Next Door Attraction

The goal for the semester was simple, printed in stark, mental capitals: QUIET.

Quiet. Predictable. Peaceful.

Sienna Cole repeated the mantra like a prayer as she heaved the final cardboard box over the threshold of her off-campus apartment. Her arms screamed in protest. This one was labeled PENS & ANXIETY in Tasha’s loopy, irreverent handwriting. It was supposed to be a joke. After six hours of hauling her life up three flights of stairs, Sienna wasn’t laughing.

“Okay,” Tasha announced, her voice muffled from where she’d face-planted onto the bare mattress that served as their temporary couch. She rolled over, a dramatic hand flung across her forehead. “Final diagnostic. Wi-Fi password: heroically hacked. Snack supply: stable for approximately 36 hours. My will to live after moving all day: hanging by a single, very fragile thread. I’d say we’re operational.”

Sienna offered a weak, breathless smile, leaning against the doorframe. “It’s going to be a good semester.” She let her eyes drift closed for a second, envisioning it. “A quiet semester. Just classes, the library, maybe that new coffee shop on Elm. No drama. No surprises.”

Tasha propped herself up on her elbows, her expression one of pure skepticism. “A quiet semester? You? The same Sienna Cole who accidentally set a microwave on fire during finals week because you tried to dehydrate strawberries?”

“That was a high-stress, innovative cooking experiment and you know it.”

“It was arson, Sienna. The RA called it ‘uninspired but enthusiastic arson.’ My point is, quiet isn’t really your brand.”

“Well, I’m rebranding,” Sienna declared, pushing off the doorframe to start slicing open a box with a car key. “New year, new me. A me that reads ahead in the syllabus and doesn’t attract chaos.”

Tasha snorted, grabbing her phone again. “Famous last words. You do know this building is famously not quiet, right? My friend Layla lived here last year. She said the walls are made of papier-mâché and the collective regrets of students past. You can hear everything. Everything. She once heard her neighbor flossing.”

“That’s a lie.”

“I swear! A vigorous, guilt-ridden flossing session at 2 a.m. You’ll learn his dental routine by heart by week two.”

As if summoned by her cynicism, a sound began. A low, insistent thump-thump-thump that vibrated through the scuffed laminate floor, emanating from the other side of the shared wall to her left, Wall 3B. It was quickly joined by the faint, tinny shriek of an electric guitar solo, a sound that could only be coming from a phone speaker pushed to its limit.

Sienna’s left eye gave a tiny, premonitory twitch.

She pushed off the doorframe, her peaceful vision dissolving like sugar in rain. “If the guy next door keeps that up,” she muttered, stalking toward the offending wall, “I’m filing a noise complaint. Day one.”

Tasha’s grin was wide and entirely unhelpful. “Ooh, starting a neighbor war before you’ve even unpacked your anxiety pens? I fully support this chaotic energy. Get ‘em, tiger. But just so you know, Layla also said the guy in 3B last year was a seventy-year-old philosophy PhD candidate who only listened to ambient whale sounds. So either he had a dramatic change of heart, or you’ve got someone new.”

Sienna ignored her, stopping just short of the beige-painted drywall. She could feel the bassline in her teeth. She drew her fist back, intent on delivering a single, definitive, warning thump. A shot across the bow. I exist, and I prefer silence.

But before her knuckles could make contact, the music cut off.

Abruptly.

The sudden silence was ringing, heavy with anticipation.

Tasha sat bolt upright. “Wait. Did he just…?”

Then came a new sound. A knock.

Not on the wall.

A firm, confident rap on her own front door.

Sienna froze, her fist still hanging comically in the air. Tasha’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline, her phone forgotten in her lap. She mouthed a single, silent, exaggerated word: Him?

Sienna’s heart did a stupid, traitorous little flip-flop against her ribs. Nerves. It was just nerves. Swallowing them down, she smoothed her rumpled, sweat-dampened t-shirt and ran a quick hand through her messy ponytail. It was pointless, but the gesture felt necessary. Armor.

“Okay, don’t panic,” Tasha whispered, scrambling to her feet. “Just be cool. Or, you know, as cool as you can be with packing tape on your elbow.”

Sienna shot her a look before pulling the door open.

And the world tilted.

Leaning against her doorframe, looking as if he’d been casually photoshopped into her mundane reality, was Jace Rivera.

Jace. Freaking. Rivera.

Campus royalty. Star forward for the Titans. The guy whose dimpled smile launched a thousand frantic group chats and whose party invites were a form of social currency. He was here, in her hallway, radiating a kind of effortless vitality that felt personally offensive at this hour. He wore a grey athletic shirt, dark with sweat at the neck and chest, like he’d just come from practice or a run. His dark hair was damp, tousled, and he smelled faintly of fresh air and fabric softener.

His eyes, a stupidly warm, liquid brown, flickered with open amusement. They traveled a slow, deliberate path from her still-raised fist, down the length of her old yoga pants, to her worn-out bunny slippers, and back up to meet her wide-eyed gaze. A slow, infuriatingly handsome grin spread across his face, carving a dimple into his cheek that she knew, from campus gossip, had been the downfall of many.

"Hey," he said, his voice a low, easy rumble that seemed to vibrate right through her. "Heard you moving in. Sounded like a struggle. Just wanted to come over and say welcome to the building."

Sienna’s brain short-circuited. The guy from the sports section. The guy from the hype videos on the university’s social media. The guy whose name was whispered with a mix of reverence and longing in lecture halls. He was the occupant of 3B. He was the source of the terrible guitar solo.

He was her new neighbor.

Her quiet, predictable, peaceful semester evaporated into thin air, replaced by the devastating, dimpled smile of Jace Rivera.