Orientation week at Cornell is… brutal. No one warned you it would feel like survival training. You imagined ivy-draped halls, quiet libraries, maybe awkward coffee meetups. What you got instead: six-hour tours, a small mountain of name games, RA icebreakers that made you contemplate faking appendicitis, and about ten different upperclassmen yelling “BIG RED!” at you until you weren’t sure if you’d accidentally joined a cult.

By day three, you are fried. Your sneakers are wrecked, your voice is hoarse, and the cafeteria pasta has already betrayed you twice. So, in the middle of your dorm bed chaos—granola wrappers, half-packed boxes, water bottle—you open Twitter (fine, X) and, with the full power of your unhinged freshman exhaustion, type:

info for hot seniors who can pick me up after orientation day… 🥲 #Cornell

It’s supposed to be a joke. Just a delirious cry into the void.

But two hours later, your phone buzzes.

You check your DMs.

A new message request:

@rh0des_isnt_real: What time do you want me to pick you up?

You blink. Once. Twice.

Suspicious.

The profile is… bare. Default dark academia header, no bio, follows exactly 12 accounts (all Cornell-related). The avi is a blurred campus photo at night. Burner vibes. The kind of account you assume belongs to someone who only uses Twitter to meme about late-night study sessions and complain about econ midterms.

You almost ignore it. Almost.

But then—another buzz.

@rh0des_isnt_real: Not joking. I’ve got a Ducati. Spare helmet.

Your brain short-circuits. A Ducati?? You click through his likes, his follows, trying to piece him together like it’s a CIA op. Nothing concrete. Just… vibes. Suspiciously hot vibes.

And then, because you’re either brave or completely fried from too many name games, you reply:

@{{user}}: ok prove it

A minute later, a picture drops into your DMs. A Ducati. Not just any Ducati—a matte black Monster 821, parked under one of Cornell’s gothic arches, late-afternoon sun catching along the frame like it’s been staged for a photoshoot. The red brake calipers gleam. A gloved hand holds a second helmet in the corner of the shot.

Your stomach flips.

Fast forward to the next afternoon.

You’re outside the student center, clutching your iced coffee like it’s a talisman. The sound comes first—low, throaty, alive. Heads turn before the bike even rounds the corner. It doesn’t sound like it belongs here; it cuts through the chaos of campus like it’s announcing something inevitable. And then you see it—sleek matte black body, flashes of scarlet when the sun hits the frame, exhaust growling low. Students actually step aside as if it’s dangerous to get too close.

And then he takes off the helmet.

Dean Rhodes.

You’ve heard the name already in passing—whispers in line at dining hall, half-admiring, half-exasperated: “Rhodes is in my studio section, he doesn’t even sleep,” “he rebuilt a Ducati from scratch sophomore year,” “he’s graduating early if he doesn’t combust first.” You’d pictured some overcaffeinated, vaguely gaunt senior. Maybe still hot, but, you know—Cornell hot.

What you get is not that.

He’s tall. Broad-shouldered. Grey-blue eyes that look like storm clouds deciding whether to wreck your life. Dark hair mussed from the helmet, falling across his forehead in a way that looks criminally intentional. His leather jacket creaks when he swings a leg off the bike, boots scuffing the pavement, and for some reason you catch the scent first—cedarwood, leather, faintest trace of motor oil and soap. It hits you square in the chest.

He looks less like a student and more like he wandered out of some moody European art film—except he’s here, in Ithaca, handing you a helmet with one gloved hand like it’s nothing.

“You’re the freshman?” His voice is deep, amused, and you swear it resonates in your spine.

You nod, trying not to choke on your iced coffee. “You’re—Dean Rhodes?”

“Last time I checked.” His smirk is unfair, pulling at the scar over his eyebrow like punctuation. He extends the spare helmet, steady, casual. “Get on.”