Roommates With the Quarterback’s Best Friend

Saylor’s Pov

I pull my heavy suitcase across the sticky pavement of the parking lot of westbrudge university, my shoulders already burning. My phone buzzes in my back pocket. I ignore it. It is probably Mason texting me again to make sure I am breathing.

I take a deep breath and tell myself the same thing I have told myself a hundred times today. You belong here. You earned the QB1 jersey. The noise does not matter.

My stomach ties into a knot anyway. Walking onto campus yesterday felt like stepping into an aquarium. Everywhere I went, people whispered. Some students looked proud, like they were watching history. Others looked annoyed, like I took a seat I didn't deserve. One guy in a red hoodie literally stopped walking and stared at my face as if he were trying to match it to a picture on the news. I stared right back until he looked away, smiling like my heart isn't beating a million miles an hour against my ribs.

Mason warned me about this. "College ball is a shark tank, Saylor," he told me last week over greasy diner fries back home. I hate that he was right.

I reach my car, toss my gym bag in the passenger seat, and grab my phone because another call is coming through. It is not Mason this time. It is the campus housing office.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Bennett," a tired voice says through the speaker. "There was a mix-up with the graduate student dorms. Water damage on the third floor. Your room isn't ready for three weeks."

"Three weeks?" I squeak. "Where am I supposed to sleep? In the stadium bleachers?"

"Coach Cole authorized emergency placement," the voice says quickly. "Address is 414 Elm Street. The football off-campus house. A room is open upstairs."

My blood turns to ice. The football house. As in, where half the starting roster lives, eats, and leaves protein shaker bottles on the couch. As in, where Kieran Vale lives.

Kieran. My brother’s best friend. The boy who used to pull my ponytail in fifth grade, then grew into a six-foot-two star wide receiver with a permanent smirk and an annoying habit of treating me like fragile glass.

"Is there anywhere else?" I ask, my voice tight.

"Negative. That's the only key coded for you today. Good luck with preseason camp!"

Click.

I sit in my car for a full five minutes, staring at the steering wheel. I could drive back home, three hours north, and let my dad lecture me about resilience. Or I can drive ten minutes down Elm Street, walk into a house full of sweaty college boys, and prove I can handle a minor housing crisis.

Ten minutes later, my black sedan bumps into the driveway of a big brick house with a patchy lawn and two pickup trucks parked crookedly. Music is thumping faintly through an open window upstairs. My sneakers hit the concrete, and I haul my oversized suitcase up the porch steps. My palms are sweaty. I wipe them on my shorts, grab the brass handle, and push the front door open.

It smells like old pizza, floor wax, and male deodorant.

"Hello?" I call out, my voice bouncing off the high entryway ceiling.

Footsteps thump down the wooden stairs. I push my suitcase past the threshold and look up.

Kieran stands on the third step down. He is wearing grey sweatpants low on his hips, a black sleeveless training shirt that shows off arms way too thick to be legal, and messy dark hair that looks like he just rolled out of bed at noon. His bare feet are planted on the wood. He freezes mid-step, his jaw going slack.

He stares at me like I am a ghost who just stole his car.

"Bennett?" his voice is raspy, deep, and dripping with total shock.

"Vale," I snap back, resting my hand on the handle of my suitcase. "Close your mouth before a fly gets in."

He doesn't close it. He takes two slow steps down, his dark eyes scanning me from my messy ponytail down to my beat-up sneakers, then over to my rolling suitcase.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, his voice dropping an octave into that low, dangerous tone he uses when a linebacker tries to cheap-shot me during joint practices.

"Housing fell through," I say, lifting my chin high. I refuse to look small. Even though he towers over me by almost a foot, I square my shoulders and glare right back. "Housing office sent me here. Emergency room upstairs."

Kieran lets out a sharp, dry laugh that has zero humor in it. He rubs the back of his neck, his fingers tangling in his dark hair.

"You've got to be kidding me," he mutters, shaking his head. "Mason is going to kill me."

"Mason doesn't live here, you do. And last time I checked, my name was on the key card." I hold up the blue plastic card like a shield.

Kieran walks down the rest of the stairs, stopping just three feet away from me. Up close, he smells like cedar soap and clean sweat. He looks down at me, his eyes dark and narrow. The teasing light I used to hate is totally gone.

"Saylor, this isn't a dorm," he says slowly, lowering his voice like he is talking to a stubborn mule. "There are six guys living in this house. We don't lock bedroom doors half the time. Guys walk around half-dressed. We watch game film at two in the morning eating cereal out of the box. This is a zoo."

"I played varsity football with boys for four years in high school, Vale. I know what a locker room smells like." I step past him, rolling my suitcase hard enough that it bumps against his shin. He doesn't move, just turns his head to track me like a hawk watching a mouse.

"Hey. I'm serious," he says, following me into the wide-open living room. Pizza boxes are stacked like ancient ruins on the coffee table. A giant TV is paused on a Madden replay. "Coach didn't tell us a girl was moving in. Let alone you."

I stop near the bottom of the main staircase and spin around to face him. The frustration bubbling inside me—from the stupid media questions, the staring campus crowds, the broken dorm pipe, and the way Kieran is standing in my space like he owns the air—all boils over at once.

"Why does it bother you so much?" I snap, my voice echoing off the walls. "Is it because I'm a girl? Or is it because you're terrified I'm going to see you drop a pass in the kitchen?"

Kieran’s eyes flash. He closes the distance between us in two long strides until he is standing right over me. I have to tilt my head back to look into his face. His chest rises and falls sharply.

"It's not about football, Saylor," he murmurs, his voice dropping so low it barely fills the room. His gaze drops briefly to my mouth before locking back onto my eyes. "It's about... you walking through that door like you're daring the whole world to knock you down."

"I am daring them," I whisper back, my heart pounding so loud I think he can hear it.

Kieran stares at me for a long, heavy second. The air between us feels thick, charged like the sky right before a summer thunderstorm. Neither of us moves.

Upstairs, a door slams open, and a guy shouts, "Yo, Kieran, are we ordering wings or what?"

The spell snaps. Kieran takes a half-step back, running a hand down his face, dragging a deep breath into his lungs. He points a finger at me, warning in his dark eyes.

"Room 4. Top of the stairs on the left. Don't touch my protein powder, don't leave your cleats by the front door, and lock your damn door at night."

"Make me," I mutter.

Kieran groans, turns on his bare heel, and yells up the stairs, "We're ordering pizza, shut up!"

I grab my heavy suitcase handle, grit my teeth, and drag the wheels up the creaking wooden steps toward room number four. Preseason hasn't even started yet, and I already feel like I am fighting a war on two fronts.