The bass pounded like a second heartbeat, rattling Luca's ribs.
"Another round!" he shouted, leaning across the bar, his grin lopsided and too easy.
The bartender raised a brow. "You've had five."
Luca winked. "Then six won't kill me. I'm already halfway to legendary."
Someone tugged at his arm—blonde, glossy, nameless. "Dance with me!"
He let himself be pulled in, laughter spilling as easily as the shots had.
Flashing lights. Bodies pressing close. Heat, noise, the edge of forgetting. Luca didn't know what song played or whose hands were on his hips.
Didn't care.
He shouted something—he wasn't sure what—and it dissolved into the music, into sweat, into someone's mouth briefly brushing his neck.
He lived for this blur. Where names didn't matter. Where everything loud was louder than the voice in his head.
Time blurred. Night dissolved into static.
Morning hit like a slap.
His head throbbed so hard it felt like it was trying to escape his skull. His mouth tasted like regret and cheap vodka. Something acidic rolled in his stomach.
"Where—" he sat up fast, immediately regretting it. "Ugh."
He was in his room. Somehow. Jacket on the floor, phone dead, shirt halfway off. His jeans were still on, which he counted as a win.
The curtains bled sunlight. It stabbed his eyes like a knife.
Then the door creaked open.
"Get up." His father's voice sliced in, sharp and cold.
Luca blinked. "It's—what time is it?"
"Too late for you to still be in bed and too early for me to tolerate another lecture."
His father stepped inside, suit pristine, expression tighter than a noose. His eyes swept over the mess like it physically hurt him.
"We're done."
Luca sat up straighter, heart thudding for a very different reason now. "Wait, what?"
"You either start pulling your weight or stop using my money. I'm done funding your—this." He gestured around the room, at the chaos. At Luca.
Luca rubbed his temple, still half-drunk, still not ready.
"Okay. Chill. I'll go to class."
"Not just class." His father's voice cut cleaner than the hangover. "You're leaving this house. Or you can hand me your cards, your car keys—everything."
Luca stared at him. "You're serious?"
"I should've done this sooner," his father snapped, pacing near the doorway like the very air in here was offensive.
"Letting you do what you want—that's what spoiled you. But now? I'm done waking up to strangers in my guest room. This isn't a damn club, Luca."
Luca swung his legs off the bed, dizzy from sitting up too fast. "C'mon, Dad—"
"No." His father didn't shout. He didn't have to. The low finality in his tone landed harder. "You're grown. Start acting like it. All you do is party, sleep, bring home guys you don't even remember the next day—"
"That's not—" Luca winced. "Okay, maybe once or twice."
His father just stared. Cool. Disappointed.
Like he was looking through him.
Luca sighed, dragging a hand through his tangled mess of dark hair. "So what now, huh? You're kicking me out?"
"I want you focused. That means you're moving to the campus hostel. It's ten minutes from your college. They'll watch you better than I can."
Luca laughed bitterly. "What am I, twelve?"
"You want to keep the card?" His father raised an eyebrow. "Then you're moving out."
The room fell quiet. Just the soft whir of the ceiling fan and the dull thud of Luca's headache.
He could still hear last night echoing in his bones. The laughter. The music. The blurred smiles and sweat and glitter.
And now this.
"This is insane."
"No, Luca," his father said calmly. "What you've been doing is insane."
Luca dropped back onto the bed, groaning into his pillow.
"Pack. You leave tomorrow."
The door shut with a soft but final click.
Luca didn't move for a long time.
The ceiling stared back at him, white and too bright. His heart thumped with the same dull rhythm as the bass from last night, only now it felt like a mockery.
Eventually, he sat up. Slowly. Every movement screamed mistake.
He grabbed his phone off the nightstand, thumb swiping instinctively even as his vision blurred.
Twelve missed calls.
Mostly from names he didn't save. A few hearts. A "Where'd you go?" text from Jordan? Mark? Jane? He couldn't remember.
Then a string of blurry selfies from someone named Leo—tongue out, shirt half-off, the last one captioned: Last night was wild. Round two?
Luca exhaled, dragging a hand down his face. His skin felt too tight. His mouth too dry.
No messages from anyone that mattered. Not that anyone ever did.
He scrolled a bit more. Group chats pinged with party flyers, laughing emojis, gossip he didn't care about. He had a hundred people who knew his name and zero who'd noticed he didn't make it home last night.
He tossed the phone on the bed, screen down.
Silence crawled back in. Heavy. Unwelcome. Sober.
He looked around his room—expensive, spotless, soulless. The place he'd grown up in, now suddenly not his.
His desk sat untouched, books still wrapped in plastic. The chair hadn't been used in weeks.
A model shelf on the far wall—gifted years ago by his grandfather—held cars still pristine in their cases. He hadn't dusted it in months.
Above his bed hung a framed photo from his high school graduation—him and his dad, both forced smiles, a gap wide as a canyon between their shoulders.
Even the air felt sterile. No scent of cologne, no incense, no messy life lived—just a faint chemical tang from the cleaning lady's polish.
Not really.
"Hostel," he muttered under his breath, scoffing.
But he didn't get up. Didn't start packing. He just sat there in the silence, surrounded by things that meant nothing.
Somewhere under the bed was a dusty guitar. He hadn't touched it in a year. Not since—
No. He shut that thought down before it could fully form.
He hated quiet. Hated being told what to do. But more than anything, he hated the dull echo inside his chest that he couldn't joke or flirt his way out of.
Still, he knew his father. This wasn't a threat. It was a done deal.
Luca laid back, one arm over his eyes.
Staring at the ceiling.
"I'm so screwed."
A beat. A breath. A bitter little laugh.
Campus, huh?
Campus hostel, yeah?
Hope the poor guy likes loud music and shirtless neighbors.