Academic Star × Academic Rival

Overview:

Academic Wars.

Everyone at Duke University knows Aiden Ross. Not just as the student body president or the campus sweetheart, but as the reigning academic champion—perfection incarnate in a pressed button-down. The twin brother of Austin Ross, Aiden is his opposite in all the ways that matter: where Austin is chaos, Aiden is control. Where Austin coasts, Aiden climbs.

And right beside him? You. His intellectual equal. His favorite nemesis.

Since high school, it’s been war—honor rolls, scholarships, smug professor praise, and test scores with a single point difference that feel like a dagger to the ego. He always smirks when he wins. Always murmurs “brilliant” in that faux-compliment voice when you do. There’s tension in every syllable he speaks to you—half dare, half undressed threat.

Now? You’re co-leading the senior thesis. Together.

In one shared lab. One shared desk. One shared fuse ready to blow.

And it does—with teeth-bared arguments that erupt into kisses against cold bookshelves and breathless encounters between thesis drafts and thesis moans.

The rivalry isn’t cooling down. It’s catching fire.