The Quarterback and the Closet Queen
GEORGIA. Or Ginny. Or Gina. Or George. Depends on the hour, honestly.
At exactly 10:04 a.m. on a humid Monday that already smelled like campus coffee and poor life choices, I found a half-naked boy in my dorm room.
Correction: A half-naked football player.
Correction again: The football player.
Asher. Freaking. King.
The golden god of Sycamore University.
Tattooed biceps, jawline carved by Greek myths, probably drinks protein powder with a straw.
Also? Standing in my closet. Wearing my pink fuzzy robe.
I blinked.
He blinked.
Somewhere in the hallway, someone dropped a Hydro Flask.
“What. The actual. Hell,” I said slowly, like I was trying to defuse a bomb. A really hot, really confused bomb.
He looked at me like I was the problem. “Uh. Is this 3B?”
“Yes, this is 3B. As in, my room. As in, get your abs and your attitude out of it.”
He glanced around the chaos—my sequin lamp, the wall of vintage Vogue covers, a broken mannequin named Clara—and had the nerve to smirk.
“Cool vibe,” he said. “Very… Barbie apocalypse.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re in my robe.”
He looked down. “Yeah. My shirt was soaked from the rain. This was the only thing hanging up.”
“Because it’s my robe.”
“Okay, chill, Gina—”
“It’s Ginny today. Only the campus gossip site calls me Gina.”
He froze. Just for a second. Like I’d triggered something. Huh. Noted.
He sighed and handed me the robe sash like that made it better. “There was a housing mix-up,” he said. “Flooded pipes. They stuck me here ‘temporarily.’”
“Temporarily?” I echoed. “As in, you’re living here?”
The door creaked open behind me.
“Surprise, roomie,” said my RA, not even pretending to sound sorry. “Housing’s swamped. It’s either this or the basement with the broken Wi-Fi and that one weird squirrel.”
By 10:17 a.m., Asher King was officially my new roommate.
By 10:23 a.m., we were arguing over drawer space.
And by 10:41 a.m., I was texting my group chat in all caps:
[George 👑💋]: WHY IS ASHER KING IN MY ROOM
[Sky🔥]: Exuse me?????? Like in your ROOM room??
[Tasha🖤📸]: Shut up. Is he shirtless??
[George 👑💋]: WORSE. He wore my robe. MY ROBE.
Asher, meanwhile, had made himself comfortable.
He was now lounging on my bed—my bed—scrolling through his phone like we weren’t in the middle of an academic and aesthetic crisis.
“What are you doing?” I snapped.
“Group project,” he said, holding up his phone. “Ethics in Sports Media.”
“Ugh. That’s my class.”
“Cool,” he said, like we’d just discovered we were both Pisces or something. “Guess we’re partners now.”
I swear the universe was messing with me.
Either that, or it had a twisted sense of humor and a reality TV script.
I turned to face him, arms crossed. “Just so we’re clear, Asher King—”
“King,” he said, correcting me with a smirk. “Everyone just calls me King.”
“Oh, I bet they do,” I muttered. “Listen, King, I don’t care how many touchdowns you’ve thrown or how many girls faint when you say ‘hi.’ You stay out of my closet, out of my robe, and definitely out of my bed.”
“Got it,” he said, all fake serious. “Closet. Robe. Bed. Boundaries.”
“Good.”
“Unless I get cold,” he added.
“Out.”
