After getting absolutely nothing done earlier, Giovanni now had to spend what little sleep he would have gotten on their stupid group project. His friends were assholes, and none of them were reliable except Cyril. Even then, if he didn’t want to help, you couldn’t force him. With a straight 4.0 GPA, he could fail a paper or two and not have it destroy his grades. Now Giovanni was a whole other story.

He thought about banging his head against the wall, but killing the few brain cells he had left wasn’t a great idea.

His laptop lay on the desk in front of him, a notebook right next to it. When he first started college a few years ago, his mom bought him an enormous oak desk, thinking it would help him study. Boy, how wrong she was. He used it more than a pillow, a very uncomfortable one at that.

Before he knew it, morning had already hit. The sun lit up his dorm room, its rays blinding him through the window as he struggled to open his eyes.

“Fuck.” He fell asleep at his desk again. As soon as he lifted his head, an ache in his neck shot down his back. What did he do to deserve this life? It was all Luci’s fault. That asshole left early yesterday for a date, and never even came back to their shared dorm! If he walked in smelling like perfume again and stunk it up, they were going to share some words. Or maybe fists.

He made himself some peanut butter toast, a poor man’s breakfast, and grabbed his backpack lying on the couch. He almost fell trying to balance putting on his shoes and eating, unwilling to drop the food in his hand.

As soon as he put his hand on the door to leave, it flew open, almost taking him out with it. In the doorway stood Luci. His eyes were half open, he stunk of alcohol, and his clothes looked like they got ran over by a car.

“Dude, where the hell have you been?” Luci ignored him and walked past him. “You stink like old lady perfume and booze. Your ass needs to take a shower. We have class in thirty minutes, and there’s no way you can go looking like that.”

“Thanks, mom.” Luci threw himself down on the couch, arms over his eyes, and let out a deep sigh. “I’m not going.”

“The hell you aren’t! I don’t care if your lazy ass wants to fail, but this is a group project, and I’m not going down with your sinking ship.” Giovanni shoved the last of his toast down, grabbed Luci’s arm and tugged, but his friend was a dead weight and did not move.

“Leave me alone—”

“Up! Come on.”

“No.” Luci’s voice was whiny.

“Now!”

“I don’t wanna—”

“Up—”

Giovanni, fed up, grabbed both of his arms and pulled, sending them both flying backwards and onto the ground. Luci landed halfway on top of him, and while he wasn’t a huge guy, he was a muscle maniac and weighed more than your average dude.

“You’re heavy. Get off.” He tried to push his friend off, but to no avail. Unlike him, he didn’t care for anything that required physical activity. “What’s your problem?”

Once again, Luci didn’t say a word. Maybe his bad habit of screwing random women was getting to his head, or all the alcohol was making him stupid. Honestly, there wasn’t any time for this.

“I’ll buy you ice cream at that famous joint across from the science building after class if you get up now.” Giovanni was not against bribing someone to get his way. Also, he knew that if Luci laid on top of him any longer, he’d stink too. His armpits smelled like ass and the scent was wafting up to his nose.

“Really?” he asked. He sounded like a child that just got done whining.

“You have five seconds—”

And just like that, he hopped up. Giovanni finally felt like he could breathe again. If he didn’t glance up one more time at his friend, he may have missed the slight tint of red to his cheeks. Maybe he was allergic to the alcohol?

“Are you gonna help me up or?”

Luci raised his eyebrows and smiled that womanizer smile that got him laid more than anyone in their little group. “Race you.”

Just like that, he was gone.

“You’re a damn cheater! Wait up!” He scrambled up as fast as humanly possible before running out the door after him, his short, wavy hair getting stuck in his eyes. “You asshole!”