The summer heat clung to the dorm walls like a second skin, thick and slow. Most of the students had gone home, leaving the campus eerily quiet, like the world had fallen asleep. Ivy sat cross-legged on her bed in nothing but a tank top and cotton shorts, sipping the last of a cheap rosé while Harper painted her toes a deep shade of red.
They had been roommates for two years. Friends for longer. But something about this summer—this isolation—had started to shift things. The way Harper looked at her lingered. The jokes had more heat in them. Ivy had started to notice how Harper’s mouth curled when she teased. Or how her tank tops dipped just low enough when she leaned over. And tonight… there was something charged in the air. Something waiting.
Harper blew on her nails and shot Ivy a lazy
