Blood and Biochemistry

Chapter 3

The bedroom was larger than the one I had shared with my father during the last year I lived at home, though that wasn’t a particularly difficult standard to beat.

Two twin beds occupied opposite walls, separated by a pair of desks and a wide window overlooking Ravenwood’s oldest courtyard. A long closet had been divided into equal sections, and two bookshelves stood beside the desks. The entire room was decorated in various shades of gray, black, and darker gray.

Adrian’s side was immaculate.

His bed had been made with military precision, the charcoal comforter pulled smooth enough to bounce a coin from it. A black wool coat hung from a hook near the door. Three hardbound books sat in a perfect stack on his desk beside a silver pen and an old-fashioned leather notebook. There were no photographs, posters, souvenirs, or signs of a life beyond those few carefully chosen objects.

It looked less like a bedroom than a room staged to suggest a person lived there.

Mason placed my suitcase beside the empty bed. “There she is.”

The mattress was bare except for a folded university-issued blanket and a pillow sealed in plastic. It might have looked bleak to someone else.

To me, it looked safe.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Anytime.” Mason leaned against the bedpost, arms folded across his chest. “And I mean that literally. Need help moving furniture? Call me. Need someone to walk you across campus? Call me. Need a fake boyfriend to make another guy jealous?”

“Mason,” Oliver said.

“What? I’m being welcoming.”

“You’re flirting with our roommate before she’s unpacked.”

“Our suite-mate,” Mason corrected. “And I’m not flirting.”

I raised an eyebrow.

He placed one hand over his heart. “I’m naturally charming.”

“You almost tripped over a hockey stick.”

“Charming and athletic.”

Oliver glanced at me. “He’s a defenseman. His job is to collide with people.”

“I do it beautifully.”

Despite myself, I smiled again. Mason noticed, of course, but for once he let the victory pass without comment.

From the living room, Adrian called, “Mason.”

“I’m helping.”

“You’re hovering.”

“Fine.” Mason pushed away from the bedpost. “We’ll let you settle in. Dinner situation is currently undecided, but if you hear yelling, it’s probably not an emergency.”

“Probably?” I asked.

Oliver opened the bedroom door. “You’ll learn.”

They left me alone, Mason still arguing that he had behaved with flawless restraint.

I stood in the center of the room and listened to their voices fade into the kitchen. The silence that followed felt fragile, as though the walls were holding their breath with me.

This was mine.

Half of it, at least.

For the next semester—or until housing corrected whatever mistake Adrian seemed certain they had made—this small section of room belonged to me. No bottles hidden beneath the sink. No footsteps stumbling down the hallway after midnight. No wondering whether the electricity would still be on when I got home.

Just a narrow bed, a desk, and a closet.

It was enough.

I unzipped my suitcase and began with my clothes. There weren’t many. Two pairs of jeans, several T-shirts, three oversized sweaters, leggings, underwear, pajamas, one decent blouse, and the black dress I had bought for scholarship interviews. My lab coat had been folded between two hoodies to keep it from wrinkling.

Everything fit into less than half of my section of the closet.

As I hung the last sweater, voices rose from the kitchen.

“We are not getting a dog,” Adrian said.

His tone had not changed, but somehow the words carried through the apartment with the force of a locked door.

“We’re not getting a dog,” Mason replied. “I’m getting a dog.”

“You live here.”

“Exactly. Which means my dog would also live here.”

“No.”

“You haven’t even met him.”

“I don’t need to meet him.”

“That’s a terrible attitude. Moose is very sensitive.”

A pause followed.

“His name is Moose?”

“He’s a golden retriever.”

“That does not answer my question.”

“It answers it emotionally.”

I covered my mouth to hide a laugh, though there was no one in the room to see it.

Oliver’s quieter voice joined the argument. “The paperwork has already been approved.”

Adrian went silent.

Mason sounded delighted. “I was saving that part.”

“You submitted paperwork without discussing it with me?”

“I discussed it with Oliver.”

“You asked whether I knew how to print a PDF,” Oliver said.

“And you did.”

“That wasn’t consent.”

“But it was teamwork.”

“He is not sleeping on the furniture,” Adrian said.

Mason gasped. “So he can come?”

“No.”

“You’re already negotiating.”

“I am establishing boundaries for a hypothetical animal that will never enter this suite.”

“Moose is coming Saturday.”

Another long silence.

Then Adrian said, with terrifying calm, “You have three days to find somewhere else to live.”

Mason laughed.

I had the distinct impression Adrian had not been joking.

Their argument faded into a debate over emotional-support documentation, pet deposits, and whether a seventy-pound animal could reasonably be described as “compact.” I returned to my suitcase, oddly comforted by the noise. It filled the apartment without feeling dangerous. No slurred words. No breaking glass. No warning tremor beneath every sentence.

Just three friends arguing about a dog.

The bathroom proved even more masculine than the bedroom. Gray towels. Black shower curtain. Charcoal bathmat. A bottle of shampoo labeled something absurdly aggressive involving cedar, smoke, and mountains.

Even the soap smelled stern.

I placed my toothbrush in the empty side of the holder and set a small bottle of lavender body wash in the shower. The pale purple container looked almost rebellious among the rows of black and gray.

Back in the bedroom, I reached into the bottom of my suitcase and carefully removed the folded quilt.

The fabric had once been a deep royal purple, but years of washing had softened it to uneven shades of lavender and plum. Some of the patches had faded more than others, and the stitching along one corner had begun to unravel. My mother had made it when I was seven, sewing together scraps from old dresses, curtains, and one of my favorite childhood shirts.

She used to tell me that nothing beautiful should be wasted simply because it was no longer perfect.

When the first seam came loose, she promised she would repair it.

She never got the chance.

I spread the quilt across the plain mattress and smoothed both palms over the familiar fabric. Against the gray walls and dark furniture, it looked too soft, too worn, and entirely out of place.

I loved it instantly.

The fairy lights came next. They had cost three dollars at a thrift store and required tape to keep one section of wire from sagging, but when I strung them above the head of my bed and plugged them in, warm golden light spilled across the purple quilt.

The room changed.

Not dramatically. Adrian’s half remained cold and controlled, untouched by anything so frivolous as color. But my side no longer looked like an empty space waiting for someone to leave. It looked occupied.

I arranged the photograph of my mother on my desk, tucked close enough to the wall that it couldn’t be easily knocked over. She was laughing in the picture, her head thrown back and one hand shielding her eyes from the sun. I barely remembered the day it had been taken, but I remembered that laugh.

After a moment, I turned the frame slightly inward so only I could see it from my bed.

Then finally, my books.

Textbooks went on the desk: general chemistry, organic chemistry, molecular biology, calculus, and a laboratory manual thick enough to stop a bullet. The sight of them made the tension between my shoulders loosen. Equations behaved predictably. Molecules followed rules. Problems could be solved if you worked hard enough and refused to quit.

My romance novels occupied the shelf.

There were historical romances with cracked spines, contemporary romances with embarrassingly bright covers, and fantasy novels I had reread whenever reality became too difficult to tolerate. None of them matched the sterile room, but that felt appropriate. Neither did I.

I was arranging the last few books when the bedroom door opened without warning.

I spun around.

Adrian stood in the doorway.

He had changed into a dark Henley with the sleeves pushed to his forearms. His hair was still falling into his eyes, and I wondered—not for the first time in the last hour—how someone could look so deliberately composed while apparently making no effort at all.

His gaze moved across the room.

The lights.

The quilt.

The half-empty closet.

My mother’s photograph.

The stacks of books.

He took it all in without comment, but I had the uncomfortable sensation that he noticed more than he allowed anyone to see.

“You unpacked quickly,” he said.

“I didn’t bring much.”

His eyes flicked toward the closet. “No.”

One syllable. No pity. No question.

For some reason, that was easier to tolerate.

I pushed my glasses back up my nose. “I stayed on my side.”

“I can see that.”

“Good.”

His gaze lingered on the fairy lights. “Do those remain on while you sleep?”

“Sometimes.”

“They’re a fire hazard.”

“They’re LEDs.”

“They’re attached to the wall with tape.”

“The tape is decorative.”

“It’s transparent.”

“It decorates transparently.”

For the first time, something shifted in his expression. Not quite amusement, but the possibility of it. It vanished so quickly I wondered if I had imagined it.

He crossed to his desk and picked up the leather notebook. His movements were quiet enough to make me suddenly aware that I had not heard him approach the room.

“I assume housing will contact you tomorrow,” he said.

“About what?”

“The reassignment.”

I stared at him. “They told me this was the only available bed on campus.”

“They’ll find another.”

“And if they don’t?”

His silver-blue eyes met mine.

“Then I suppose you’ll remain here.”

The lack of enthusiasm was impressive. “Try not to sound devastated.”

“I’m rarely devastated.”

“Lucky you.”

He studied me for a moment longer than necessary. “You’re not what I expected.”

“I didn’t realize you were expecting me.”

“I wasn’t.”

“That clears things up.”

I turned back to the shelf and placed another paperback upright. Adrian stepped around me to reach his desk, but his attention caught on the cover before I could slide it into place.

A silver-eyed vampire stared dramatically from beneath the title, his shirt open for reasons the plot had never adequately explained. Behind him, a woman in a flowing red dress held a dagger while a castle burned in the distance.

Adrian stopped.

I considered pushing the book behind my molecular biology text. Doing so would only confirm that I was embarrassed, which I absolutely was, but I refused to let him know it.

“It was on sale,” I said.

His eyes moved to the next book. Another vampire. More exposed chest. Considerably more blood.

“And that one?”

“A gift.”

“The entire shelf?”

“I have generous friends.”

His gaze returned to the original cover. The corner of his mouth lifted.

Barely.

It wasn’t the charming smile I imagined he offered professors and crowds of hockey fans. This was smaller and sharper, touched with private amusement.

It transformed his face.

For one brief second, the cold, flawless stranger disappeared, leaving behind someone younger. Warmer. Almost human.

Then the expression vanished.

“Interesting taste,” he said.

“They’re fiction.”

“So I would hope.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Do you have something against vampires?”

He looked at me with impossible calm.

“Several things.”

Before I could ask what that meant, Mason shouted from the living room.

“EVANGELINE! IMPORTANT SUITE VOTE!”

Adrian closed his eyes.

“What are we voting on?” I called.

“WHETHER MOOSE GETS HIS OWN STOCKING AT CHRISTMAS.”

“It’s August,” Adrian said.

“PLANNING AHEAD IS RESPONSIBLE.”

I glanced toward the hallway and then back at Adrian. “You know he’s going to bring that dog here regardless of what you say.”

“Yes.”

“You could save yourself the argument.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Principle.”

I smiled despite myself. “You’re going to love him.”

His expression turned faintly offended. “I assure you, I will not.”

From the living room, Mason called, “HE SAYS THAT NOW.”

Adrian walked toward the door, pausing beside me for only a fraction of a second. He was close enough that I caught the clean scent of cedar and winter air, though the room was warm.

“You should not become too comfortable, Evangeline,” he said quietly. “This arrangement will not last.”

There was no cruelty in the words. Only certainty.

I looked past him at my fairy lights, my worn purple quilt, and the small collection of belongings that had followed me through every temporary place I had ever lived.

“Maybe not,” I said. “But I’m here tonight.”

His eyes returned to mine. Something unreadable passed through them before he inclined his head and left the room.

I listened to Mason immediately resume arguing about the emotional benefits of large dogs. Oliver added an occasional dry observation, while Adrian rejected each point with the patience of someone who had been enduring Mason for far longer than any ordinary person should have been able to manage.

I sat on the edge of my newly made bed and looked around.

The room was still half gray. The closet was still mostly empty. Adrian Blackwood clearly wanted me gone.

But the quilt beneath my hand was soft, the lights above me were warm, and for the first time in longer than I cared to admit, no one knew where to find me unless I wanted them to.

For tonight, that was enough.