Chapter 1

Evan

Evan Miller had driven three hours to get there and already missed the kind of silence that made sense.

He backed his eight-year-old Ford F-150 into the last available slot in Lot E overflow parking. He had to maneuver the long bed between a white Range Rover and a Lexus SUV with the dealership sticker still in the window. Evan checked his mirrors, adjusted the angle to leave equal room on both sides, and killed the engine. The truck shuddered once before settling into silence.

The air conditioning had died somewhere on I-57, and the cab was baking. Evan rolled down the window. The humidity of central Illinois in late August hit him like a wet towel, but at least it wasn’t as stifling as inside the truck’s cab.

He opened the door, stepped down, and stretched his back, hearing a quiet pop in his lumbar region. The drive from the farm had taken a long time. And that was on top of his father insisting on checking the oil and tire pressure three separate times before letting him leave the driveway.

Evan walked to the tailgate and dropped it.

The truck bed held a green canvas duffel bag, a garbage bag holding his sheets and comforter, a standard-sized pillow, and a red toolbox he kept strapped to the cab. It was otherwise empty.

He looked around.

The parking lot was crawling with parents and their kids moving into the dorm. To his left, a father in a polo shirt wrestled a futon frame out of a rental trailer, and to his right, a family of four formed a bucket brigade. They were moving matching sets of plastic storage bins, a mini-fridge, a rug, three floor lamps, and a case of bottled water toward the dorm entrance.

Evan watched them, not judging, exactly, just suffering a mild confusion, like he’d shown up to a job site with a hammer and everyone else had brought a sledgehammer.

Evan grabbed the handle of his duffel bag and the garbage bag, slung them over his shoulder, tucked the pillow under his arm, and slammed the tailgate shut. He clicked the lock on his key fob and checked the handle to be sure.

The walk to Allen Hall was a gauntlet of sweaty fathers and mothers fanning themselves with orientation pamphlets as the heat radiated off the concrete walkways. Evan moved with a long, efficient stride, weaving through the congestion without breaking pace. He was used to work that made you sweat; this was just walking.

Inside the double doors of Allen Hall, the noise doubled. It was a cacophony of screeching dolly wheels, shouting RAs in bright orange shirts, and the constant, rhythmic thud of heavy doors slamming.

Evan checked the room assignment on his phone: 214, second floor.

The elevators had a line backing up into the lobby. A girl with a terrified expression stood by a stack of boxes labeled “WINTER CLOTHES” while her mother argued with a man who seemed to be hoarding a luggage cart.

Evan took the stairs.

The stairwell was cooler. He took the steps two at a time, his boots echoing against the cinder-block walls. On the second-floor landing, he had to stop.

The hallway was narrower than he expected, lined with industrial beige tile, and choked with people. Doors stood open, revealing cramped rooms rapidly filling with debris.

Evan navigated the crush, holding his bags close to his body to avoid snagging them on passing pedestrians. He counted the door numbers: 208... 210... 212...

At 213, movement stopped.

A woman in a linen sundress stood in the center of the hall, directly in Evan’s path. She had both hands over her face, her shoulders shaking. A man, presumably her husband, stood awkwardly beside her, patting her shoulder with the rhythmic, mechanical precision of someone trying to burp an infant.

“It’s just so small, Richard,” she sobbed into her hands. “It’s a shoebox—how is he going to live in a shoebox?”

“Honey, it’s a dorm room; it’s standard-sized,” Richard said, looking over her head and locking eyes with Evan.

The man’s eyes begged for some help, for anyone to intervene or at least acknowledge that this was insane. Evan’s parents had divorced, and he knew it was best not to get involved.

With that at the forefront of his mind, he turned his body forty-five degrees, made himself thin, and slid through the twelve-inch gap between the grieving mother and the wall.

“Excuse me,” Evan said, his voice low and flat.

The woman didn’t hear him. Evan cleared the obstacle and stepped into the open doorway of Room 214.

The room was indeed a shoebox, split down the middle by an invisible line. On the left side, the standard university-issued mattress was bare, the desk was empty, and the wardrobe was closed.

On the right side, civilization had been established.

A plush gray rug covered the linoleum. The bed was already made with high-thread-count sheets and an orange-and-blue comforter, Illinois’s team colors—someone had school spirit. A massive television sat atop the dresser, flanked by two high-end speakers, and a mini-fridge was plugged in and humming.

Standing in the middle of this fully furnished empire was a guy Evan’s age. He was slightly shorter than Evan—about six-one—with hair that looked like it had been cut by a professional. He wore a Vineyard Vines t-shirt and boat shoes.

’This is going to be interesting,’ Evan thought.

The guy was also tilting his head back, holding a can of Miller Lite to his mouth. He cracked the tab, punctured the side with a key, and inhaled the beer in three seconds; foam dripped onto his chin. He wiped it away with the back of his hand, tossed the crushed can into a pristine wastebasket, and burped.

’Oh, fuck me.’

“Timing,” the guy said and pointed a finger at Evan. “Impeccable.”

Evan stood in the doorway, the duffel and garbage bags still on his shoulder.

“Room 214?”

“The penthouse suite,” the guy said and extended a hand. “Jake Holloway, Chicago. Well, Winnetka, but let’s stick with Chicago.”