Tricked Steel: A Friends To Lovers Standalone Romance

on campus alone, in my Seashore Academy dorm over Thanksgiving break, is yet another one of my new realities, which I have made a conscious decision to call a “tradition.” A tradition that has been metaphorically pissed on by my roommate’s, Chloe, choice to stay here for break instead of going home like she has in the past.
I get it. It’s her reality, as her situation has changed. Her mother is now working a second job, so she would only see her for a couple of hours after her five-hour drive. That seems like the opportunity of a lifetime to me, but still, I get it. I understand that, if she went to see her mom, she would be expected to see her dad, too, and the idea of hanging out with him, his new girlfriend, and her kids at their new “love nest,” as Chloe calls it, is “not happening.”
I totally get that she’s pissed. He leaves her mom with all the bills, including the house and a mortgage once paid for with two incomes. He’s now living his best life, without responsibilities, while she’s working two jobs to keep the house that Chloe and she are so attached to. I get it. It’s not unusual. In fact, it seems like yet another confirmation that my mom was right; that societal norms are way out of whack. We are all basically bitches to “the man.”
I get it fucking all, but I don’t like it.
Reality? The house that they feel anchors them is more like a shackle attached to the ball and chain, keeping them in a place where neither of them truly have time to enjoy. Hell, they can’t even see that it’s taken away their chance to begin again and is slowly killing their spirits.
Case in point: Chloe has been in her bed since school let out yesterday, and what has she been doing? She’s been glued to TikTok, Snapchat, IG, and YouTube. She’s not alone. She and most of my peers get sucked into that hole and come out of a Sway House, or Hype House, with dilated pupils and a lady boner, believing that someday one of those guys will fall in insta-love with one of them, and they will be “internet famous” and live a “carefree life,” on screens across the world.
I mean, good on you if that’s what you want, but is it? Is it really?
Because ten minutes later, you’re on IG, hearting all the women empowerment posts about misogynistic men, then an ad pops up to help support a project to save the turtles, by buying a reusable straw, and you’re now off to show your support by buying a twenty dollar straw to use in your thirty dollar travel mug when you drink your ten dollar coffee.
Fuck. That.
I don’t want to be that girl. I fight it every chance I get. I’m sure someday they’ll realize they don’t either, but fuck if they don’t believe it now. And then … squirrel! Some other notification pops up and grabs their attention.
Hands down, the worst app here, The Seashore Sound. It’s run by the elite to throw their privilege in the faces of the lesser privileged, to talk about some party they’re missing, and then the “why, oh why, don’t they invite me?” moans echo through the halls, where many of its residents are here on scholarship.
I’ve sworn off The Sound app. I just can’t stomach knowing this is where I was dumped by people who wanted me to “live free.” But I’ve found peace with that by way of freeing yoga, freeing meditation, or heading across the quad to find my non-pharmaceutical anxiety med, rolled in a fifty cent Zig Zag or smoked out of a reusable pipe.
With my “pharmacist” having gone home for Thanksgiving, and my roommate complaining nonstop, my Zen might as well be on the moon. And if that isn’t bad enough, I’m now stuck with all the girls who stayed back because what is basically a real-life reality show to them has moved to town …
The Steel families—yes, plural—seem to be the talk of the school, so to speak. Apparently, they are not only extremely wealthy, and evidently hot “AF,” but they are “connected” socially.
Yes, I have eyes—they are appealing—but I also have the depth ingrained in me from my last lifetime where I spent countless hours digging in the dirt, and to me, that is true beauty, not six-foot-plus of male testosterone. These fools have obviously been fed their steroids via silver spoons and probably never known struggle. They’ll fit in a lot better than I did when I first came here. So, yes, all eyes are glued to where hashtag Steel Crew will be next.
Apparently, there are a few girls in the family, too, but it’s the guys whose names fill the female dorms. And, seriously, let’s be honest; it’s Patrick Steel, or “Tricks,” who leads the charge on the social media posts that have put all the girls around here in heat.
I can’t even count the times the squeals of nearly adult women sound off like a sinful choir when “Tricks” does a duet—whatever the hell that is.
I thought I was gaining headway with some of the more “woke” here, but why try to educate them on “the man” when they all would rather be on the man. They’ll see when they’re ready, I remind myself as I grab my work tee and pull it over my head. If I don’t continually remind myself, I’ll forget that these women are still growing and becoming. They are our future, and all our futures depend on them.
When another screech nearly gives me a heart attack, it pisses me off that, a week ago, I had twenty girls in the common area, listening to me and agreeing with what we females needed to do to become stronger so that, together, we can ensure in years to come that we still have the ability to make choices for ourselves. Whether