WANTED A FLING BUT IT'S A NIGHT

CHAPTER 3 (GONE BEFORE SUNRISE)

CHAPTER THREE

The light was still on when Asher opened his eyes.

Soft yellow bled across the wall, quiet and still. The usual panic that clawed at his chest every time he woke alone didn’t come. For a moment, he just stared at the ceiling, disoriented. Then he turned his head.

Rhett wasn’t there.

Zayn’s bed was empty again, but the hoodie was gone. The floor was clear too. The only sign anyone had ever been there was the faint scent on the pillow beside him—clean cotton and something warmer, sharper. Like cinnamon and smoke.

Asher sat up slowly.

His head pounded lightly, but it wasn’t terrible. He rubbed his eyes, the memories of last night filtering in like dust through sunlight.

The party.

The rat.

The car ride.

Rhett’s voice—quiet and cold but not unkind.

“I’ll stay.”

Had he really meant to stay the whole night? Had he actually done it? Asher vaguely remembered hearing Rhett's breathing in the dark. A shift of movement beside him. Maybe he had taken the floor. Maybe he’d slept for real. Maybe...

Asher looked around again, then swung his feet to the floor.

He didn’t know Rhett’s last name. Didn’t even know what department he was in. Just knew he was older, confident, and completely unreadable.

And yet, somehow, the thought that Rhett had stayed made Asher’s chest ache. Not in a painful way. Just... tight.

He picked up his phone. One message from Zayn:

> **1:21 a.m.**

> *Yo. Don’t wait up. I’m good. You okay?*

Asher didn’t reply. Not yet. He stood, stretched, and pulled open the window blinds.

Campus was slowly waking up. Someone was dragging a bucket across the hallway. Birds chirped like everything was perfectly normal.

But inside Asher, something was shifting.

He’d spent one night with a stranger.

Not in the way people whispered about in hostels. No s*x. No kiss.

Just presence.

And yet, it felt more intimate than anything he’d ever had before.

Asher pulled on his hoodie and stepped out of the room, hoping, not knowing why, that maybe he’d see Rhett again. That maybe—just maybe—last night hadn’t been nothing.

And maybe, for the first time, this campus might actually feel like the start of something.