All Chapters of The Rogue Next Door: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Maya The football players were my last table of the night. Thank God. Because as entertaining as it was watching Cole Ryder get roasted by his own teammates, I was exhausted. My feet hurt. My back hurt. I smelled like fried food. And I’d spent the last six hours pretending I enjoyed saying the word shidders to strangers. I deserved a medal. Or a nap. Possibly both. I leaned against the counter near the register while pretending not to watch Cole’s table. Unfortunately, pretending and succeeding were two very different things. Andrea walked past carrying a stack of receipts. Her eyes followed mine. Then she laughed. “They’re still here?” “Yep.” I checked the clock. “They’ve been nursing empty drinks for twenty minutes.” Andrea grinned. “You think they’re staying for the food?” I rolled my eyes. “No.” “There it is.” “What?” “That look.” I frowned. “What look?” “The one that says a certain football player is getting under your skin.” I immediately looked away

Maya For a few seconds, I didn’t know where I was. I blinked at the ceiling. Confused. Disoriented. Still caught somewhere between sleep and reality. The room was unfamiliar. The blankets were unfamiliar. Even the smell was unfamiliar. Then everything came rushing back. The ambulance. Tessa. Bree leaving for the hospital. Cole giving up his bed. The football house. Right. My phone buzzed against the nightstand. I grabbed it and squinted at the bright screen. Bree: Tessa is okay. Her parents just got here. Doctors think she’s going to be fine. I’m heading home soon. The breath I let out felt like it’d been trapped in my lungs for hours. I closed my eyes. Relief hit so hard it almost hurt. Me: Thank God. A second later another message appeared. Me: The football guys wouldn’t let me stay alone. They brought me over here. The typing bubble appeared immediately. Then— Bree: I don’t know whether to be relieved or jealous that you spent the night in a house full of

Maya After Ethics, I had about an hour to kill before Literature. Normally, I’d head straight to the library. Find a quiet corner. Pretend I was going to be productive. Actually be productive. Today, though, I stopped at The Roasted Bean first. Partly because I needed caffeine. Partly because my brain was still replaying the conversation from class. Specifically the part where Cole Ryder had practically glared a hole through Logan Hayes for daring to answer my roommate ad. Which was ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. And yet… A tiny part of me found it weirdly entertaining. I ordered a latte, claimed a table near the window, and pulled out my phone. Maya: Good news. We might have a new roommate. My phone buzzed almost instantly. Bree: Already?? That’s amazing. I smiled. Maya: We’re meeting Logan Hayes tonight at seven. Three little dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. Then— Bree: Shut. Up. Bree: The hockey player?? I laughed quietly. A couple students

Cole Saturday should have been easy. Game days always were. There was a routine to them. A rhythm. Wake up early. Team breakfast. Film study. Bus ride. Warm-ups. Kickoff. Everything followed the same pattern. The same focus. The same goal. Football had always been the one thing that could clear my head. No distractions. No unnecessary noise. Just the game. Today, apparently, my brain had other plans. I sat near the back of the bus with my tablet balanced on one knee, watching film from our opponent’s last three games. Or at least pretending to. The defensive coordinator was explaining something through the speakers. Something important. Probably. I’d replayed the same sequence four times and couldn’t tell you a single thing I’d seen. Because every time I tried to focus, my thoughts drifted right back to the same place. The house next door. Maya. And Logan Hayes. I scowled and restarted the clip again. Still nothing. “Dude.” Grant dropped into the seat ac

Cole I woke up feeling like I’d been hit by a truck. Which, honestly, wasn’t that far from the truth. The game yesterday had been brutal. We’d won, which made the soreness easier to tolerate, but every time I moved, some new muscle reminded me exactly how hard I’d gotten hit. My shoulder hurt. My ribs hurt. My left thigh felt like somebody had taken a baseball bat to it. Occupational hazard. Normally after an away game, I’d sleep until noon and avoid being a functional human being for as long as possible. Not today. Today I had something worse than football recovery waiting for me. Ethics. I hated Ethics. Not because it was difficult. Okay, maybe partly because it was difficult. Mostly because Professor Harris had somehow managed to make every discussion sound like it belonged in a language nobody else spoke. The current unit—The Rhetorics of War and Peace—might as well have been written in ancient Greek. I was completely lost. And since failing wasn’t an option, I wa