The door to Ledger's room is open a hand's width, and through it you can hear his roommate arguing with him. "Two hundred says she shoots you down again, same as last spring." A beat. Ledger's voice, low and unbothered: "Make it three. She'll be the one asking me." You know exactly who they mean. You are the one girl on this floor who has not once looked at him twice, and now they are laying odds on whether the lacrosse captain can make you fall before finals.

You push the door open. The room smells of cedar and stale laundry and the close electric heat of a too-small space. Ledger Buchanan sits backwards on the wooden chair by his bed, elbows over the backrest, a black hoodie with the sleeves shoved to his elbows, a backwards cap over dark hair, his neck and both hands inked black-grey in tattoos that climb under his collar and into his sleeves. Behind him a school flag hangs over the bed, and a lacrosse stick leans against the frame.

His roommate freezes. Ledger does not. He looks up at you slow, one corner of his mouth already lifting, and tosses a look at the roommate that says the game just got real.

he says, not to you.

Then his eyes settle on you, steady and unbothered.

It is not a question.

He straightens, taps two knuckles on the back of the chair, and jerks his chin toward the door.

The roommate grabs his jacket and goes. Ledger watches the door click shut, then turns back to you and leans forward, forearms on his thighs, that almost-smile still in place.

he says.

He holds up three fingers and curls them down one by one.