Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
jason
Cold air gathered around us when the front door to the Thinkers’ House closed behind me.
The steps creaked in the quiet of the night, and a single lamp cast a pale circle of yellow on the walkway.
Bennet lingered near the railing. He had one hand tucked in his pocket and the other wrapped around the strap of his bag.
His breath left faint clouds that drifted upward and dissolved into the dark.
I felt lighter than I had in days. Something about the game had filled me with a strange excitement.
Maybe it was the heat of the fireplace or the way Dud had leapt into Rowan’s story without tripping over his own feet, or the way Bennet had smiled next to me when I rolled a critical save at the exact moment he muttered that Dud was doomed. It might have been all of it.
Bennet rocked on his heels. He looked ready to say good night and slip back inside, where all the warm lights glowed behind the curtains. I wasn’t ready to let the moment end.
We stood close enough that I caught the way the wind swept through his hair and pushed a lock across his forehead. He brushed it aside and nodded politely, a typical closing gesture of someone who preferred straight exits.
I smiled at him.
“Walk me home?”
His eyebrows rose. He glanced down the street where the lamps formed a straight line between the two houses.
“You live two minutes away.”
“I do,” I said. “Should be easy, then.”
He let out a small laugh that warmed the air between us. “Fine. I can manage the long journey to the next house.”
I stepped closer, just enough to feel the heat of him, and pointed down the walkway. “That way.”
I adjusted the strap on my shoulder and made my way down the front steps. He followed, closing the door softly behind us. He headed right toward Bel House. I went left.
He stopped. “That’s the wrong way.”
I kept walking in the opposite direction. “Figured I could lure you out for a walk.”
He looked down the dark sidewalk that curved between two rows of quiet, leafless trees. “A walk where, exactly?”
“Campus,” I said. “It is peaceful at night. And we did defeat a tower full of undead worms. Seems like we earned fresh air.”
He shook his head in quiet disbelief and finally came toward me.
His steps were reluctant in the way people pretend to resist when they have already decided to join you.
He reached my side and pulled his scarf closer to his chin.
It was patterned with little constellations that I had not noticed earlier.
The quad waited ahead in near silence. Fallen leaves scattered by the wind across the stone paths.
A few windows in the older dorms held warm glows, but most of campus rested in darkness with nothing but the soft hum of distant machinery.
Our steps rang softly against the pavement.
The cold sharpened the smell of trimmed grass and faint woodsmoke from some unseen chimney.
Bennet walked with his shoulders tight, as if he had left the safety of the organized world inside those walls. He glanced around in that cautious way I had seen in our tutoring sessions, though his guard softened once we reached the quiet heart of campus.
“Is this your secret training ground?” he asked.
“Something like that. I run here sometimes when the field is booked.”
He nodded. “I imagined you sticking to the areas with goalposts and loud people.”
“Sometimes even I like peace,” I said. “Not often. But enough.”
He looked sideways at me. The corner of his mouth barely lifted, and the faint smile sent a tiny kick through my chest. People smiled at me all the time, but this one landed differently. It came from somewhere careful and private.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You come out here for stargazing.”
“Only when I can’t sleep. Which is often.”
“Because of equations,” I guessed.
“And noise,” he said. “And my own brain.”
We crossed through the quad. The old library towered over us with its stone columns and tall windows that reflected the moon.
Bennet slowed his steps to look at it. He seemed smaller in front of such a building, yet more a part of it, too.
The halo of light from above caught the slope of his cheek and the soft curl at the top of his hair.
“You looked happy tonight,” I said quietly.
He pushed his glasses up his nose. “Rowan is a talented storyteller. And the group is fun when they don’t shoot arrows at newcomers.”
“He didn’t trust Dud.”
“Nobody should trust Dud,” Bennet replied, though he smiled a little more this time. “Dud knows more than he’s saying.”
Or maybe he’s just very confused and a little afraid, so he compensates with his loud and annoying sense of humor, I thought helplessly.
I studied him while we walked. His eyes had the same shape as when he frowned over textbooks, a narrow focus that made the corners tilt slightly.
His eyelashes cast long shadows, and the movement of his mouth had a subtle rhythm as he talked.
I hadn’t noticed any of these things clearly until this moment.
Now I saw too much. I saw the warmth in his cheeks from the cold, the faint shine from the streetlight against his glasses, the shape of his lips.
His lips.
That thought slid in without warning and made my chest tighten.
“You surprised me,” Bennet said.
“At the game?”
“Yep. You kept up. You remembered the names. You didn’t trample the map.”
“I would never trample your map.”
“It’s not my map. It’s the party’s map.”
“Still,” I said. “You made it. That counts.”
He stopped for a moment to watch the wind roll leaves across the stone path. “You didn’t have to come tonight.”
“I wanted to.”
He met my eyes. His expression went soft in a way I hadn’t seen before, as if he hadn’t expected honesty from me.
“You think I invited myself because I wanted to break into your secret nerd lair?” I asked.
“That is exactly what you did,” Bennet said. “I know the pranks you Bel boys pull on other houses.”
“Or maybe I just wanted to hang out with you.”
He looked away too quickly, almost like the words had struck him. His breath hitched. He tried to play it off with a quiet laugh, but his composure faltered long enough for me to notice.
I pretended not to.
We walked again, slowly, with the quiet settling around us like a blanket. A little breeze swept through and rustled the bare branches above. Bennet’s hand brushed mine by accident. He looked down fast, breath held, but he didn’t move away.
I wanted to catch his hand.
I didn’t.
I wasn’t ready to break the fragile thing forming between us, and I knew that even one rash move would shatter it. Why that mattered so much to me, I couldn’t say, but the fact that it did was unbeatable.
We followed the curve of the path. Music drifted from some distant dorm but faded again once we crossed into a darker side path. Bennet’s shoulder touched mine for a moment when the walkway narrowed. He stayed close, not pressed against me, but near enough that I felt his warmth through his coat.
“I thought you wouldn’t show up tonight,” he said suddenly.
“I know.”
He shook his head and made a small sound that might have been a laugh. “You caught me off guard. That’s all.”
“Did you want me to come?”
He hesitated. Then he nodded. “Yes. I did.”
The words pulled something loose inside me.
Bennet kept walking, but he glanced up at me once, and that single look held a new kind of warmth, something I wasn’t sure he realized he had revealed.
We turned the final corner toward the Ben Houses.
Bennet slowed when the familiar shape of the Bel House came into view.
Golden light spilled from the downstairs windows and formed a bright path across the yard.
Voices and music floated through the glass.
The steady bass thumped softly under the quiet of the night.
The porch lights burned warm against the dark campus and gave the house a lived-in glow that always made it feel like a place where someone waited on the other side of the door.
Peanut’s favorite toy, a chewed-up rope knot, lay forgotten in the grass near the steps. I could imagine him rolling over it again tomorrow morning with the same joy he showed every single day of his life. The sight made something inside my chest soften.
Bennet noticed the music. He paused near the walkway and gazed at the windows with a curious expression. The scarf around his neck fluttered in the wind, and the lamplight caught the edge of his jaw. His face shifted between shadow and glow as he took in the noise of the house.
“You still have time to enjoy your natural habitat,” he said.
I looked at him instead of the house. The glow behind him lit the edges of his hair and turned the brown strands almost copper. “I think my bed is calling my name. The party can survive without me tonight.”
Bennet lifted his brows. “Since when does a hotshot like you skip parties?”
“Since Peanut gets too excited when the whole house turns loud. He’ll bark at every new person who walks in. I should keep him calm tonight. I’m tired anyway.”
“That sounds surprisingly responsible.”
“Don’t tell anyone. It’ll ruin my reputation.”
A faint smile curved his mouth. He dipped his chin a little and pushed his glasses up, even though they hadn’t slipped. That single gesture made my stomach flip like a coin tossed into the air. It caught me completely off guard. I rubbed the back of my neck and tried to act normal.
We stood at the end of the walkway, just outside the reach of the porch light. The vines along the railings swayed gently. The faint scent of cold leaves drifted by. It felt like a moment that should have ended, but neither one of us moved.
Bennet shifted his weight. His voice came quieter. “I do wish my house had a pet. Something soft that runs around and makes everyone feel welcome. All we have is Rodrigo’s cactus garden, which tries to kill us every few weeks.”