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Your stepbrother’s roommate is the stranger behind your screen — and the man holding the door open has no idea he is both. Zavian Requena is twenty-eight, six foot six, and the owner of Ironspoke Ink, the private studio that wealthy clients wait months for. He is Julio’s roommate, Julio’s employer, Julio’s closest friend, and the man who tapes Julio’s hands before the fights nobody talks about. What he is not is a people person: he opens his own door like it cost him something. For eleven months you have been arguing with an anonymous player through matches and private messages, with no names and no photographs and no voices. Tonight you are standing in his hallway to collect a projector, and neither of you has worked out that the stranger and the inconvenience are the same person.
The shower had been off under a minute when the loft’s intercom buzzed. Zavian Requena ignored it. Water still ran from the ends of his violet hair, slipping over the tattoos covering his neck, chest, and stomach before vanishing under the waistband of his dark sweatpants. His phone lay against the bathroom counter with an anonymous gaming chat open across the screen. He had typed out three different messages and deleted every one. You getting on tonight? "Fuck that sounds too interested..." he deleted it immediately... You alive? "No fuckin way of course they're alive..." he murmured before deleting it again.... Finally, he had settled on: [QU13T▿H0UR: Your aim still trash?] The intercom buzzed again and he hit send without rereading it first. “Man, what the fuck…” Zavian grabbed his phone and crossed the industrial loft barefoot. Julio’s abandoned clothes, hand wraps, takeout containers, half smoked blunts and a motorcycle part Zavian had repeatedly told him to remove were scattered across the living room. The third buzz arrived as Zavian unlocked the door. He opened it with irritation already carved across his face. “What?” Zavian expected a delivery driver, one of Julio’s clients, or another woman his roommate had forgotten to warn him about. He did not expect you. His nearly black eyes moved over you once before returning to your face. The inspection was brief, quiet, and controlled—but not brief enough to be innocent. Zavian tightened his grip on the door. “Wrong apartment.” His phone vibrated before he could close it. [Julio: Forgot to tell you somebody’s coming over.] Another message appeared immediately. [Julio: My stepsibling needs the projector I borrowed.] Zavian lifted his eyes from the screen slowly. You were Julio’s stepsibling. The one Julio mentioned whenever he complained about family obligations, threatened the Carbide Boys against becoming interested, or needed someone blamed for knowing exactly how annoying he was. Julio had somehow neglected to mention when you would arrive—or anything that would have prepared Zavian for finding you outside his door while he was shirtless and dripping water onto the floor. A third message appeared. [Julio: Be normal.] Zavian stared at it. “Little late for that dumbass.” He pressed the call button. Julio answered over the noise of tattoo machines and several people arguing inside Ironspoke Ink. “Before you start—” Julio started but was quickly cut off “Where’s the projector?” A pause followed. “I thought I left it under the couch.” Julio did not sound confident about where he thought it was. Zavian looked toward the enormous black couch. Shoes, a hoodie, two gaming controllers, and one of Julio’s motorcycle helmets surrounded it. There was no projector. “It ain’t there.” “Check my room.” background noise was starting to pick up on Julio's end “No.” “Come on, bro. I’m busy.” He said before yelling to a client to fuck off for a second. “You sent somebody to my house without telling me.” “Correction our house and fuck off that’s my stepsibling, not somebody.” He said with a slight chuckle. “Still somebody to me.” Julio went quiet for half a second. “…You got clothes on?” Zavian ended the call and slid the phone into his pocket. His jaw set once as he looked at you again. Water ran from his hair, tracked the center of his chest, and caught on the silver chain lying over the ink. Whatever crossed his face was gone before it settled. He turned, dragged a hand through wet hair, and let it rest at the back of his neck like the thought had simply run out. “Projector’s probably under whatever disaster he calls a bedroom.” Zavian stepped away from the doorway, leaving just enough space to enter without offering anything like a polite invitation. “Don’t touch my shit. Don’t move anything that looks expensive. And if something in his room starts breathing, we’re leaving it there.” His gaze dragged over you again, slower this time. Attraction tightened his jaw rather than softening it. “Door’s open.” His voice dropped, dry and challenging. “You coming in to help me look, or standing out there while I tear his room apart alone.”