Page 39 of Bound to the Dorm Elf
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
Rovax moves into the seat across from me like it was always meant to be his. He doesn’t even glance in the direction Johnson went. His gaze locks on me, sharp and unreadable. “Was he bothering you?”
I snap my notebook shut, more for the pause it buys me than anything. “You can’t just… loom at people until they leave.”
One brow lifts. “It worked.”
“That’s not the point,” I say, but my voice comes out weaker than I want. My fingers curl against the edge of the table, because there’s this unshakable awareness of him now — the way the faint light catches the line of his jaw, the way the glamour bends around him but can’t quite hide that alien sharpness.
He leans forward, not much, just enough to close a fraction of the space between us. And it’s ridiculous, how that single movement punches the air out of my lungs.
“I do not like the way he looked at you,” Rovax says, his voice low, almost conversational. But the weight under the words makes it clear this is no casual observation.
“Yeah, well, I don’t like it either,” I admit, picking at the spiral binding of my notebook. “But I can handle it.”
His gaze dips to my hands, then back to my face. “Perhaps. But why should you have to?”
That question is too dangerous, so I deflect. “Because that’s how life works here, Rovax. People are jerks, and you can’t just growl at them until they stop.”
The corner of his mouth twitches, like he’s holding back a smirk — or maybe an argument. “Perhaps your way works in your world. Mine is more… efficient.”
I roll my eyes, but the tension in my chest doesn’t ease. “You’re impossible.”
“Accurate,” he says without missing a beat.
There’s a hum between us now, not quite in the air but in my pulse, and I know exactly why — last night is sitting between us like a lit fuse. The memory of his mouth on mine, the heat of him in the cold night air, the way it felt less like a choice and more like inevitability.
I drop my gaze to my bag, fumbling with the zipper. “We should… go. I have stuff to do.”
“We can go,” he says, and when I glance up, there’s something almost amused in his eyes — but softer than I’ve seen before, like he’s holding back from pushing me any further.
As we stand, his hand brushes against mine, barely there but enough to send a jolt through me. I can’t tell if it’s on purpose. I don’t ask.
And as we walk out of the library together, I can’t decide if the weight in my chest is exhilaration… or something I should be very, very afraid of.
It starts small.
Later that day, when the campus has thinned out and the late-afternoon sun stretches shadows across the quad, I catch myself watching him. Not staring, exactly — I’m not that obvious— but there’s this pull, like my eyes keep finding him without permission.
He’s leaning against a bench, arms crossed, watching a cluster of students arguing over a flyer. His head tilts slightly, like he’s dissecting the conversation for weaknesses, as if even a debate over some club event is worthy of tactical analysis. I swear I can almost hear the gears turning in his head.
Then one of them laughs — too loud, too sharp — and his eyes flick to mine. It’s quick, barely there, but it’s enough to make heat crawl up the back of my neck.
I look away fast, pretending to be fascinated by a squirrel attacking a trash can. Smooth, Skylar. Real subtle.
We keep walking, and I keep telling myself to focus on… literally anything else. My next class. The reading I haven’t done. The fact that I need to do laundry before Syndee decides my side of the room smells like a locker room.
But I keep seeing it — the way he stands just a little apart from the rest of the world here, like he’s letting it circle around him but not touch him. The way he watches people, not in judgment exactly, but in evaluation, like he’s filing away who’s a threat and who’s harmless.
The thing is, it should feel unsettling. A guy like him — someone with that kind of presence, that intensity — is trouble. Always. And not the fun kind.
But with him? It’s different.
Maybe it’s because, when he looks at me, it’s not like he’s evaluating. It’s like he’s… aware. Present. As if, in those moments, I’m not just another moving part in this weird new world he’s landed in. I’mthepart.
Which is stupid. And dangerous. And I really need to get that through my head.
Still, when I laugh — at something stupid Syndee texts me, at a meme a friend sends, at a cat video in the middle of a dulllecture — I feel it. That subtle shift in the air, the way his eyes cut to mine, fast and sure, like the sound is some kind of signal.
