“Thanks for the ride,” I said, not looking at him.“And the dinner.”
“Don’t worry about it.”Luke sat on his bed, groaning as he stretched his back.
“Luke?”
“Yeah?”
I set the puck down, centering it perfectly under the lamp.
“If you ever need an assist…” I looked at him.“The stats say I owe you one.”
Luke looked at me.His expression was unreadable, but his eyes were soft.
“That sounds more like a debt than an assist,” he said.“But, if I ever need anything from you, I won’t hesitate to ask.And you can do the same thing with me.I don’t get what it had to have been like for you growing up in the system, but it sounds like it warped your perception of what friendship is.”
“We’re friends?”The words were out of my mouth before I consciously spent a second to ponder them.
“I hope so,” Luke said, propping himself on the side of his bed looking at me.
“Besides Maya, I don’t really have many friends.I have colleagues and acquaintances, but I’ve never really had friends.Growing up, I was rarely anywhere long enough to make them.”
“That sounds horribly lonely.”
“Maybe, but when it’s all you’ve known, you really don’t know any better.You adjust.”
“Well, Mr.Lovell, I’m happy to call you a friend.And I’m happy that I ‘stuck’ with you as a roommate.”He actually used air quotes.
I nodded.I opened my laptop.The blue light washed over my face.The repair bill was still a disaster, and I had no idea how this would impact my finances, but those were problems for tomorrow.But the room didn’t feel cold anymore.
“And I’m happy to call you a friend,” I whispered before turning my attention to my laptop.I wasn’t a floating variable.I had a constant.
Chapter 9
Balancing the Ledger
Luke
“Left post,” I muttered, tapping the radiator valve with my knuckles like it was a goal frame I could square up against.The hiss leveled into a steady exhale—sixty-eight degrees, give or take.Acceptable.
I’d walked in three minutes earlier, fresh off a two-hour goalie clinic and a ten-minute snow-spit jog across campus.My hair was still damp under the beanie; sweat cooled fast in Stony Creek’s hallway, but inside 317 the air felt clean with a hint of mint tea, fresh laundry, printer paper, and whatever soap Austen favored.
He sat cross-legged on his bed, laptop balanced on a pillow, earbuds in.I caught a line of numbers scrolling on the screen, stacked like apartment floors.His gaze flicked up, registered me, and slid back to the code without a word.
Normal, then.
I toed my sneakers onto the rug, lining them parallel with the mini-fridge.Hoodie followed, draped across the desk chair.The silence wasn’t awkward; it was a safe space.Like between whistles when you’re waiting on a faceoff—no crowd roar, just the hum of refrigeration units and the scratch of skates.
My stomach chimed louder than the radiator.Lunch still sat ninety minutes away, but that’s why I kept protein shakes on standby.I snagged the coldest one I could find, strawberry banana.
The cap stuck.I twisted harder; the plastic squealed.
Across the room, Austen paused his typing, eyebrow tilting.He yanked an earbud free.“That cap giving you trouble?”
“I’ve got it.”One more twist, cap surrendered.“How long have you been coding?”
“It’s not really coding, not in the computer science sense.I am using advanced mathematical software to run calculations.”
“Nerd,” I said, giving him a half smile.
