Chapter Text
“Who the fuck has a party on the first day of spring semester?”
Natalie — your best friend and absolute saving grace since Freshman year American Lit. — rolls her eyes at your accusatory question. She’s got her fingers enclosed around your wrist, guiding you further into the large, smelly fraternity house without a problem. She’s been here before. You both have.
You wish you weren’t here now, though.
“Phi Kappa Psi, evidently,” she answers. “You know how it is.”
“Right,” you acknowledge with a huff. “Because clearly these frat bros have nothing better to do than get hammered off a twenty-dollar bottle of Titos and pass around a blue raz vape pen.”
A body solidifies at the stairs the second you both turn the corner, making the two of you stop abruptly. And then, as fate would have it, there he was. The one man your entire body longed to see.
“Luigi Mangione,” Natalie says as you sidestep her to get a better look. You swear your heart does a little flip.
“In the flesh,” Luigi smirks. He’s at the bottom of the stairs now. His goddamn dimples are showing, and a wave of uneasiness overcomes you. “To what do we owe the pleasure, ladies?”
You fight any sort of reaction as you look back to Natalie. She can do the talking. You don’t even want to try because Luigi fucking Mangione is a sight for sore eyes on the worst of days and a borderline narcissistic Ivy League know-it-all on the best of days, and right now, your internal compass is feeling particularly pliable. One look or word and it’s like some indescribable feeling washes over you, one where Luigi doesn’t really have to do anything except maybe breathe and you feel like the universe made him in its mold just for you.
It’s ridiculous is what it is. He’s just a guy, but sometimes you have a hard time assigning a title to him that doesn’t inch toward ethereal.
Maybe you’re just ovulating. Maybe it’s just because it’s him. All-American, Italian-rooted Loverboy, Luigi Mangione. Straight A student. Private-school-educated. A mirage. A dream. Maybe one you’ll never have. Either way, you’re sure of one thing and one thing only: if you look at that face of his for too long, you’re going to start blushing like an idiot. And knowing Luigi, he wouldn’t let you live it down. Ever.
“Brad didn’t call me back,” Natalie starts back up. “So I’m here to kick his ass.”
Luigi lets out a low whistle. “I see. Well, he’s out by the pool right now.”
Natalie’s nostrils flare as she lets go of your wrist.
“Cool. Watch her for me, will you?” And then she’s stomping off to the back of the frat house, out the back door, and toward the poolhouse where Brad Anderson is doing body shots off Mackenzie Pierce. The shot glasses are small and neon. Probably plastic.
“Uh—” You start, finally looking back at him, or rather, his tank top. It has BALI etched across the front in a pink sans serif font. It’s the only thing you can bring yourself to actually look at. God forbid you see those beautiful eyebrows of his. “Hi, Luigi.”
“Hi, pretty girl.” It slips from his mouth like it’s easy — like it’s normal for him to call you this, actually — and you’re acutely aware of his Dior Homme cologne after he steps right up and into your bubble. “I’m surprised you're not in bed watching Love Island UK right now.”
It takes you a few seconds to get your neurons firing again. Because — okay. What the fuck?
“Didn’t realize you kept tabs on me like that,” You blurt. “Kind of weird.”
But it wasn’t weird. It was thoughtful. Knowing means caring. You feel a cold sweat break out at the small of your back just as Luigi’s fingers trail down your right arm. Tickle the skin there.
He shrugs and interlaces your fingers together. “Kind of weird that you try so hard to avoid being American.”
You blink a few times at him before he grins, flashing his teeth. The dimples are back again and — Jesus Christ. Perfect fucking white incisor teeth.
“I don’t do that,” You interject. “How would you know if I do that?”
Luigi pulls you up the stairs after a second, wrapping his arm around your shoulders as he guides you toward his bedroom. It’s at the far end of the hall to the left. Again, not your first time here.
“You avoid watching the news because you dislike hearing about current events going on in the country,” Luigi explains, turning the knob to his room before pulling you inside. “And you talk about Maryland like it’s a disgusting wasteland. You hate it here. Tell me I’m wrong.”
You can’t. He knows this, so he goes on. “Your Alexa is British, and you watch English shows in a way that might have passed for casual five years ago but speaks for itself now. Why England?” He adds on the last part like that’s the one part he hasn’t actually worked out yet. Like he’s right about the rest of it. Damn him.
You’re avoiding Luigi’s eyes now. Instead, you spot Tucker West through the balcony window doing front flips on the trampoline in the backyard. Someone throws a beer at him, and he catches it mid-air before hopping off. A few stragglers cheer.
When you finally look back at Luigi, he’s leaning against his closet door, grinning like he knows you. And maybe he does.
“You do realize that it doesn’t matter where you go, right?” He says after a beat. “You’re still left with you, wherever you are.”
“Why are you so focused on philosophy tonight?” You change the subject. “Tired of educating your frat brothers on Japan’s declining birth rates?”
“The only thing my brothers like to be educated on is their chances with nursing majors versus the lit majors.”
“And?” You ask.
“Sixty percent for nursing, ten percent for lit.”
You raise a brow before Luigi turns toward his closet, pulling out a checkerboard.
“Nursing majors are overworked and stressed out, and they don’t analyze like the lit majors do. They’re more likely to let loose at a party and make out with a stranger, whereas the lit girls want to be wooed and shit.”
You laugh as Luigi settles on his bed across from you. He grins and sets up the checkerboard easily. “Those percentages are bullshit, by the way, but the observation is true.
You nod. It’s silent for a few moments before:
“I don’t know why about England. I do watch the news now, though.”
Luigi nods like he gets it. “That’s good. You can’t hate the place you’re in forever.”
Something in you softens at that. Because you don’t — or, well, you’re trying not to. Not anymore. Except this isn’t about England. Never has been. This is about you.
“Do we have to do this every time?” You ask Luigi as he finishes with your pieces. “I’m not even that good at checkers, you know.”
“I know,” He nods. “But you’re worse at chess.”
He catches your eye roll and laughs that laugh of his, the one that sounds like music.
“Why aren’t you drinking tonight?” You question. He shrugs and grabs his phone. You watch him open Spotify and scroll for a second before clicking on one of his playlists. He hits shuffle, and Sick Boy by The Chainsmokers starts up suddenly. It plays at a low volume through his speaker on the other side of the room, and Luigi seems fine with this as he tosses his phone aside casually afterward. You settle in, sighing.
“Brain fog,” He answers, meeting your eyes again. “I’ve felt kind of spacey for a few weeks because of it. Drinking makes it worse.”
You hum and he bites his bottom lip. “You?”
“Taking a break,” You reply. “Turns out getting so drunk that you puke in a random rose bush on campus is not a good look.”
“Who knew?” Luigi asks and you chuckle.
It’s silent as you play checkers together, but in the end, Luigi wins because Luigi always wins.
You go back and forth discussing schoolwork and other mundane things after that. Family. His latest computer science paper. Your latest class-assigned novel. Somewhere along the way, the checkerboard is abandoned, and you and Luigi make your way onto the slanted roof just above his bedroom. It’s flat enough that the two of you can lay on your backs and stare up at the night sky but angled enough that no one else can see you up there.
He even brings a blanket for the two of you to lay on, the gentleman that he is.
“Think Natalie is okay?” You ask him after some time, hearing various splashes as strangers cannonball into the pool.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” He nods. You can feel the baritone of his voice in his chest. Your cheek vibrates against it with the sound. “I’d be more worried about Brad.”
You hum and angle your leg over his thigh. “Looking forward to spring semester?”
“I’m looking forward to it being over,” He answers. After he says this, his hand begins stroking your hair, and it takes everything in you not to shudder. You inhale the cold air instead, trying to keep it together. It won’t always be like this, you tell yourself. With him. One day, he won’t be around anymore. You’re going to have to get used to that again. But, admittedly, it is hard. You don’t remember what life was like before you knew Luigi. Empty might be the right word for it.
“I’m doing camp counseling for a few weeks this summer for Stanford and then going back home after to help my family with fundraising,” Luigi explains. “It’ll be busy but at least I won’t have to worry about writing any fucking computer science papers the entire time.”
You grin at that.
“Are you doing any other volunteering?”
You know Luigi. The man did extracurriculars like his life depended on it.
“I was going to do Habitat for Humanity with my brothers before fall semester started but my pain has been getting worse, so that’s probably out the window. I’m hoping I can still do the soup kitchen in December.”
You frown and look up at Luigi. “I’m sorry. It must be miserable.”
You’ve had pain before but not like Luigi. Back pain was the worst type. You often thought about the fact that it was cosmically unfair that Luigi — sweet, kind, empathetic Luigi — had to deal with it all. All alone. And he didn’t even complain about it.
“It’s just how it is. The scales will even out soon, I’m sure.”
But you don’t really know what he means by that. You don’t get the chance to ask, either. Instead, he pulls you that much closer and plants a kiss on the top of your head.
“Want me to teach you some more constellations?” He asks, and you nod. In an instant, he’s tracing the sky with his fingers, making out obscure shapes, and educating you on Aquila, the retriever of Zeus’s thunderbolts.
And as you lay there with Luigi under the dark sky filled with constellations, you can’t help but feel lucky. Lucky because you’re something, anything to him. Someone passing through his life, possibly. But also someone who could become something more.
Something. Anything at all. And — just because it’s him — that feels like everything. It feels like being given the opportunity to taste what life has to offer.
After all, life introduced you to Luigi Mangione for a reason. Surely, that couldn’t have been a mistake. Could it?