire reason.]

Me: [...]

I chewed my thumbnail. Twenty-some minutes. Not one word back.

Then my hand twitched and I butt-dialed him.

He picked up on the first ring.

Let that land for a second. A guy who wouldn't accept a follow request, who'd left four texts on read, picked up my accidental call before it finished ringing once.

"What."

Low. Rough at the edges. A little magnetic, a lot annoyed.

"Wrong button," I said.

He let out one short, cold breath that was almost a laugh.

"If you've got this much free time," he said, "you might think about finishing all that homework you keep posting about."

A beat.

He'd been on my page. He'd been reading my posts.

My page is a landfill of unhinged memes and me captioning my own bad decisions.

I was so done.

"Frank. What brings you all the way out to our campus?"

Brody propped his chin on his hand, asking a question he absolutely knew the answer to.

I told him to cut it out.

"Which room does Knox have class in?"

He raised his eyebrows. Said nothing.

I picked up my textbook to threaten him with it, and then someone was standing behind me.

It was the first time I'd seen Knox in real life.

Taller than I'd pictured. Colder, too. Sharp brow, hard lines, that same flick of impatience built into the way he looked at people.

He'd never seen my face. No way he'd place me.

"Move." Low. Cold.

I moved. Barely.

It's an old lecture room, the kind where the seats are all desk-and-chair, packed in tight.

So if he wanted the empty spot, he'd have to get past me.

Right up against me.

Chapter 2

He stood there, holding my stare.

"Move down a seat."

"Aw. Can't. No room."

There was a wide-open stretch of empty desk in front of me.

He raised an eyebrow. Took his time.

Then a book dropped flat over my head, landing square across my line of sight.

"Frankie. How big are you, exactly, that you can't scoot over?"

How did he even know it was me.

Turns out my traitor of a best friend had shown Knox my photo ages ago.

Said best friend was currently facedown on the desk, wheezing, completely useless.

I propped my chin in my hand and didn't dignify it.

The upside: Knox couldn't get past me. So he just dragged a chair over and dropped into it right beside me.

The chairs in that ancient building were not built for legs like his.

I kept staring. He flicked my forehead with the end of his pen.

"Eyes forward."

"Why? You shy?"

Whatever he tells me to do, I do the opposite. So his face came at mine, fast, close.

Close enough to count his lashes.

"Am I that good to look at," he said, "that you can't quit?"

My breath snagged. I was the one who flinched.

He looked pleased about it. Then he eased back out of my space like nothing had happened.

Their lecture was one of those giant required courses, run by a professor who could put a room under just by clearing his throat.

Brody already had his laptop open, doing his own work. I looked at Knox.

The guy was actually taking notes. Unbelievable.

I borrowed a sheet of paper, drew a pig's head on it, and slid it over.

He looked down at it for a second.

Wrote one word. Slid it back.

Boring.

"Why are you here," said the person beside me, arms folded.

"I came to eat."

"You came to eat. And you need me to swipe you in."

I think I nearly made him laugh out of pure irritation.

"Because it's your dining hall! Knox. Be a man. Don't be cheap."

I patted his shoulder and towed him toward a table by the window.

His face was thunder. If there'd been a single other open seat, I'm pretty sure he'd have walked.

"Knox. Can I take you out tomorrow?"

"I'm getting my leg amputated tomorrow."

Even eating, he was a problem to look at, deboning his fish slow and clean. Trying to end me in one line.

I set my jaw. Didn't take it.

"I can push your wheelchair."

He finally lifted his eyes to me. Dark, flat, giving away nothing.

"I'm amputating the top half."

I had nothing.

I'd never chased a guy before.

I had a feeling Knox might be the first. And the last.

Because chasing him was brutal. Nothing got in. Sweet didn't work, pushy didn't work, he ignored every single angle I came at him from with the same dead face.

He'd actually trained himself to look straight through me like I was air.

I showed up on his campus so often that half his lecture started clocking me on sight.

Which is also how I found out there was a pool running on me.

An actual betting pool. On whether I could land Knox.

The odds on me were, and I am quoting, insulting.

I knew the exact number because the guy two seats over had it written in the margin of his notebook and tilted it so I'd catch it. These days heads turned when I walked into that hall, conversations dropping half a beat, eyes pinging off me and away.

And my best friend. The one who kept "happening" to engineer ways for us to cross paths. The one I'd decided had finally grown a conscience.

He'd put money on me.

"Please," Brody said. "Please, you have to end up with him. You two get together and my whole grocery budget for the semester is covered."

I wanted to win this too. I really did.

It's just that right now, the guy wouldn't look at me twice.

Fine.

Watch me.

Chapter 3

The second the class let out, he was gone, walking off without a word. I scrambled my stuff together and went after him.

"Knox, what are you having for lunch?"

"Knox, why won't you let me pay you back for swiping me in yesterday?"

"Knox, are you training for a speed-walking event, or is that just how fast you leave me?"

Whether he was training for anything, I couldn't tell you. What I can tell you is that I was so busy chasing him I forgot stairs existed.

My foot came down on nothing.

My bare knee hit the edge of the step.

The scrape lit up every nerve I had at once, one white line of heat from skin to spine.

I looked down. A big raw patch, already welling red.

I figured he'd kept walking. I looked up.

He was standing right in front of me.

Not moving. Not saying anything.

And that was when the tears came, fast and embarrassing, and no, it was not a performance, it just hurt that much, and it really did not help that the guy in front of me had zero intention of doing anything about it.

Something about me crying seemed to bother him. He put out a hand.

I took it. Pushed up. My knee screamed and nearly folded me right back down.

I got to my feet with half my weight dumped against his side.

He sighed.

"Ugh. Knox. I'm sorry, okay."

"This is my fault, I wasn't watching where I was going."

"I"

I didn't finish. The world tipped sideways.

His arm hooked behind my knees and lifted.

Bridal carry. The full thing.

"It's fine. Don't talk. I'm taking you to the health office."

That was not a comforting voice. That was a do not cause me one more problem voice.

Getting carried like this was turning every head on the path.

I made a token noise of protest and locked my arms tighter around his neck.

"Knox, you know your whole reputation's wrecked now."

From this angle, his jaw was sharper than my entire five-year plan.

"Wrecked how." He tipped his chin down, eyes narrowing at me.

"Carrying me around like this. People are going to think I'm your girlfriend."

"Want me to put you down. Right here."

He looked one hundred percent willing to do it, so I clamped onto his neck like a barnacle.

A second later I heard him laugh. Short. Satisfied.

We had the worst luck. The health office was empty.

After a solid five minutes of just staring at each other, he let out the sigh of a man accepting his fate.

Whoever ran the place left the antiseptic and the cotton swabs sitting out in plain sight, so finding them was easy.

I sat on the cot and looked down at him, crouched in front of me.

The cut was on my knee. I edged my skirt up.

"Is this going to hurt?"

"Antiseptic doesn't sting."

"Be gentle, okay."

"Told you. Antiseptic doesn't sting."

Liar.

There was grit down in the cut, so he had to work the swab deep, and I bit down hard, shaking worse than I wanted to.

He looked up.

"Don't cry."

And of course, the second he said it, I lost the fight.

He drew in a slow breath, the kind you take when you're talking yourself down from something.

His hand went gentle anyway.

He was still looking up at me, close enough that I could feel the warmth coming off his skin, close enough to count the flecks in his eyes.

Don't cry, he'd said.

The thing was, somewhere in the last thirty seconds, the knee had stopped being the problem.

Chapter 4

He cut me a look, like he already knew exactly what was going through my head.

"No pants, no knee-highs. Keep it dry. And don't shower today, at least."

"Huh?"

"Huh what."

"Then can I ask you to take responsibility for me?"

I said it on reflex. I flirt with him so much the lines just fall out on their own now.

He was going to shoot it down. Obviously.

Except he didn't. He went quiet for a long beat. His eyes cut away, somewhere over my shoulder, like the words were costing him something.

"Until your knee heals," he said, quieter now, not looking at me, "I take responsibility. That work for you?"

I blinked.

"Knox. You have a crush on me."

"You're playing hard to get. Aren't you."

"You actually like me, like, desperately hey. Hey, why are you walking away."

Turns out you really shouldn't push your luck.

So much for taking responsibility. Now Knox wouldn't be in the same room as me.

Am I game over?

At my lowest, most cornered, most pathetic hour, one man stepped up. My best friend. Brody.

"You can NOT be game over!"

He grabbed my shoulders and shook.

"My money. My three hundred bucks. That's my groceries for the whole semester, gone."

Brody informed me that even though Knox had him on semi-block now too, he would help me. Tirelessly.

So we ended up crouched under the lab window.

"See her? That girl's been coming around to ask Knox questions a lot this week."

Inside, it was just Knox now, squaring up a stack of the reports the professor wanted. The girl decided the moment was right and took two shy little steps to his side.

Asking him something, probably. I was too far off to hear.

Knox's face came about one word short of saying leave me alone.

"How is he meaner to other girls than he is to me."

"Which is exactly why I think you've still got a shot."

Brody patted my shoulder.

I flashed him a going-in signal, fixed my collar, and walked into the lab.

The first second Knox saw me, something flickered across his face. A stall. A glitch.

And then he turned to the girl and smiled.

Wide. Warm. Radiant.

I knew it was fake. Didn't matter. That face is good at everything, lying included.

The guy who'd been radiating get away from me two seconds earlier suddenly had all the patience in the world, walking her through the problem, talking clean over the fact that I existed.

He was avoiding me. He was so obviously avoiding me.

I draped myself over a chair and sat through the entire tutoring session.

I got the feeling the girl wanted to ask him to grab food and couldn't quite find the nerve with me sitting right there.

See? Thick skin pays off.

They said their goodbyes. I kept watching him, chin in my hand.

He sighed and looked straight at me.

"Am I really that good to look at?"

"Yep."

"Why."

And this time, for real, I caught something in his eyes I hadn't seen before. He didn't get it.

"Because I like you."

I'd said some version of that to him a hundred times this week. Every time, he either called me boring or said nothing at all.

I am not a patient person. But with him, somehow, every wall just made me want it more.

He squared the reports into a clean, neat stack.

And right when I'd braced for the usual nothing, he spoke.

Chapter 5

"How's the cut on your knee?"

"Fine. Switched to a long skirt so nothing rubs it. That work for you, Dr. Knox?"

I grinned and tugged the hem up to show him, even though the thing was scabbing over now and honestly looked worse than before. I wasn't planning to make him actually look.

He crouched in front of me anyway, unhurried, taking his time with it.

Close. Close enough that his breath landed on my skin and left it tingling.

He hummed, low and satisfied.

Before I could come up with a single thing to tease him about, he was already on his feet and walking out the door.

This guy. Couldn't even do concern without making it weird.

"Buy me dinner, Knox."

"I can buy you dinner." A beat. He said the rest to the middle distance, not to me, flat enough to pass for not caring. "Nothing spicy."

I stopped mid-sentence.

Hell must have frozen over. He'd checked my knee and now he was policing what I ate.

He raised an eyebrow. "What."

"Nothing. Knox, today you're maybe a tiny bit more handsome than usual."

Predictably, all I got back was two cold little scoffs.

There's a strip of food places right next to campus, packed at night. In honor of the eat light decree, we ended up at a little late-night soup-and-noodle place.

He caught me staring at the bowl in front of him and narrowed his eyes.

"What."

"I want a taste of yours, Knox."

I batted my lashes at him. He sighed.

While he was reaching for a clean bowl to ladle me some, my spoon had already dived into his pot.

Big scoop. I flashed him a triumphant grin.

Warm light came down over us. He just looked at me for a second, blank, and then his eyes curved.

"People with nothing rattling around upstairs must all live as happy as you."

I don't know if it counted as a date. I just know I floated back to my dorm.

I flopped onto the bed and found out that the guy who never posts anything, the guy with a black square for a photo and not one word of a bio, had posted.

One picture.

Of me.

On the walk back, a filthy little stray had kept headbutting my leg, so I'd crouched down to teach it to shake. He'd stood next to me and caught the whole thing on camera.

Caption: Dummy.

How am I the dummy. And why was he secretly taking pictures of me.

Wait.

The dog, or me.

Which one of us was he calling a dummy.

I texted him. He replied almost before I'd hit send