The Boy In Room 307

Drawn Lines

The sharp, metallic crash of the brass trophy echoed through the pitch-black room like a gunshot.

Before the last piece of marble finished skittering across the wooden floorboards, the mattress beside Mia shifted violently.

A large, heavy hand shot out through the dark, locking around Mia’s wrist like a vise. The grip was shockingly cold and iron-strong. Before she could even gasp, Jayden yanked her forward, using her momentum to spin her around and slam her back hard against the cold wall beside his desk.

"Ah—!"

The breath exploded from Mia’s lungs. Her head bounced lightly against the drywall.

Jayden pressed his body flush against hers, pinning her shoulders flat. His chest rose and fell in heavy, ragged bursts, radiating a sudden, overwhelming heat through his thin shirt. He loomed over her in the dark, his tall frame trapping her completely. His face was mere inches from hers, his sharp jawline rigid with blinding fury.

"What the hell are you doing?" Jayden’s voice was a low, lethal snarl, rough from sleep and laced with pure venom.

Mia’s heart slammed against her ribs like a trapped bird. Her chest, already tightly bound beneath her hoodie, couldn't expand. The sheer physical proximity of him—the smell of mint, skin, and cold sweat—flooded her senses. Her head spun dangerously, black spots dancing at the edges of her vision.

She couldn't breathe. She was going to faint right here in his arms.

"I—I was—" Mia choked out, struggling to force her voice down into her low, raspy pitch. "I dropped it—"

"I told you," Jayden growled, his grip tightening around her delicate wrist until her fingers went numb. "Rule number three. Don't touch my stuff."

"It was an accident!" Mia gasped, her voice cracking as she pressed her free hand against his chest to try and create half an inch of space. His muscles felt like solid stone under her palm. "I tripped over the desk—"

"You're snooping," Jayden cut her off, his dark eyes flashing in the dim moonlight filtering through the blinds. He leaned in closer, his breath hot against her neck, making every nerve ending in her body fire at once. "You crossed the line, Max. You came to my side of the room while I was sleeping."

"I wasn't snooping," Mia lied, her lungs burning for oxygen. "Let go of me, Jayden. Please."

Jayden held her pinned for three excruciating seconds. He stared down at her face, his gaze lingering on her wide, panicked eyes and pale lips. A strange flick of confusion passed through his dark eyes, as if he couldn't understand why his roommate felt so remarkably light and fragile beneath his hands.

With a harsh shove, Jayden released her wrist and stepped back.

Mia slumped against the wall, sliding down an inch as she pulled her arm to her chest, desperately sucking in thin draughts of air.

Jayden turned on his heel, bent down, and violently swept the sharp fragments of the broken trophy away from his bed with his foot.

"Clean this up," Jayden snapped, his back turned to her as he climbed back into bed and pulled the heavy blanket over his shoulders. "If I find one piece of brass on this floor in the morning, your bag goes out the window. Get back to your side."

Mia didn't say a word. She couldn't.

She dropped to her knees, her hands trembling as she picked up the broken pieces of marble and metal in the dark. Crawling carefully back across the white athletic tape, she dumped the sharp debris on her desk, collapsed onto her narrow twin bed, and stared at the dark ceiling until the sun began to bleed through the window blinds.

By seven in the morning, the room felt like a pressure cooker waiting to explode.

The morning light revealed the full extent of the territorial war. Mia sat on the edge of her bed, her knees tucked close to her chest, wearing a fresh, oversized gray sweatshirt and black track pants. She had spent twenty minutes in the tiny half-bathroom carefully securing her chest binder, making sure not a single curve showed.

Jayden was already up, pacing around his side of the room with a noticeable limp. He looked exhausted, the dark circles under his eyes contrasting sharply with his pale, rigid expression.

He marched over to the small wall thermostat near the door, clicking the dial down with three sharp, loud snaps.

A blast of freezing, icy air immediately roared out of the vent near Mia’s head.

Mia blew a stray strand of dark hair out of her eyes and stood up, walking straight over to the wall. "What are you doing? It's fifty degrees outside. It's freezing in here."

"I'm hot," Jayden said flatly, pulling his black athletic socks up over his calves. "My knee is inflamed. I need the air cold."

"Then put an ice pack on it," Mia retorted, her low voice raspy with irritation as she reached out and cranked the dial back up to seventy. "I'm not sitting in a refrigerator all morning just because you can't regulate your body temperature."

Jayden’s head snapped toward her. He stepped across his floorboards, reaching over her head to forcefully slap the plastic dial back down to sixty.

"Don't touch the thermostat, Max," he warned, his voice deep and icy. "My side, my rules."

"The thermostat is on my side of the wall!" Mia shot back, pointing a slender finger at the line of white athletic tape on the floor. "Look down, Cole. The dial is two inches past your line. That makes it my territory."

Jayden glared down at the floor, then up at her face. A muscle in his jaw twitched. "You really want to play this game?"

"I'm not playing anything," Mia said, keeping her shoulders broad as she stood her ground. "I have to get dressed and study my track schedules. I can't do that if my fingers are too frozen to hold a pen."

Instead of answering, Jayden walked back to his desk, grabbed his phone, and tapped the screen. A second later, a deafening, heavy metal guitar riff blasted out of his portable Bluetooth speaker, vibrating the thin walls of the room.

The noise was head-splitting.

Mia covered one ear, wincing at the sheer volume. "Are you serious right now? It's seven in the morning!"

Jayden leaned back against his desk, folding his arms across his chest with a cold, smug smirk. "What? I like music when I prep my gear. You don't like it?"

"Turn it down!" Mia yelled over the roaring drums.

"Can't hear you, kid!" Jayden called back smoothly, pointing to his ear. "The music's too loud!"

Mia glared at him, her chest heaving with frustration. She marched over to her bed, grabbed her phone, connected to her own small wireless earbud, and shoved it into her ear. She turned on a soft, acoustic indie playlist, cranking the volume up to drown out his chaotic noise.

She walked back to her desk, ignoring him completely as she unzipped her canvas duffel bag to finish organizing her clothes for the week.

Jayden watched her out of the corner of his eye. Seeing that his noise tactic hadn't driven her out of the room, he let out a sharp breath, walked over, and clicked the speaker off.

The sudden silence in the room was almost deafening.

"You're remarkably annoying," Jayden said, leaning his hip against his bedpost, watching her pull folded shirts out of her bag.

"Right back at you," Mia muttered in her lower register, keeping her back turned to him. "You know, for a famous basketball star, you act like a spoiled five-year-old."

"Former basketball star," Jayden corrected coldly, the smirk vanishing instantly from his face. "Get it right."

"Whatever," Mia said, reaching deep into the bottom compartment of her canvas bag to pull out her running shoes.

As she yanked her shoes out, her hand accidentally caught the edge of a small, hidden side pocket. The zipper popped open, tilting the bag sideways.

A tiny, delicate glass bottle slid out from the lining, rolling across the wooden floorboards. It crossed directly over the white athletic tape, coming to a stop right against the toe of Jayden’s black sneaker.

Mia’s heart stopped.

It was her small glass atomizer of sweet French lavender and vanilla perfume—the one her mother had gifted her for her nineteenth birthday.

"Don't touch that!" Mia blurted out, lunging forward to grab it.

Jayden was faster. He bent down, his long fingers scooping the small glass bottle off the floor before her hands could reach it.

He straightened up, holding the glass cylinder up to the morning sunlight streaming through the window.

"What is this?" Jayden asked, his eyebrows pulling together in a sharp line.

"It's mine," Mia said quickly, reaching out to snatch it back, but Jayden easily raised his arm above his head, leveraging his height to keep it far out of her reach.

"It looks like perfume," Jayden said, bringing the bottle closer to his face.

He didn't spray it, but as he moved the cap, a subtle, unmistakably sweet whiff of fresh lavender, vanilla, and soft florals drifted into the air between them. It was undeniably feminine, delicate, and completely out of place in a chaotic male athletic dorm.

Jayden froze.

His eyes slowly drifted down from the bottle, fixing directly onto Mia. He stared at her short hair, her smooth skin, and her wide, panicked dark eyes.

"Why," Jayden asked softly, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous tone, "does my male track roommate have a bottle of women's perfume in his bag?"