He’s Both My Enemy and My Love

While watching my older brother play basketball, I shot a quick text to my online boyfriend.

Babe, I'm at a game right now.

No way. Me too, beautiful.

Really?! Then good luck out there!!

A few minutes later, my brother's team was getting boxed out by the rival squad. The score was painfully tight.

I jumped out of the bleachers, cupping my hands around my mouth.

"Go babe! You're the absolute best!!"

Thud.

The moment the words left my mouth, the rival team's captain dropped his basketball right onto the hardwood.

"Yes! We got it!!"

Final minute on the clock.

My brother sank a clean three-pointer, completely flipping the score and securing the championship title.

I practically vibrated with excitement, jumping up and down in the stands and waving frantically at him.

"Reginald! You were incredible!"

"What are you doing here?"

My brother grabbed the water bottle I held out to him, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his jersey.

I told him I had just gone to the campus bookstore to print some syllabi. On my way back, I heard the squeak of sneakers and the buzzer from the court. He had texted me about the finals earlier this week. I remembered, so I took a detour to watch.

His teammates started trickling toward the sidelines to hydrate.

When they saw me, their eyes went wide.

"Pierce! Since when do you have a gorgeous girl hanging around?"

"Back off."

Reginald shot his teammate a lethal, warning glare.

The guys just laughed it off, though their eyes kept drifting toward me with blatant curiosity.

I couldn't exactly blame them.

I was a brand-new freshman. Reginald was a grad student.

He had gotten early admission to his master's program, locked himself in a lab for a major physics project, and hadn't been home in half a year. He wasn't even there when I took my finals or applied for colleges.

By the time I got accepted into his university, he had essentially moved me into my dorm on day one, patted my head, and vanished back into his laboratory.

This was the very first time I was officially standing in front of his friends.

"Hi everyone. I'm Harper."

I offered them a polite smile.

I was just about to add that I was Reginald's little sister, but he cut me off entirely.

"Alright, show's over. Head back to your dorm. Text me if you need anything."

He snatched my tote bag off the floor and handed it to me. He stood tall, deliberately blocking his teammates' line of sight like he was shielding me from a pack of wolves.

I blinked, totally lost, but nodded obediently.

Whatever. The game was over anyway. I needed to get back to my room and text my boyfriend. I wondered how his game went.

"Oh, right. Reginald, that three-pointer was insane. I got it on video. I'll send it to you later," I bragged.

A highlight reel like that deserved to be immortalized.

Reginald's face softened into an exasperated smile, and he waved me off.

I turned on my heel to leave.

And immediately slammed face-first into a solid wall of a chest.

Smack.

"Ow!"

My phone slipped from my grip and clattered onto the polished wood floor.

I froze in a panic, dropping to my knees to grab it. Before I could even look up to see who I had hit, Reginald's entire demeanor shifted. He took a sharp, aggressive step forward.

"Brooks, what is your problem?!"

"She bumped into me."

The voice was cold, flat, and completely devoid of emotion.

It felt like a layer of frost settling over my skin. I couldn't help but shrink back a little as I finally looked at the guy.

I recognized him, but I didn't actually know him.

He was the rival captain Reginald had just gone head-to-head with. The same guy who nearly crushed my brother's team a few minutes ago.

"Why the hell were you standing right behind her blocking the way? Apologize to her!"

"You're out of your mind, Pierce."

Maybe the adrenaline from the court hadn't worn off yet. Reginald's voice dropped to a dangerous octave. The way he was looking at this guy was entirely different from his usual teasing arrogance.

He pulled me behind his back, glaring holes into the other captain.

But the other guy wasn't backing down either.

Neither of them gave an inch. The air between them felt thick enough to spark a fire.

Seeing the situation escalating purely because of my clumsiness, I tugged anxiously at the hem of Reginald's jersey.

"Reginald, stop. It was my fault. I wasn't looking."

I had just started college. The last thing I wanted was my brother getting into a fistfight on my account.

Reginald set his jaw, turning his back to the guy to look down at me.

"Just go back to the dorm. It's fine."

"Don't start a fight."

"I won't."

I gripped the straps of my tote bag tight.

I nervously peeked over Reginald's shoulder at the rival captain.

He was already looking at me.

His gaze was dark, heavy, and razor-sharp. It was terrifying. It felt like he was trying to nail me to the floor with his eyes alone.

I didn't dare stay a second longer. I mumbled a quick apology to the air and practically sprinted out of the gym.

Nope. Absolutely not.

I had to tell my boyfriend about this immediately. That guy was a nightmare.

The second I unlocked my dorm room door, I pulled up my messages with Ro.

"Babe, are you there? I just got so scared."

While I waited for his reply, my roommates filtered in from their afternoon classes.

Someone asked if I had actually gone to watch the basketball finals.

"Yeah."

"How was it? Which of the Twin Stars won?"

I blinked. "Twin Stars?"

My roommate stared at me like I had just admitted I didn't know how to read.

"Professor Harris's golden boys! The physics department prodigies!"

Professor Harris was an absolute titan in the academic world. His standards for taking on mentees were notoriously brutal. Because he was retiring in a few years, he had stopped accepting new students entirely.

But this year, he made an unprecedented exception and took on two final graduates. He publicly stated they were the brightest rising stars the physics department had ever seen.

Before they even officially joined his lab, they had represented the university in an international physics decathlon and brought home gold.

The university had their faces plastered on the website's homepage for an entire month.

My roommate pulled up the university's unofficial Instagram gossip page, scrolling to the paparazzi-style photos the campus admins had posted of the two of them.

I took one look.

Wait, isn't that Reginald?

He was that much of a big deal?

A wave of intense, unbothered pride washed over me. My mood instantly skyrocketed.

"Oh. My brother won."

"Your brother?"

"Yeah. This guy. He's my brother."

I pointed proudly at Reginald's photo on the screen.

The dorm went dead silent for a solid five seconds.

Then, they burst into laughter.

"Harper, stop messing around. How could Reginald Pierce be your brother?"

"Exactly. You guys have totally different last names. You don't even look alike."

I sighed. I knew this was coming.

I had heard this exact script hundreds of times since I was a kid. But this time, I came prepared.

"Look. Here's our official family registry, and here's a family portrait from last Christmas."

I pulled out my phone and swiped to my favorites album, holding it up with a smug grin.

My roommates' jaws hit the floor.

I kept going. "I took my mom's maiden name, Sullivan. He took my dad's last name, Pierce."

As for not looking alike. That was just genetics. But if you looked really, really closely at our eyes, you could see the resemblance.

A moment later, a collective shriek echoed through the dorm.

"Oh my god! Reginald is actually your brother?!"

"Yep."

They would have met him on move-in day, but he was in such a rush to get back to the lab that he literally dropped my boxes in the lobby and sprinted away.

My roommates couldn't hide their excitement. They practically begged me to introduce them the next time I saw him. They wanted to breathe the same air as a certified campus legend.

I agreed easily. No big deal.

Then someone asked another question.

"What about the other one? Your brother works in the same lab as him. Do you know him too?"

"Who?"

"This guy."

My roommate swiped to the next photo. She told me this was the other "Star."

I looked down.

Wasn't this the guy I literally just crashed into?!

Judging by the photo, it was taken during halftime.

He was sitting on the bench, a white towel draped around his neck. Black and white jersey, dark hair pushed back with a sweatband. He was leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees, staring down at his phone like he was texting someone.

Whoever took this photo deserved a Pulitzer.

How did they manage to make a guy with a death glare look like the brooding male lead of a coming-of-age movie?

It was the most liked photo on the entire campus page. Mostly because the guy was looking down at his screen with a faint, barely-there smile.

What was he smiling at? I had only seen him look like he wanted to commit a felony.

"I don't know him," I said, shaking my head.

My roommates looked a little disappointed and were about to pivot to a new piece of gossip when my phone buzzed on my desk.

My boyfriend finally texted back!!!

"Hold on, I have to reply to this."

I tuned out my roommates' chatter and unlocked my screen.

Ro: "Beautiful. I just got out of the shower. What happened?"

I originally wanted to vent about the terrifying guy at the basketball court. But after the whole conversation with my roommates, the incident didn't feel like a big deal anymore.

"Nothing, babe. Just missed you. How was your game?"

The typing bubble popped up. He went quiet for a full minute before sending a single word.

"Lost."

Oh no.

He must be crushed.

My heart squeezed. My fingers flew across the keyboard trying to comfort him.

"It's okay, it's okay."

"We'll get them next time."

"It was just a bad matchup."

"In my heart, you're always the MVP anyway."

I fired off four or five texts in a row.

Sensing my panic, he sent back a cute sticker of a cat patting another cat's head.

"It's probably because I didn't have you in the bleachers cheering for me."

"The other team had a lot of girls screaming for them today."

Oh, so that was it.

I spammed him with a dozen heart-eyed stickers.

He went quiet again. But I could see the typing indicator flashing on and off at the top of the screen. He was hesitating.

"Babe, do you want to say something?"

"Can you send me a picture of yourself?"

Huh?

Ro: "I just really want to know what you look like right now."

Ro and I met online right before my final high school exams.

I had been so anxious that I posted a thread on a college forum asking for study tips and survival guides. He had left a massive, incredibly detailed comment breaking down everything I needed to know.

At the very end of his essay, he wrote: "It's just one normal test. You'll face a million other tests in your life. Take a deep breath."

When my scores came out, I realized I had enough points to get into Reginald's university. I went back to the forum specifically to thank him. We kept talking. Eventually, it turned into something real.

We had planned to meet up in person. But moving to a new state and dealing with freshman orientation had kept me too busy. The meetup kept getting pushed back.

"Sure."

Before we started dating, I had actually dared him to send a picture first.

"Let me see those abs."

He had just gotten out of the shower back then, too. Surprisingly, he actually listened. He sent a mirror selfie that completely rewired my brain chemistry.

That photo was honestly fifty percent of the reason I flirted so aggressively until he agreed to be my boyfriend.

I had wanted to send him a picture of myself back then, but he never asked, and I didn't want to seem desperate.

Luckily, I loved taking photos, so I had a massive backlog of great ones.

Without overthinking it, I scrolled through my camera roll and picked a candid I took right before the basketball game today.

"Here's my OOTD for today."

Honestly, my heart was hammering against my ribs.

I stared at the screen, waiting in pure agony for his reply.

But he didn't say anything.

What was happening? Did he think I was ugly?

No way. My mom used to put me in child modeling catalogs. In high school, a talent scout literally tried to stop me at the mall. Plus, my selfie lighting was immaculate. There was no way I looked bad enough to render him speechless.

"Why aren't you saying anything?"

"Am I ugly?"

I frowned at my phone. Please don't let this be a disaster. We were supposed to meet up in person soon. I hadn't even touched those abs yet!

I was instantly regretting sending the photo.

Then his text came through.

"No. You're beautiful."

"Really? Swear to god."

"I swear."

Thank god.

I let out a massive sigh of relief.

But the typing indicator popped up again. He clearly wanted to say something else. I waited. And waited. Nothing came through.

I didn't have time to overthink it because my roommates had finally caught on to my giggling. They swarmed my desk.

"Harper Sullivan! Fess up right now. Who are you texting?!"

"Is that a boyfriend?!"

After classes the next day, Reginald texted me to meet him at the graduate dining hall for dinner.

"How are classes? Are you adjusting to the dorm? Are your roommates crazy?"

He sounded like a stressed-out soccer mom.

I nodded along to his interrogation while staring down at the sauted beef liver on my cafeteria tray.

I cringed. I picked up my fork and immediately started shoving every single piece of liver onto Reginald's plate.

"What are you doing? Put that back."

"I hate the texture."

"Tough. You have anemia. You are not skipping your iron."

Reginald's voice dropped into his serious, authoritative tone. I had no idea who he learned that terrifying glare from, but I had been scared of him since we were kids. Whenever his face went blank like that, I lost all my nerve.

I pouted dramatically. Slowly, miserably, I moved the liver back to my plate and started chewing it like it was cardboard.

Reginald watched me suffer for a minute before sighing. He stood up to go buy me a juice to wash it down.

The second he walked away, Ro texted me.

"What are you doing, beautiful?"

"Eating. Beef liver is a crime against humanity."

I snapped a tragic photo of my food and sent it to him.

"If you hate it, don't eat it."

"I can't..."

I was just about to explain that I was anemic and my family treated my diet like a military operation, but Reginald returned with a bottle of apple juice.

"Who are you texting?"

That was fast. I nearly jumped out of my skin. I definitely couldn't let my overprotective brother know I had a secret internet boyfriend.

"Nobody. Just a girl from my dorm."

Reginald didn't push it. He handed me the juice. "Wash it down. Focus on your food."

"Fine."

I shoveled rice into my mouth. Looking at how casually Reginald was eating, I carefully plotted my next move.

"Hey, Reginald. Can you transfer me some cash?"

"Didn't I just send you your allowance last week?"

"I had to buy textbooks and dorm stuff. It vanished." I gave him my absolute best puppy-dog eyes.

Reginald sighed heavily and pulled out his phone. "Sent."

I eagerly opened my banking app. "Thank youwait, why is it so low?"

He usually sent me a thousand. This time, it was barely a hundred.

"You blow through money too fast. You need to learn how to budget."

I glared at him.

"Do you want it or not? If not, send it back."

"I want it, I want it."

Even pocket change was better than nothing. I smiled sweetly and accepted the transfer.

Reginald finished his meal and stood up. "I have to get back to the lab to check on a simulation. Finish your food before you leave."

"Got it."

Once Reginald walked away, I lost all motivation to finish the liver. I poked at my rice with my fork.

That was when I noticed a guy sitting a few tables behind where Reginald had been sitting.

Wait.

Wasn't that the terrifying guy from the gym?

He ate here too? Since when? I hadn't even noticed him sitting there.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I stared at Henry Brooks for a few seconds too long.

Maybe he felt me looking, because those icy, razor-sharp eyes snapped over to mine.

He didn't say a word. He just picked up his tray and walked right past my table toward the exit.

What the hell?

I apologized to him yesterday, didn't I? Why was he still looking at me like I owed him blood money?

I shook it off, headed back to my dorm, and texted Ro again.

"Babe, did you eat yet?"

"Yeah. Just finished."

Then another text popped up.

"Do you need money right now?"

Huh? What did he mean?

Before I could even process the question, a transfer notification hit my screen.

[Incoming Transfer: $5,000.00]

I sucked in a sharp breath.

"Why did you just send me this?!"

"For you to spend."

"I have money."

My parents and Reginald already gave me an allowance. My savings account was completely fine.

I was just typing out that I didn't need it, but his next text stopped me in my tracks.

"Keep it. It's a gift. You don't need to send it back."

"Spending money on my girl is exactly what I'm supposed to do."

My face flushed hot.

I couldn't stop grinning. I slapped my own cheeks to calm down.

Fine. I'll keep it.

The next few weeks fell into a totally normal college routine.

When I struggled with an assignment, I went to find Reginald. My texting routine with Ro stayed exactly the same as before.

The only stressful part was that Reginald took my parents' orders way too seriously. He insisted on monitoring my dinners. Because of that, there were multiple times Ro would text me right while I was eating with my brother, nearly exposing my entire secret life.

Aside from that, I started running into Henry Brooks constantly. In the dining hall, outside the science building, crossing the quad.

Obviously, he worked in the same lab as Reginald. Bumping into him wasn't entirely unnatural.

But I had heard rumors from the upperclassmen. Apparently, Reginald and Henry despised each other. If you walked past their lab, you could regularly hear them arguing.

"Are they, like, mortal enemies?" I asked a senior in my dorm.

"It's not that deep. It's physics. Friction creates progress."

Right.

That explained why every time I caught Henry looking at Reginald, his eyes were practically shooting lightning bolts. I didn't think much of it.

Until one evening.

I had just finished dinner and was lounging in the dorm when my roommate suddenly sat bolt upright in her bed.

"Holy crap. You guys, you have to read what just got posted on the campus confessions page!"

She dropped a link into our group chat.

[Anonymous Confession: What do I do if I found out the girl I like has another boyfriend?]

"Another boyfriend? What is this drama? Read it!"

The comments on the post were already exploding.

The anonymous poster explained that he was planning to meet up with his girlfriend in person soon, but he just discovered she was secretly involved with another guy on campus.

[Bro, you're the side piece!] read the top comment.

OP replied: [Shut up. The one who isn't loved is the side piece.]

OP updated again: [I've been watching them for days. That guy doesn't even care about her. He forces her to eat food she hates, he refuses to give her enough money, and he snaps at her all the time.]

[It breaks my heart. How do I get her to break up with him?]

The replies were pure chaos. Everyone loved a good trainwreck.

My roommates were scrolling through the thread like it was a reality TV finale, reading the funniest comments out loud.

I couldn't have cared less. It wasn't nearly as interesting as Ro's abs.

"This is totally fake for attention," I said, flipping a page in my textbook.

"Who knows? But look at everyone egging him on. This is hilarious."

It really was. People were hyping the OP up, telling him to steal the girl and save her from the toxic boyfriend. My roommate even left a comment telling him to go for it.

The craziest part was that the OP actually listened.

[Thanks for the support, everyone. I've made up my mind. I'm making my move tomorrow.]

My roommates howled with laughter. "I can't believe guys like this actually exist at our school. He's weaponizing the comments section to steal someone's girl."

I shrugged. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

The next day was Saturday.

I went to the library to study. I was trying to grab a reference book off a high shelf, but someone had taken the step stool. I was on my tiptoes, stretching as far as I could, but my fingers kept slipping off the spine.

Suddenly, a hand reached over my shoulder and pulled the book down.

"Here."

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

I spun around and froze. Henry Brooks?

What was he doing here?

Seeing me paralyzed, he held the book out a little further. "Is this the one you needed?"

"...Yes. Thanks."

I grabbed the book and practically bolted to an empty desk.

I pulled out my laptop, but when I looked up, Henry was pulling out the chair directly across from me. He sat down.

What the hell?

Didn't grad students have private study lounges? Why was he sitting in the general undergrad section?

I was confused, but I didn't want to talk to him. I quickly shot a text to Ro telling him I was at the library, then buried my face in my textbook.

When I glanced up a few minutes later, I noticed the guy across from me was typing rapidly on his phone.

Oh. He had someone to report to, too?

I found that mildly amusing.

My phone lit up.

Ro: "Good girl. I'm reading right now too."

A massive grin spread across my face. We were so perfectly in sync.

But my good mood didn't last long. Things started getting weird.

For the next few days, if I went to the track to run, I ran into Henry.

If I went to play tennis, I ran into Henry.

I even saw him at the campus swimming pool.

Seriously? My brother was practically chained to his desk in the lab dying of exhaustion. Why did this guy have so much free time? Why was he literally everywhere?

I glared at Henry from across the pool. He swam like a professional. When he pulled himself out of the water, the droplets traced down the hard lines of his abs.

Wow. That was... actually a really nice view.

But definitely not as good as Ro's.

I texted Ro immediately, demanding a new ab pic to cleanse my palate.

Ro didn't reply.

I packed up my gym bag and walked out to the lobby. It was pouring rain outside. A total torrential downpour.

I didn't have an umbrella.

I was about to text my roommates to save me, but I remembered they were both off-campus at their part-time jobs. The rain showed zero signs of stopping anytime soon.

"I'll walk you back."

A black umbrella popped open right above my head.

I looked up, then spun around. Henry was standing right behind me.

"No... it's fine. I texted my brother."

"Reginald is running the particle simulator. Phones aren't allowed in that wing. He won't see your message for at least two hours."

"..."

I swallowed my pride. "Okay... thanks, then."

Henry gave me the faintest, almost invisible curve of a smile. "Let's go."

When we got to my dorm building, I thanked him again and practically sprinted upstairs.

The second I hit the third floor, my phone buzzed.

Ro: "I'll take a picture for you when I get home."

Me: "Okay! Btw, it rained so hard today. I was almost stranded at the pool. Luckily a nice guy walked me back to my dorm with his umbrella."

"..."

10

A few days after the storm, the weather spiked into a brutal heatwave. The campus felt like the inside of an oven.

Around noon, I had to run an errand off-campus. By the time I walked back through the main gates, I felt like I was going to melt into the pavement.

I passed by the physics building and decided to detour to Reginald's lab to steal some air conditioning.

But Reginald wasn't there.

The only person in the outer lab was Henry.

"Looking for Reginald? He went to Professor Harris's office. You can wait inside."

Normally, I would have made up an excuse and left. But it was over ninety degrees outside. I nodded gratefully, pulled up a stool, and sat down.

Henry glanced at me, then pulled a chilled bottle of water out of a mini-fridge and handed it to me.

"Drink."

"Thanks..."

The lab was split into an outer office and an inner clean room. Henry went back into the inner room to monitor a machine.

Through the glass partition, I caught him looking up at me every few minutes. His eyebrows were pulled tight. Then he would look down at his phone and type furiously.

I was so confused. I barely knew this guy. We had spoken maybe ten sentences to each other since the semester started.

I ignored it, leaning my head against the cool metal of the desk. The heat outside had totally drained me. My vision started blurring at the edges.

A moment later, Henry set his phone down and walked out of the inner room.

"Harper..."

"Yeah?"

I tried to lift my head. Right as I moved, the heavy lab door swung open.

Reginald walked in.

"Harper? What are you doing here?"

"Reginald..."

I stood up. Maybe I moved too fast, or maybe the heat had finally won. Black spots swarmed my vision, and the floor dropped out from under me.

Both guys lunged forward.

"Harper!"

"Her blood sugar crashed."

Multiple hands grabbed my arms to stop me from hitting the floor.

One pair of hands felt different. They were slightly cool to the touch, not warm and calloused like my brother's.

I heard the crinkle of a plastic wrapper. A second later, something intensely sweet was pressed against my lips. I opened my mouth, tasting strawberry. My lips brushed against soft, cool fingertips.

Not my brother's hands.

"Brooks, I told you a hundred times no food or drinks in the lab! You're sneaking candy in here again?!"

Reginald's voice echoed in the room.

Wait. So the candy... and the hands...

"She's literally passing out on the floor and you're lecturing me about lab safety protocols?! Do you even care about her at all?!"

Oh. That was Henry shouting.

He had candy in his pocket?

But his words sounded so weirdly accusatory. I blinked, my vision slowly clearing. I caught the furious look on Reginald's face.

I instinctively grabbed Henry's wrist. "Don't talk to him like that."

"..."

Before I closed my eyes again, the furious look had completely transferred onto Henry's face.