Blood and Biochemistry

Chapter 2

Evangeline

For several long seconds, no one moved.

I stood just inside the suite with one hand wrapped around the handle of my suitcase and the other clutching a stack of orientation folders against my chest. Three unfamiliar men stared back at me as though I had wandered into the wrong apartment—which, considering how my day had gone, remained entirely possible.

The blond one recovered first.

“Oh.” His gaze dropped to the housing packet balanced beneath my arm, then slid toward the dark-haired man standing near the kitchen island. A slow, delighted grin spread across his face. “Oh, this is incredible.”

The man with the glasses lowered his coffee mug. “That doesn’t sound promising.”

“It’s very promising.” The blond turned back to me and straightened to his full height, which was alarmingly close to the ceiling. “Please tell me you’re Harper.”

I tightened my grip on the suitcase. “That depends. Are you about to tell me I’m in the wrong building?”

“Absolutely not.” He crossed the room in three long strides, narrowly avoiding a hockey stick propped against the couch. “You are exactly where you’re supposed to be.”

The dark-haired man’s expression suggested otherwise.

Up close, the blond was even larger than he had appeared from the doorway. Broad shoulders stretched the fabric of his Ravenwood hockey shirt, and his messy dirty-blond hair looked as though he had recently dragged a helmet off his head. Despite his size, everything about him radiated warmth, from his amber-brown eyes to the crooked grin he aimed at me.

“I’m Mason Brooks,” he said, reaching for my suitcase. “Official welcoming committee, unofficial tour guide, and the only person in this apartment with functional social skills.”

“I have social skills,” the man with the glasses said.

Mason glanced over his shoulder. “You’ve spoken six words since breakfast.”

“Seven now.”

“That’s Oliver Hayes.” Mason gestured toward him. Oliver lifted two fingers in a restrained greeting, his platinum hair nearly white beneath the afternoon light. Thin black glasses framed deep blue eyes, and the small ring through his lower lip caught briefly when he raised his mug. “He’s quiet, judgmental, and frighteningly good at fixing things.”

“I’m not judgmental.”

Mason looked at me. “He is.”

Oliver took another drink of coffee. “He dropped a fork into the toaster last week.”

“It was unplugged.”

“It was smoking.”

“That feels unrelated.”

A laugh slipped out before I could stop it.

Mason’s grin widened as though he had accomplished something. “There it is. I was beginning to worry Adrian had frightened you mute.”

He tilted his head at me then, curiosity flickering across his face. “Wait—Harper. Is that your first name or your last name?”

I blinked. “My last name.”

“Right.” He pointed at me like he’d solved something important. “So what’s the rest of it?”

I hesitated for half a second, then shifted my suitcase handle higher on my shoulder. “Evangeline Harper.”

Mason nodded slowly, as if testing it out. “Evangeline.”

“Evie,” I added automatically. “Most people call me Evie.”

His grin returned instantly. “Evie. Got it.”

My attention returned to the third man.

He had not moved from his place beside the island. At six foot five, he was taller even than Mason, though his build was leaner, all broad shoulders and controlled strength beneath a dark long-sleeved shirt. Wavy black hair fell carelessly over his forehead, nearly brushing eyes so pale and intensely blue they looked silver in the dim apartment.

He was beautiful in an unsettling way.

Not soft or approachable. Precise. Flawless. Like someone had carved him from cold marble and then made the questionable decision to bring him to life.

His gaze passed over me once, pausing briefly on the housing keycard in my hand.

“Adrian Blackwood,” he said.

His voice was low and polished, without any of Mason’s warmth. He did not offer his hand.

“Evangeline Harper.”

Something almost imperceptible shifted in his expression at the sound of my full name. Recognition, perhaps, though I couldn’t imagine why. Then his face smoothed into careful indifference.

“Mason,” he said, “put down her suitcase.”

Mason had already lifted it from my hand. “Why?”

“Because housing has made a mistake.”

My stomach tightened. “They gave me a key.”

“They can issue keys incorrectly.”

“They also gave me paperwork.”

“Administrative errors frequently involve paperwork.”

Mason leaned toward me and lowered his voice, though not enough to prevent Adrian from hearing him. “He’s always like this. You learn to tune it out.”

“I can still hear you.”

“I know.”

Adrian’s eyes remained on mine. “Which room were you assigned?”

I glanced at the printed page. “Bedroom A. Bed two.”

Mason made a strangled sound that might have been a laugh. Oliver closed his eyes briefly behind his glasses, as though he had just received confirmation of an outcome he had already predicted.

Adrian did neither. He simply went very still.

“That’s your room,” Mason told him unnecessarily.

“I’m aware.”

“And your empty bed.”

“I am also aware of that.”

“And now it’s her bed.”

Adrian looked at him. “Thank you, Mason.”

“You’re welcome.”

I shifted the folders in my arms. The first flicker of relief I had felt in the housing office began to dissolve. “If this is going to be a problem, I can go back and talk to someone.”

“There you go,” Adrian said. “A sensible solution.”

Mason’s smile vanished. “No.”

The firmness in his voice surprised all of us.

He turned toward Adrian, my suitcase still in one enormous hand. “She just got here. Housing assigned her the room, and it’s not like they’re hiding spare beds behind the vending machines. You heard what happened with enrollment.”

“That does not make this arrangement appropriate.”

“What’s inappropriate about it?”

Adrian’s gaze flicked toward me and then away. “She’s a first-year student.”

“I’m nineteen,” I said.

Three pairs of eyes turned toward me.

“I didn’t say you were a child,” Adrian replied.

“You said it like I might need supervision.”

“No,” Mason said cheerfully. “That’s us. We need supervision.”

Oliver raised his mug. “Mostly him.”

Mason ignored him. “Come on. I’ll show you the room before Adrian starts quoting housing policy.”

“I do not quote housing policy.”

“You quoted section nine at me when I bought the air fryer.”

“It was a fire hazard.”

“It makes excellent chicken.”

I should have been uncomfortable. Four strangers sharing an apartment, three of them enormous hockey players, and one apparently furious that I existed. Yet Mason’s effortless nonsense had taken some of the pressure from the room, and Oliver’s quiet amusement made the situation feel strangely ordinary.

Besides, I had a key.

More importantly, I had a bed.

“I’m staying unless housing tells me otherwise,” I said.

Adrian studied me for a moment. His face revealed nothing, but I felt the full force of his attention like a change in air pressure. Then he inclined his head once.

“Very well.”

It didn’t sound like agreement. It sounded like a temporary cease-fire.

Mason brightened instantly. “Excellent. Welcome home.”

The word caught somewhere beneath my ribs.

Home.

He couldn’t possibly know how carelessly he had used it.

Before I could answer, he carried my suitcase toward the hallway. “Your new luxury accommodations await. By luxury, I mean the closet door sticks and the shower makes a noise like it’s haunted, but the water pressure is fantastic.”

Oliver followed at a more reasonable pace. “Don’t let him carry your boxes if there’s anything breakable inside.”

“I’ve never broken anything important.”

“You broke my camera.”

“You left it on a chair.”

“Chairs are designed to hold things.”

“People, Oliver. Chairs hold people.”

“The camera was more valuable than most people.”

I glanced back toward Adrian. He remained beside the island, watching us disappear down the hall with an expression that made one thing perfectly clear.

He did not expect me to stay long.