The gray, muted light of morning eventually filtered through the windowpane, replacing the dark shadows of the night.
The quiet click of the bedroom door opening broke the silence.
Brenda Sterling stepped into the room, still wearing her hospital scrubs, her face pale with exhaustion from her grueling double shift.
She leaned against the doorframe, a soft smile touching her lips as she looked at the bed.
Seeing Ashton sprawled across her son was nothing new—it had been a common sight in this house since they were Children.
“Boys,” Brenda called out, her voice raspy but firm.
“Wake up.
You’ll be late for your classes, it’s already eight.”
Keegan stirred, a low, groggy murmur catching in his throat.
His brain felt heavy, trapped in the foggy aftermath of only few hours of sleep.
But as consciousness slowly crept back, the first thing he registered was the massive, crushing weight pinning him to the mattress.
During the night, Ashton had shifted completely.
Not only was his heavy, warm arm still locked securely around Keegan’s chest, but his athletic leg was now thrown entirely over Keegan’s thighs, effectively trapping him beneath the duvet.
Ashton was dead to the world, his face tucked right into the crook of Keegan’s neck, his steady breath warm against Keegan’s skin.
“Ash…
move,” Keegan mumbled, whimpering slightly as he tried to wiggle out from under the suffocating, dead-weight limbs.
The intense physical proximity was a sudden, brutal reminder of the Instagram messages he’d seen hours earlier, making his chest ache all over again.
“Ash, wake up…
get off me…”
Ashton only let out a low, protesting groan in his sleep.
Instead of letting go, his grip tightened instinctively, pulling Keegan flush against him like a giant human pillow.
Furious and frustrated, Keegan blinked his eyes open, forcing himself to look past Ashton’s messy, dark hair toward the round clock hanging on the opposite wall.
His eyes focused on the hands.
8:00 AM.
The fog in his brain instantly evaporated, replaced by a shot of pure, icy adrenaline.
His Art History exam started at 8:30 AM, and the campus was an hour drive even if he broke every speed limit in the city.
“Oh, shit!” Keegan gasped, his eyes widening in absolute horror.
He violently shoved Ashton’s leg off his body, throwing the duvet aside and scrambling backward against the headboard.
He grabbed Ashton by the shoulder, shaking him with enough force to rattle his teeth.
“Ash!
Wake up!
Get the fuck up, we’re fucking late!”
Ashton jolted awake, his hazel eyes snapping open in a blind panic as Keegan’s aggressive shaking nearly rattled his teeth loose.
Keegan was already on his feet, his chest heaving as he frantically tore through his wardrobe.
“What the hell, man?” Ashton croaked, his voice thick with sleep as he sat up, rubbing his face.
He blinked against the bright morning light, looking completely bewildered by the sudden chaotic energy.
“Dude…
didn’t you set the alarm?”
“I literally went to sleep at three in the morning, Ash!” Keegan snapped, his voice tight with sheer panic as he yanked two sets of university uniforms out of the closet.
He slammed a white short-sleeved button-down shirt and a pair of black trousers onto the bed right next to Ashton.
“What time did I have to put up on the alarm?
At this rate, I’m going to get a complete fail for this exam!”
On the other side of the mattress, Puck stretched his orange body into a long, lazy yawn, completely oblivious to the boys’ escalating panic, before settling right onto the unoccupied bed to sleep.
Ashton scrambled out of the bed, finally catching the urgency of the situation.
He grabbed the clothes Keegan had thrown at him and quickly started pulling the black trousers over his legs.
“Hey, look at me.
We’ll make it in time.
Let’s ride my car—it’ll be much faster than your bike in this weather, and plus, we can use that shortcut through the valley road.”
Keegan didn’t argue.
He couldn’t.
He quickly buttoned his white shirt with shaking fingers, zipped up his trousers, and grabbed his Fine Arts portfolio bag, sliding the strap over his shoulder.
He glanced around for Ashton’s things, but Ashton waved a hand as he shoved his feet into his slippers.
“Don’t worry about my bag, I already left it in my car last night.”
The two of them bolted out of the bedroom and rushed into the dining kitchen, their socks sliding wildly on the linoleum floor.
Brenda Sterling was standing by the stove, still in her hospital scrubs, carefully stacking a fresh batch of warm pancakes onto a plate.
She turned around with a warm smile as the door burst open.
“Good morning, boys.
Today I didn’t make any boba, but I thought—”
Before she could even finish her sentence, Keegan grabbed a single slice of pancake right off the top of the stack.
He leaned down, quickly kissing her on the cheek.
“Sorry mom, but we’re extremely late!
Love you, pancakes look good, see you later, bye!”
Ashton let out a breathless laugh, snatching a pancake slice for himself.
“Thanks for the pancakes Auntie, love you too!
bye!”
“Hey!
At least chew your food!” Brenda yelled after them, shaking her head as the kitchen door slammed shut.Keegan flew out the front door into the cool, damp morning air.
The heavy storm from last night had passed, leaving the ground completely soaked and muddy.
He scanned the driveway, squinting.
“Ash, where the hell is your car?
I don’t see it!”
“I parked it down the road behind the hedges so it wouldn’t be easy to spot by you know who!” Ashton shouted, running out of the house right behind him.
But Ashton was moving way too fast for the wet conditions.
The moment his slippers hit the slick, muddy patch of grass near the driveway, his feet went completely out from under him.
He let out a loud shout, flailing his arms forward, and collided directly into the back of Keegan’s legs.
The impact sent both giant hockey players crashing hard onto the wet ground.
Keegan hit the deck with a heavy, painful thud, his portfolio bag flying out of his hand.
He lay face-first in the damp grass for a second, letting out a deep, murderous groan.
“Dude!
Are you fucking serious right now?”
“My bad, my bad!” Ashton scrambled to his feet, his hands completely covered in wet soil.
He wiped them quickly on his pants and reached a hand down to Keegan.
Keegan glared at the offered hand, but knowing every second counted, he accepted the help and let Ashton haul him back up to his feet.
The moment he stood up, Keegan looked down at his white university uniform, his eyes widening in despair.
“Dude, look at our clothes!” Keegan hissed, gesturing to the thick smear of brownish, wet mud running down the front of his shirt and the side of his black trousers.
Ashton looked just as bad, with grass stains and mud splattered all over his own uniform.
“We look like we just rolled out of a ditch.
How am I supposed to walk into an exam room like this?”
Ashton looked down at his own ruined shirt, but instead of panicking, a cocky, reckless sneer spread across his face.
“We are perfectly fine, Keegs,” Ashton said, wiping a stray drop of muddy water from his forehead with the back of his clean arm.
“We’ll just clean our faces in the car.
Honestly, look at it this way—it’s the perfect excuse if you’re that late for your exam.
Just tell the Professor you got wiped out by a reckless driver on the way here.
They’ll feel too sorry for you to fail you.”
Keegan snatched his portfolio bag off the ground, checking to make sure his sketches were dry, and let out a defeated, running breath.
“You are toxic, you know that?”
“I’m a visionary,” Ashton corrected with a grin, already jogging toward the gate.
“Come on, blue-line.
Move your ass before the gates close!”
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
Thirty minutes of erratic driving, illegal overtaking, and a sketchy shortcut down the gravel valley road later, Ashton’s car slammed to a halt right in front of the university’s main security gates.
The dashboard clock read 8:45AM.
They were already 15 minutes late, and the stress radiating off Keegan was practically palpable.
The heavy iron gates were firmly shut.
A familiar, uniform-clad figure stepped out of the security booth.
Mr.
Malik, the head of campus security, walked over to the car with a slow, deliberate pace that made Keegan want to scream.
He rapped his knuckles sharply against the glass of the driver’s side window.
Ashton hit the button, rolling the window down with an easy, charming smile pasted across his face, completely unbothered by the fact that he had a streak of dried mud along his jawline.
“Morning, Mr.
Malik!” Ashton called out smoothly.
“We’re just passing through the gates in a bit of a rush today.
Big exam morning, you know how it is.”
Mr.
Malik leaned down, resting his hands on the car door.
He looked at Ashton’s mud-splattered white shirt, then glanced over at Keegan, who looked equally disheveled and frantic in the passenger seat.
The older man let out a small, knowing smile, shaking his head.
“Nice try, boys,” Mr.
Malik said, his tone dry but fond.
“But rules are rules, especially during exams In departments.
Show me your student IDs, and I’ll buzz you through.”
“Of course, of course,” Ashton replied instantly.He patted down the pockets of his black uniform trousers.
Then, his movements slowed.
A look of sudden realization flashed across his face.
He twisted around in his seat, frantically rummaging through the gym bag scattered across the back seat, before slowly turning back around to face the front.
He didn’t look at the security guard.
Instead, he locked eyes with Keegan.
“Hey, Keegs…” Ashton murmured, flashing a sheepish, guilty grin.
“Can you give me your ID?
And, uh…
do you think you can talk Mr.
Malik into letting us both slip by?
Looks like I might have left my wallet in my other trousers.”
Keegan stared at him, his jaw tightening.
His other trousers.
The gray jeans currently sitting on his bedroom floor an hour away.
Keegan closed his eyes for a split second, inhaling a sharp breath through his nose to keep from losing his mind.
He gave Ashton a flat, murderous are-you-actually-serious-right-now look that could have cut through glass.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Keegan muttered under his breath.
Without waiting for Ashton to dig himself into a deeper hole, Keegan reached into his mud-stained front pocket, pulled out his wallet, and slid his plastic student identification card out of its slot.
He leaned across the center console, passing the card directly past Ashton’s face to present it to the security officer.
“Here’s my ID, Mr.
Malik,” Keegan said, his voice forcedly polite but tight with urgency.
“I’m Keegan Sterling, and this idiot is Ashton.
He really did leave his badge at my place, but please, my Art History exam started fifteen minutes ago.
If I don’t get into that hall, I’m going to fail the entire semester.”
Mr.
Malik took Keegan’s card, examining the photo before looking at the two boys.
He sighed, tapping the card against the palm of his hand.
“You boys are going to be the death of me,” Mr.
Malik grumbled, though he walked back over to the booth to hit the gate release button.
“Go on.
Clean yourselves up before your professors see you!”
“You’re a lifesaver, Mr.
Malik!” Ashton yelled out, rolling the window back up as the iron gates slowly began to swing open.
He hit the gas pedal, the tires screeching against the campus tarmac.
“See?
Told you we’d make it, blue-line.”