We slipped into the empty lounge across from the commons, away from the music and the fog machine’s harsh light.
The overhead fluorescents buzzed faintly but stayed off — just the glow from the vending machines and the TV lighting the room in soft pulses of static blue.
A small TV flickered in the corner. Some frat guys had already claimed the best chairs.
One was wearing vampire fangs and holding a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos like it was a sacred object.

“Look,” Maya said, nudging me. “The Moose are on.”
The Minnesota Moose were playing at the Saint Paul Civic Center — their second season, but still a new name in town.
The arena looked grainy and blue on the low-res screen, like every broadcast from KMSP Channel 9 had been dunked in snow.
Ever since the North Stars packed up and left for Dallas, fans had been desperate for something to fill the gap. The Moose weren’t NHL, but they were fast, scrappy, and weirdly fun to watch. And the green-and-purple jerseys? Kind of iconic.
The logo — that bug-eyed moose charging across a neon triangle — looked ridiculous, but somehow it worked.

We grabbed the ratty couch closest to the TV. Maya handed me a plastic cup she’d snagged on the way out of the party. Still cider, still cold.
The couch cushions sagged like old pizza boxes, and someone had carved “MATT WUZ HERE” into the wooden armrest.

“Better than fog machines and drunk Animaniacs,” she said.
I nodded, sinking into the cushion. The camera panned across the ice. A player — number 14, I think — skated in hard, slapped the puck, and nearly scored.
The crowd in the Civic Center jumped to their feet — or at least the three or four you could make out through the VHS blur.

“Snuggerud’s got hands,” one of the guys said. “They might actually pull this off tonight.”
He tossed a Skor wrapper toward a wastebasket and missed completely.
The scoreboard flickered. 3–2, Moose.
Another player shoved a guy into the boards.
Maya let out a soft “Oof.”
I looked over. She grinned.
“Kind of hot,” she admitted.
I laughed. “You say that about everything that moves.”
“And yet, I’m sitting here with you.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Her cape was bunched beneath her like a blanket. One boot had half-untied itself but she didn’t care.

We stayed like that for a while.
The TV droned on. The room grew quieter. Somewhere upstairs, the party was still alive, but here — here it felt like we’d pressed pause on the whole night.

**

Another slapshot ricocheted off the goalpost. The crowd on-screen groaned in unison.
The broadcast wavered for a second, static fuzz ghosting across the screen before it snapped back. Someone banged the side of the TV like that would help.

Maya nudged me with her elbow. “The Moose may not be a great team…”
“…but they’re ours,” I finished, smiling faintly.
The words felt heavier than they sounded, like something carved in linoleum tile and hot cider steam.

She nodded. “I believe in ‘em. Give it a few years — who knows? Maybe they’ll make it to the NHL.”
I tilted my head. “Let’s just hope they don’t get transferred like the North Stars.”
The name still stung in Minnesota air. Dallas hadn’t earned them.

We both fell silent for a second. There was something weirdly tender about hoping for a team — for something to stay. To belong. To matter.
In the corner, one of the frat guys crunched a Funyun and muttered something about penalties.

Maya leaned her head back against the couch. “I don’t know. I think it’s nice, watching a team that’s still trying to prove itself.”
My hand found hers again. “Relatable.”
Her fingers tightened just a little — not a squeeze, exactly. Just… a reply.

She turned toward me and gave a soft laugh. “That was poetic, Riley.”
I shrugged. “It’s the cider talking.”
The last of it had gone warm in the cup, but I took another sip anyway. Sweet and sticky.

Another goal.
The guys across the room yelled loud enough to rattle the blinds.
One of them nearly fell out of his chair. “Hell yeah! That’s what I’m talking about!”

Maya stood up and stretched, her long cardigan falling around her like a cape. “Wanna head back before the game ends? I’m cold.”
“Yeah,” I said, pulling myself to my feet. “Besides… they’ve got this.”
I tossed our cups into the recycling bin, which was already overflowing with soda cans, plastic cider cups, and a single crushed box of Gushers.

We left the lounge just as the third period started, the Moose clinging to their one-goal lead like their lives depended on it.
As the door swung closed behind us, we caught one last roar from the TV — hope, in surround sound.

****

The hallway was quiet when we got back — just the faint hum of vending machines and the distant sound of someone’s TV behind a closed door.
The air smelled like stale popcorn and old mop water, and the floor tiles squeaked slightly under our steps.

Maya unlocked the door and pushed it open.
We stepped inside, and the door clicked quietly behind us.
The fluorescent light overhead gave a low buzz before flickering to life — but we didn’t turn it on. The soft amber glow of Maya’s desk lamp was already enough.

It was warm — the radiator doing its best against the Minnesota chill — and our room smelled faintly like the vanilla candle Maya wasn’t supposed to have.
It sat hidden inside a hollowed-out instant oatmeal container on her windowsill, its lid slightly ajar.

I kicked off my shoes and flopped onto the bed face-first. “Remind me never to sit on a dorm lounge couch again. I think I inhaled ten years’ worth of microwave burritos.”
The comforter crinkled beneath me, still covered in the faded flannel pattern Mom sent me with back in August.

Maya laughed as she hung up her coat. “You’re just mad Velma beat you to the good seat.”
“She did elbow me.”
“She had the power of Scooby Snacks on her side.”
She pulled the bobby pins from her hair and tossed them into a plastic bowl on the desk labeled Maya’s Brain Screws in Sharpie.

I rolled over and looked at her upside down. “You’re such a nerd.”
She walked over and planted a kiss on my lips. “Takes one to date one.”
Her lipstick was faded now, just a soft pink stain — and somehow even prettier than when it was perfect.

I blushed and sat up slowly, reaching for the throw blanket at the end of the bed. “Tonight was… weirdly nice. I didn’t realize how much I needed to not be stared at for a few hours.”
Maya settled next to me, curling her legs under her. “Me too. It felt like we got to exist without defending it.”
I nodded.
The radiator popped once as it kicked back on, filling the silence like punctuation.

She hesitated, then brushed a hand down my arm and laced her fingers through mine.
“I like this,” she said. “Just… us.”
My heart thudded in that way it always did when she got soft like this — not nervous, not unsure. Just real.
“I like this too.”
There was a beat of silence between us.
Then Maya leaned in closer, voice playful and low.
“Wil je stout doen?”
I snorted, grinning. “Maya!”
I tossed a balled-up sock at her — missed, but she giggled anyway.

She laughed and bumped her shoulder against mine.
“I love it when you blush,” she whispered.
I tugged the blanket over both of us and rested my head against her shoulder. “I love it when you speak Dutch.”
She kissed my lips again. “That’s all you need to know.”
Outside, wind pushed softly against the windowpane, and someone down the hall sneezed. But here in our little cocoon of lamplight, we were safe.

I tilted my head up just slightly and smirked. “Y’know… Dutch isn’t exactly the most romantic language.”
The lamp on the desk buzzed softly, casting gentle shadows on the dorm wall, where Maya’s concert flyers and sticky notes fluttered with each pass of the heater.

Maya raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”

I nodded, teasing. “It kinda sounds like someone gargling soup.”
Outside, a car rumbled down the campus road, bass thumping faintly as it passed.

She gasped. “Rude.”

“Just saying. If you wanna woo me, try French.”

“Oh really?” she challenged, eyes narrowing. “Let’s hear it then.”

I sat up a little, cleared my throat dramatically, and did my best impression of a french person.
“Je veux te manger dehors.”
My accent was probably awful, but I sold it with confidence. Or at least, commitment.

Maya blinked. Her face went still — and then slowly flushed. “Okay… wow.”

“What?” I said innocently. “Was that okay?”

She leaned in, eyes soft but burning. “Say anything else in French right now and I might spontaneously combust.”
Her fingers gripped the edge of the blanket like it might anchor her.

I laughed. “Je t’aime, idiote.”

She shoved my shoulder gently. “I heard that!”

We both cracked up next thing we knew, we were both fully naked and collapsed into each other, tangled in warmth and blankets and a language we didn’t need to understand to feel.
The radiator hissed softly, the vanilla candle flickered low, and somewhere in the distance, a door clicked shut — but in here, everything slowed. Everything held.

**

Just as Maya started to lean in again — lips parted, eyes all soft and dreamy —
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.
We both jumped like we’d been hit with a stun gun.
The knock echoed off the cinderblock walls like a fire drill, making the floor creak beneath us.

“Shit!” Maya hissed, scrambling off the bed.
“Clothes! Clothes!” I whisper-yelled, diving for the hoodie I’d tossed over the chair an hour ago. My tank top was practically halfway across the room.
The zipper snagged on the sleeve, and I nearly tripped over Maya’s abandoned boots trying to get to it.

Maya was trying to shimmy into her sweatpants and hop at the same time, which was not going well.
“Coming!” I called out, trying to sound normal — like we hadn’t just been seconds away from making out to fake French.
“Clearly,” Maya muttered under her breath, and I almost lost it right there.
Her hair stuck out in all directions, like static had declared war.

I yanked open the door, still tugging my hoodie down over my head.
There stood Claire and Jess. Claire was holding a bag of Twizzlers like it was sacred, and Jess had two cans of Josta tucked under her arm.
Jess had swapped her lab coat for a faded flannel and sweatpants with the elastic all stretched out. Claire’s trench coat was now tied around her waist like a victory flag.

“Did we interrupt something?” Jess asked, way too smug.
“No,” I said, voice cracking.
Claire raised her eyebrows but said nothing, just stepped inside like it was her dorm now.

Claire stepped inside anyway. “Good, because we brought sugar and caffeine and we’re not taking no for an answer.”
Maya emerged from behind me, hair a mess, sweater inside out.
Jess looked her up and down and smirked. “You sure we didn’t interrupt anything?”
Maya shrugged, completely deadpan. “We were conjugating French verbs. It got intense.”
Claire blinked. “Kinky.”
Jess tossed the cans of Josta onto the desk like she was dealing blackjack. “Two for you lovebirds, and one for me.”
Maya raised an eyebrow. “That’s three.”
“Exactly. I get two.”
The desk chair creaked under Jess’s weight as she spun it once and parked herself with zero ceremony.

Claire flopped onto the beanbag chair in the corner, nearly spilling her Twizzlers. “We just got back from Jess’s dorm. Her roommate’s trying to summon ghosts with an Ouija board and a Backstreet Boys cassette. We fled.”
The cassette in question had apparently been looping “As Long As You Love Me” over candlelight and cheap incense.

“Understandable,” I said, grabbing a Twizzler and biting the end off like a cigar. “So this is an emergency snack run?”
Jess cracked open her soda. “Emergency gay solidarity run.”
The pop hissed loud in the quiet room, fizz bubbling to the top of the can.

Maya threw a pillow at her. “You’re the straight one!”
“Ally of the year, thank you very much.”
Claire grinned and leaned her head back, chewing her licorice. “So what were you two doing before we got here? Dutch study group? French cinema reenactment?”
Maya shot me a look, daring me to answer.
I shrugged, grinning. “We were...uh... debating whether kissing sounds better in Dutch or French?”
Jess took a long, dramatic sip of Josta. “Well it sure looks better in flannel and panic.”
I covered my face with the sleeve of my hoodie and howled with laughter.

Everyone cracked up. Even I had to admit, it felt good — the kind of ridiculous laughter that cracked the tension like bubble wrap.
A Madonna song was faintly playing in someone’s room down the hall — “Express Yourself,” maybe. Someone had good taste.

Claire rolled off the beanbag, pulling a pack of cards from her hoodie pocket. “Alright, who wants to play Cards Against—oh wait, crap. This is Uno. Guess we’re doing it grandma style.”
I raised my can. “To Grandma Uno. May the Reverse cards be petty and the Draw Fours be personal.”
We clinked cans. Twizzlers were passed. Socks were stolen. Maya tried to cheat and got booed. Jess sang part of a Madonna song with no context.
Claire tried to use a pencil as a wand and declared herself “the Uno Queen,” which absolutely no one accepted.

Claire started shuffling the Uno cards with dramatic flair. “Alright, prepare to lose, punks.”
Jess flopped backward onto Maya’s bed. “Honestly, we should spice it up.”
“Oh no,” Maya said immediately. “Absolutely not.”
Jess grinned. “What? I was just gonna suggest strip poker.”
Claire choked on her Twizzler. “With Uno?! What would that even be? Lose a Skip card, lose a sock?”
I turned bright red. “Can we not Uno our way into public nudity?”
Jess winked. “Fine, fine. Grandma rules. For now.”
Maya leaned in toward me and whispered, “Don’t worry. You’d win.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “You tried to stack two Draw Fours last round.”
She grinned, totally unapologetic. “And I’d do it again.”
The radiator ticked softly as it cycled on again, and the four of us stayed up way too late, wrapped in blankets and sugar and static laughter, trying to out-cheat each other in Uno like it was an Olympic sport.