"You smell like danger and regret," Sienna declared from the couch., the moment Maya stepped through the front door.
Still damp from the evening drizzle, Maya blinked at her roommate. "Good evening to you too."
Sienna flung a pillow at her with a theatrical flair. "Don't good evening me, Miss I-Can-Tame-the-Devil. I heard rumors at school today."
Maya dropped her bag and hung her coat, utterly unbothered. "You always hear things. Half of them involve aliens running the psychology department."
Sienna sat up straight, her read headscarf dramatically slanted. "That was one time, and Dr. Langley does have the eyes of a shapeshifter." She pointed a nail at Maya. "But this, this is real. I heard from Zara, who heard from Cassie, who dated Logan Hayes's older cousin, that you are tutoring him."
Maya sighed, kicking off her shoes. "Is this going to be a conversation or an exorcism?"
"I haven't decided yet."
With a groan, Maya flopped beside her on the couch, pulling a blanket over her legs. "Yes. I'm tutoring Logan Hayes. Yes, it was assigned. No, I didn't ask for it. And no, I'm not going to need holy water."
Sienna's eyes narrowed. "Girl, do you know who he is?"
"Tall. Pretends to be dumb. Smirks like a Bond villain. Smells like overpriced rebellion."
"Exactly!" Sienna pointed triumphantly. "He's chaos in Gucci. He got into a fight at a frat party last semester because someone looked at him weird. He dated that girl from the business school, what's her name? Chloe? She transferred. Countries don't even bounce back from Logan Hayes."
Maya snorted. "You're being dramatic."
"I'm being reasonable!" Sienna crossed her arms. "You're a literature major with spreadsheets for feelings. You plan your caffeine intake. You alphabetize your pens."
"Color code," Maya corrected automatically.
"Worse!" Sienna threw her hands up. "Logan is...God, Maya, he's a walking complication. A beautiful, broody, too-clever jerk with a magnetic field that fries common sense. And you? You're allergic to messy. This has trap written in poetic metaphor."
Maya tilted her head with an amused look. "Have you been saving this speech?"
"I rehearsed it while the mac and cheese cooked." Sienna's expression sobered. "I'm not saying don't tutor him. I'm saying be careful. You act like you're made of stone, but you're not. And guys like him? They see cracks and they take that opportunity to seep in-in them."
That hit a little deeper than Maya expected. She exhaled, brushing a curl behind her ear. "I can handle him."
Sienna looked at her-really looked. "Can you?"
Maya hesitated. Logan's voice whispered through her memory: You light up around him.
The way he watched her and the way she didn't look away.
She shook the thought off. "I've tutored worse."
"Have you wanted worse?"
Maya shot her a glare, but Sienna didn't waver.
"I'm just saying," Sienna said more softly now. "You don't have to fix everyone. You don't have to prove you can't be touched."
"I'm not," Maya said, too quickly.
Sienna didn't call her out. She just stood, kissed the top of Maya's head and padded toward the kitchen. "Good. Because if he hurts you, I'm putting glitter in his shampoo and sugar in his gas tank."
Maya smiled, despite herself. "You're insane."
"I'm loyal," Sienna called back. "There's a difference. I may be your roommate but I'm also your best friend."
And as Maya curled up under her blanket, Logan's smile flashed behind her eyelids and she wasn't so sure anymore.
---
That evening, Maya and Sienna strolled along the paved path circling the South Green, their footsteps the only sound besides the occasional chirp of a brave night bird.
Sienna had her arms wrapped tight around her own torso, her scarf a colorful loop over her coat. "I still think we should've brought wine."
Maya smirked, her breath a faint ghost in the chilled air. "And sip it from what? Hollowed-out thermoses like high school delinquents?"
"I was a high school delinquent," Sienna replied breezily. "I have skills."
Maya shook her head smiling, but it was soft. Distant. Like the wind had reached inside her thoughts and stirred them loose.
Sienna nudged her. "You're thinking about him."
"I'm thinking about the mid-term."
"Maya." Her voice dropped into that knowing, sisterly lilt that always meant trouble. "You've gone quiet in that Logan Hayes way. All broody and pensive. It's contagious."
"I'm not brooding," Maya murmured, her eyes scanning the trees. "I'm processing."
"Same thing, just with more syllables."
They turned down a smaller, less-traveled path that wound behind the old-faculty houses. A single street lamp flickered ahead.
Sienna kept chatting about her design project, about a guy in her ethics class who wouldn't stop misusing the word juxtapose but Maya's gaze had drifted toward the darker corners. Not out of fear. Instinct maybe, or that familiar feeling in her stomach that had nothing to do with the cold.
Then she stopped walking.
Sienna also halted a few steps ahead. "What?"
"Nothing," Maya said, though her voice was thin and drawn.
Sienna tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. "You're doing that thing where you sense vibes like a haunted house."
"Do you ever feel like..." Maya exhaled, shaking her head. "Like you're being watched?"
Sienna turned a slow circle, scanning the trees. "Nope. But now I'm going to." She grabbed Maya's arm. "Don't say stuff like that when it's dark and we're surrounded by nature. This is how horror movies start."
Maya didn't laugh. She was still looking up at the thick limbs of the oak trees, down the slope of the hill, past the shimmer of campus lights beyond. Her spine prickled like the feeling you get when you wake up certain something was just in the room with you.
Maya then saw a shadow that wasn't moving, it just stood still.
Half-concealed beneath the trees, on the low stone wall beside the back path seated like he wasn't afraid of the dark. A leg bent as an arm rested casually on a raised knee. The flick of the lighter briefly lit the sharp lines of his face before the flame vanished into smoke and night.
Logan Hayes.
Maya's mouth went dry. He didn't move, he didn't speak, he just watched.
Sienna hadn't noticed him yet. "Seriously, Maya, let's go back. I've got snacks, and that romcom you keep pretending you haven't seen three times."
Maya's fingers caught Sienna's sleeve, quiet and tightly.
"What the-" Sienna followed her line of sight and stopped cold. "Oh, hell no!"
Logan still didn't move. The only sign he was real and not some ghost in designer jeans was the steady burn of the cigarette between his fingers and the unmistakable way his gaze never wavered from Maya.
Sienna whispered, "He's just sitting there like he's posing for a noir thriller."
Maya's pulse was a soft roar in her ears. Logan looked carved from midnight, lean and languid, and entirely too still. Like a man with nowhere else to be, and he had all the time in the world to watch her.
Sienna leaned close. "Do we walk by? Do we run? Should I call campus security or is this your idea of foreplay?"
Maya ignored her, She met his stare across the shadowed stretch, and for a second, one breathless second, it felt like everything around them fell away.
And Logan watched Maya. Her name lived in the look he gave her from the other dark side.
"He's not doing anything wrong," she said, too quiet.
Sienna's jaw dropped. "He's stalking us with ambiance, Maya."
Maya pulled her gaze away and started walking. "Let's just go."
Behind them, Logan remained unidentified where he continued stalking them, as he pretended that he was taking his own alone time within the dark trees.