A long, heavy groan filled his single dorm room.

It sounded like a heated sexual encounter, and Wesley Hidaka wished it were. At least that burrowing cry yielded orgasm, unlike the groan he’d expelled against page 335 of the never-ending Civil Law Throughout the Ages.

In the light of his desk lamp, Wesley banged his pulsing head against the coffee-stained pages, the edges of the book cutting against his forehead.

Apparently, papercuts trumped the eternal suffering of studying civil law.

Excited murmurs of his fellow residents about to head into town and fake-ID their way into Glitter or Dash floated through the bottom gap of his door.

He wanted to snag Suzy and join them on the dance floor.

He thumped his head a couple more times and let out another groan.

Someone flushed in the bathroom next to his room. Five minutes later, the water still gurgled through the pipes.

Page 336.

Page 336, second paragraph.

Page 336, fourth paragraph.

Wesley pulled out a container of chocolate chip cookies he’d baked a few days ago. Crumbs landed atop the fifth paragraph, carpeting the swimming text.

Unable to focus on anything but the threat of fetid flooding, he restlessly pushed himself away from the desk and left his dorm room. Bright light glared off wooden floors and framed motivational posters. Even brighter light flooded the bathroom, making the giant vanity a treat to peer into.

Wesley stuffed his black wristband into his jeans pocket. Setting a determined jaw, he shoved up his sleeves and entered the corner cubicle. Face pinching, he opened the toilet tank and dunked his arm inside. He’d watched his resident assistant—RA—do this before. A quick fiddle and done.

Like a game of Operation.

Except instead of avoiding the guts, you prodded them until the toilet was fixed.

He tweaked a chain, and voila—

His fingers caught on something and stuck. HIS FINGERS CAUGHT ON SOMETHING AND STUCK.

Fixing the toilet by hand was bad enough. Getting eaten by one in the process?

Not the way he cared to go.

He wrenched his arm back so fast, he flew against the cubicle door, spraying water in a nice arc over himself and the dividing wall.

He’d given it a fair shot.

Time to find Lloyd.

* * *

If law had legs, it walked in the shape of their RA, Lloyd Alexander Reynolds.

He oversaw the third floor of Williamson Hall. Frankly, he was the only law-related topic that Wesley enjoyed studying.

Wesley leaned against Lloyd’s open door.

Hunched over the computer desk, Lloyd pounded the laptop keys, pinching a celery stick between his lips. Unbuttoned shirtsleeve cuffs flapped around his wrists. Hazel eyes tracked the lines he typed, and he stopped typing a beat to run his hand over his well-shaped head.

He dropped his fingers like he’d forgotten he had spontaneously and abruptly shaved the thick, sandy crop he’d sported yesterday.

Lloyd fiddled open a third button on his wine-red shirt. A slight depression kinked his brow—a badge of concentration and endearing grumpiness.

It always deepened whenever Wesley paid a visit.

“Wesley?” he said, staring at his laptop screen. “How long are you going to stand there?”

Wesley stepped inside the cozy single room. He paused next to Lloyd’s desk at a framed “Persuasive Openers” poster. I believe, I know, I’m certain. “It is vital that you fix the toilet.”

Lloyd stopped typing and used two fingers to remove his celery like a cigar.

Wesley continued, “How do you always know I’m watching you?”

“The smell.”

“My excellent aftershave? It’s oakmoss and citrus. Tonight, with a splash of eau de toilet.”

Wesley sat on the corner of Lloyd’s desk. “The flusher doesn’t pop back up. It sounds like something out of my nightmares. You have to fix it.”

“Wesley?”

“Yeah?”

Lloyd pointed the celery stick at him. “‘Hey, Lloyd. How’re you doing tonight?’ is a nice way to segue into a request from your RA.”

Wesley batted his eyes and playfully swung his feet. “Hey, Lloyd.”

“Wesley!” Lloyd said cheerily, making eye contact. “What can I do for my favorite third-year resident?”

“I’m your only third-year resident.”

Lloyd stamped the celery end into a bowl of peanut butter and waited.

Wesley threw his hands up and sighed. “Fine. The toilet. It needs fixing.”

“I’ll look.”

Lloyd popped open the last button of his shirt and shrugged out of it, exposing insanely toned abs in a tight tank top. With a nod, Lloyd left Wesley and checked the bathroom sandwiched between the storage closet and Wesley’s dorm room.

Wesley followed him to the problem cubicle and lounged against the sink.

Lloyd side-eyed him. “What do you want?”

Wesley flicked a finger toward the malfunctioning toilet. “It splutters like the first time I tried to give head. I don’t need to relive that tender, embarrassing memory on repeat.”

Lloyd cocked a disbelieving brow. “The flusher has stuck since before you and I became dorm neighbors. At least two-and-a-half years.”

“Fine. I’m trying to avoid my mother’s wrath when she realizes I have to wear plastic bags on my feet.”

Lloyd paused, observing Wesley’s socked feet. “Why would you have to wear plastic bags?”

“Because it’s winter, I can’t afford my rent, and my landlord won’t let me pay him in favors.”

“In what parallel world is this?” Lloyd continued staring at Wesley’s feet.

Wesley scrunched his toes. Black was a bad color for socks. They made his feet appear small, but they were exceptionally average. He shifted against the sink, hoping to draw Lloyd’s attention upward. “The one where I fail my law quiz tomorrow.”

“Well, we can’t have that.” Focused on the man-eating toilet, Lloyd paid no attention to Wesley’s hip thrusting. “But it’ll only stay quiet until the next person flushes.”

“You’re the best.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lloyd said, waving him off. “Go study.”

Wesley slumped toward the delightful reading awaiting him. At the bathroom door, he changed his mind, pivoted, and leaned against the tiled wall.

Lloyd pulled out a tool kit from under the sink, jerking when he caught Wesley staring. “What are you still doing here? Thought you had law to study.”

“Maybe I should study you instead. So I can fix it myself next time.”

Lloyd drew out a wrench. “I’d like to see you try.”

Wesley narrowed his eyes. “Because guys with pretty faces break more objects than they fix?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Sure about that?”

Lloyd leveled him a look of exasperation. “Very sure. You don’t have a pretty face. And I’ve seen you stab yourself with a cake fork.”

“I was expecting a teaspoon. People should make announcements when handing others excruciatingly sharp mini-tridents.” Wesley sulked back to his room, only to back up three steps. “Wait. What do you mean I don’t have a pretty face?”

Lloyd turned from the toilet and rolled his eyes. “That’s what concerns you?”

“This face pulls, I’ll have you know.” Pulls girls I mostly turn down.

“Your modesty also draws them in, I’m sure.”

Wesley choked on amused outrage. Lloyd always knew what buttons to press. “I could charm the pants off any guy.”

“I wonder how I ever manage to keep mine on,” Lloyd said dryly.

Wesley scowled at Lloyd’s back. Maybe the toilet would eat him. “I’m leaving to study law now, you shaven-headed, statistic-munching giraffe.”

Lloyd slowly turned, his gaze landing on Wesley, and yanked on something in the toilet tank. The gurgling water ceased. “Feel better now?”

“Like I’ve been reborn.”

Lloyd moved to the sink, appraising Wesley in the mirror. “Still without a pretty face.”

Wesley guffawed and hoofed back to his law readings. An entire paragraph later, he checked his favorite astrology sites.

He eagerly read his monthly horoscope. Since it was already November, he checked how accurate his yearly one had been—

“Yeah, that looks like a lot of hard law.”

Lloyd’s voice close behind him made Wesley jump. “I was taking a five-minute break.”

“From all that hard work ogling me in the bathroom?”

His chair shifted as Lloyd rested his hands on the back of it. Wesley tipped his head back and looked at him upside-down. “You wish it was hard work. Though I suppose that shirt looks particularly good on you.”

“What shirt?”

“Exactly.”

“Get back to law.”

Wesley swiveled his chair around and scowled at Lloyd, who was blatantly reading his email. “See, this is why we would never work out. Other than RA-student relationships being forbidden and you having an aversion to breaking rules.”

“And that I’m seeing someone,” Lloyd tossed in.

“I give that another week, tops. We wouldn’t work because you’re a grumpy, know-it-all Capricorn. We have one of the worst compatibility matches.”

A raised brow. “That so?”

“All the sites say we are not relationship material. That our sex would suck.”

“It amuses me how thoroughly you’ve researched this.”

“It saddens me I couldn’t find a ray of hope.” Wesley winked at him. “You’re a few rooms down, which greatly appeals to my lazy streak.”

“Even if I were single and you weren’t my resident, I’d never be one of your flirty flings.”

Wesley groaned. “Never say never, Lloyd. I want to prove you wrong—even at the expense of terrible sex.”

Lloyd’s gaze moved from Wesley back to his email. “Gemini,” Lloyd read aloud. “Here is restlessness at its finest.”

Wesley pointed a paragraph lower. “I prefer this description.”

“Charming, optimistic, and full of irresistible exuberance? I think ‘Your dual personality makes figuring you out a challenge’ is the most apt.” Lloyd folded his arms. “Another week, eh? Think my guy will get sick of me that soon?”

“No, you’ll come to your stellar Capricorny senses and ditch him. You might preemptively shave your head, but you deserve better.”

Lloyd ran a hand over his head. “I told you. All the men on my mother’s side went bald by thirty.”

“Are you thirty?”

“Twenty-four.”

Wesley flicked a floppy bang out of his eyes. “And I thought I was the difficult one to understand.”

“I want to get used to it.”

“Your head’s so shiny I can see my reflection.” It wasn’t really, but Wesley loved to tease.

“Sorry to break it to you, but there’s a high chance you’ll also end up bald.”

Wesley leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. “I have a plan. Shall I enlighten you?”

Lloyd whispered back. “Entertain me.”

Wesley tossed all his thick black hair. “I’ll use all this lusciousness to lure a Sagittarius, who will realize he loves me more for my playful personality. Then, when my hair falls out, it won’t matter that I have a wonky head shape.”

Lloyd snorted and stepped toward the door. “I fixed the toilet and put an out-of-order sign on the door until you’re done studying.” He tapped the Elvis Presley poster hanging on his door.

“How many posters of him do you own?”

“I have a legitimate crush on anything rock ’n’ roll. If I could go back in time, I’d slip into twenty-four-year-old Elvis’s bed.”

“I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.”

When Lloyd left, Wesley refocused on his law text. He flipped the page, delighted that a diagram took up half the space.

After studying the diagram, he snuck down the hall to Lloyd’s room. Hovering in the doorway, he hopped from foot to foot.

Lloyd set down the celery stick he had just tapped against his lips and sighed. “Let me guess. It’s too quiet?”

Wesley gave him a sheepish smile. “Law is boring.”

“Why do you study it then?”

“Doesn’t look boring on my resume.”

Lloyd shut his laptop, tucked it under one arm, and stepped into the hall. He locked his door and steered Wesley to his room. “I’ll camp out in the hall and growl at you when you try to sneak away from your studies.”

Wesley fiddled with his room key card. “You do have a good growly voice.”

“Get back to your books.”

“But your laptop is so shiny. It competes with your head.”

“Now.”

Wesley backed into his room, fanning his face. “Yes, sir.”

“Only half a year left,” Lloyd muttered as he shut Wesley in.

Wesley sank into his chair, full of bright bubbly energy for . . . studying. As he turned pages, hallway conversations welled and ebbed as students approached Lloyd for advice. The gentle rhythm of Lloyd’s typing lulled Wesley deeper into his work.

He had just finished a chapter when a conversation outside his door took a turn for the grumpy.

A familiar male voice spoke. Gavin from the fourth floor, the RA that loved micromanaging the other RAs in Williamson Hall. “Being a successful RA requires creativity.”

“You mean like playing Guess the Secret Ingredient with your freshmen?” Lloyd said. “I hear anaphylactic shock is all the rage.”

“It was a light reaction to strawberries.”

“He moved home.”

Gavin didn’t seem deterred. “My students love the game nights I organize.”

“I’m not hosting a shindig with you.”

“Why not? It’ll be a great way for students to show their friends and family all the fun they’re having here in Williamson.”

“Boy, oh boy.”

“It’s not a request, Lloyd. Our coordinator thinks it’s a brilliant idea. Nicely showcases dorm life to prospective students during Open Week.”

“Get Gemma to help.”

“Our coordinator agrees that you need to participate more.”

“I hate you.”

“The basement should be big enough. We’ll need a killer theme. And streamers and balloons, of course.”

“Oh look, one of your students is waving for you.”

“Where?”

“He popped around the corner to the stairwell.”

Gavin’s voice trailed off in the distance. “Email me a theme and a plan.”

Wesley waited a few more seconds to be sure Gavin had left, then he tiptoed to his door and cracked it open.

Lloyd was hunched in front of Wesley’s room, head bowed over his laptop. He paused his typing, waiting.

“Did I hear something about streamers?” Wesley asked.

Lloyd continued hacking at the keyboard. “Get back to your books. There’ll be no streamers.”