Bennett Got His Girl

18 morning reset

I wake up already aware of Jackson.

Which feels deeply humiliating.

The room's quiet except for movement near his side of the dorm, drawers opening and closing while sunlight slips through the blinds in pale lines across the floor, and before I even fully open my eyes, my brain immediately replays last night against my will.

Everly.

Just my name.

No teasing attached to it.

No Coleman.

No sarcasm.

Just Everly.

Which apparently my brain has decided to obsess over like it personally pays rent here.

Embarrassing for me, honestly.

I crack one eye open slowly and immediately regret existing because my neck hurts from falling asleep half sitting up against the wall, statistics notes stuck to my arm while my laptop balances dangerously close to falling off the bed.

Across the room, Jackson's pulling a hoodie over his head while digging through his backpack at the same time.

"How the fuck do you lose your wallet inside one room?" he mutters to himself.

There he is.

Back already, like last night never happened.

I push myself upright slowly. "Maybe the room got tired of your personality and hid it."

Jackson glances over immediately, grinning slightly. "Good morning to you too, Coleman."

Coleman.

Right.

Of course.

Something stupid sinks slightly in my stomach anyway.

Which is ridiculous.

He's acting normal.

That's all.

It's not like one late-night emotional conversation means anything.

Probably.

Jackson finally finds his wallet under a pile of clothes and points at me triumphantly. "Never doubted myself for a second."

"You literally accused furniture of theft thirty seconds ago."

"The desk was acting suspicious."

I snort quietly before I can stop myself, and something flickers briefly across his expression when I laugh, quick enough that I almost miss it.

Then he ruins it immediately. "You look rough."

"There it is," I mutter.

"There what is?"

"You becoming annoying before nine in the morning."

"It builds character."

"It builds murder charges."

Jackson laughs under his breath while shoving random notebooks into his bag carelessly enough that half the papers immediately slide back onto the floor.

He stares down at them for a second, then kicks them under the bed instead.

I blink at him. "That feels academically irresponsible."

"That sounds like a future me issue."

"You're gonna fail English."

"Fake news."

"You wrote one paper entirely about Kendrick Lamar."

"It was culturally important."

"It was about 'the emotional significance of swimming pools.'"

"That's art, Coleman."

I hate how easy this feels.

That's the problem.

Last night should've made things awkward somehow, but instead we fall right back into talking like breathing, easy and automatic in a way that honestly should concern me more.

Jackson grabs his keys from the desk before glancing toward me again. "You doing anything today?"

The question catches me slightly off guard.

"No," I answer slowly. "Why?"

He shrugs once. "Team film and lifting later. Scott's forcing everybody to go eat after."

"Wow," I deadpan. "Sounds deeply masculine."

"You sound judgmental."

"I am judgmental."

"That's fair."

There's a second after that where neither of us says anything, and suddenly I'm too aware again, too aware of the quiet room and the way he's looking at me and the fact that last night still feels like it's sitting somewhere between us even if neither of us is acknowledging it directly.

Then Jackson leans against the doorframe slightly and smirks. "You staring at me this hard this early is getting concerning."

And there he is.

The version everybody else gets.

Cocky.

Sarcastic.

Always joking right before anything real settles too long.

Something in my chest twists annoyingly.

Because for one stupid second last night felt different, like maybe something shifted.

Apparently not.

"Trust me," I mutter while looking away first, "nobody's obsessed with you."

"That sounded defensive."

"That sounded delusional."

Jackson grins wider like annoying me is his favorite hobby on earth.

Which unfortunately it probably is.

"I'll see you later, Coleman."

Then he leaves.

The door shuts behind him, and the room immediately feels quieter in a way I don't like.

I stare at the closed door for another second before dropping backward onto my pillow dramatically.

This is bad.

Actually bad.

Because somehow Jackson Bennett has managed to crawl under my skin without me noticing, and now my entire mood apparently depends on whether he calls me Coleman or Everly.

Which feels like grounds for psychological evaluation.

-

By early afternoon I'm still irritated.

At Jackson.

At myself.

At the fact that I keep replaying last night every five seconds like my brain's stuck in a loop.

So naturally I go bother Nola.

Peyton opens the dorm door wearing pajama shorts and holding an iced coffee the size of her head.

She takes one look at me and immediately steps aside. "Oh, this is emotional support visitation."

"That obvious?"

"You look like you lost custody of your husband in the divorce."

"That feels aggressive."

Peyton shrugs. "I call it observational comedy."

I walk inside to find Nola sprawled upside down across her bed scrolling through her phone while music plays quietly in the background.

The second she sees me, her eyes narrow. "Oh no."

I blink. "What?"

"You've got the face."

"The face?"

"The Jackson face."

"There is no Jackson face."

"There absolutely is."

I throw myself dramatically onto the empty side of her bed. "You're both evil."

Peyton points at me with her coffee. "See? Emotional support visitation."

"Shut up."

Nola sits upright now, grinning way too knowingly for my comfort. "What happened?"

"Nothing happened."

"That answer sounded guilty immediately."

"Nothing happened," I repeat.

Nola gasps loudly. "Oh my God. Something emotionally confusing happened."

"That is not a thing."

"That is absolutely a thing."

I groan into her pillow while Peyton laughs somewhere near the mini fridge.

"Why are women like this?" I mutter.

"Because we're intelligent," Peyton says.

"Because we're nosy," Nola corrects.

Also true.

Before either of them can interrogate me further, Nola's attention suddenly shifts toward her phone so fast it's honestly embarrassing.

Her entire face changes immediately.

Softer somehow.

Peyton notices too because apparently nobody in this dorm knows how to hide emotions.

"There she is," Peyton says calmly.

Nola looks horrified. "Stop."

I lift my head slightly. "What?"

Peyton nods toward Nola's phone. "Statistics girl."

Interesting.

Very interesting.

I sit up immediately. "You have a crush."

Nola points aggressively at both of us. "I absolutely do not."

"You just smiled at your phone like a Disney princess," Peyton says.

"That is slander."

"What's her name again?" I ask.

Nola tries acting casual and fails instantly. "Yasmine."

The softness in her voice when she says it tells me literally everything.

I stare at her dramatically. "Oh my God. You're gone."

"I'm not gone."

"You know her name in cursive."

Peyton nearly spits coffee laughing while Nola throws a pillow directly at my face.

"You're meaner ever since absorbing Bennett's attitude."

"That feels offensive."

"It's true."

Peyton looks between us slowly before smiling slightly. "Speaking of Bennett."

"No."

"I didn't even say anything yet."

"You were about to."

Nola grins immediately. "You like him."

I stare at her in horror. "Excuse me?"

"You look at him like he personally invented serotonin."

"That sentence alone should get you arrested."

"It's true though."

"It literally is not."

Nola raises one eyebrow slowly. "Then why are you here spiraling on a Saturday because he called you Coleman instead of Everly?"

My mouth opens, then closes again.

Because unfortunately that is exactly why I'm here.

Traitorous bitch of a brain.

Peyton points at me immediately. "Oh my God. She didn't even deny it."

"I hate both of you."

Nola beams. "So we're right."

I drop backward onto the bed again with a groan loud enough to concern nearby wildlife.

Because the worst part is that I genuinely don't know anymore.

And somehow that realization follows me around for the rest of the day, every stupid thing Jackson says replaying in my head whether I want it to or not, which would all be significantly less concerning if my entire mood didn't immediately improve the second I heard his laugh later that evening from halfway down the dorm hallway.