"Clearly." I huff, the sound more tired than bitter. "Vanessa Voss has decided that my existence is a personal affront to her social standing, and she intends to remind me of that at every available opportunity. It is her hobby. Her passion project. I should be flattered by the dedication, honestly."
"You should not have to deal with it."
"No. But I can handle myself." I straighten my spine, pulling my shoulders back with a resolve that is partly genuine and partly performance for my own benefit. "She is not the first person to call me names and she will not be the last. I have survived worse insults from people with actual power over my life. Vanessa Voss and her three backup dancers do not crack the top ten."
He nods, his jaw tightening with the restrained frustration of a man who wants to fight a battle I have already decided to wage on my own terms.
We walk in comfortable silence for half a block, the February air biting at our cheeks, the campus buzzing with pre-game energy that electrifies the atmosphere like a low current running through the ground. Students are wearing university colors. Banners advertising tonight's match hang from the athletics building. The parking lot near the arena is already filling with early arrivals staking out their tailgate spots.
"Hey," Cal says, breaking the silence with a tone that is deliberately casual in the way that means the next thing outof his mouth is not casual at all. "Do you want to go to the Valentine's Day dance?"
I stop walking.
"Wait." I turn to him, searching his face for traces of a joke. "Are you actually asking me?"
He smirks, his hands shoved in his hoodie pockets, his blond hair catching the grey February light.
"Yup. And before you overthink it, I mean with the pack. All of us. Together. Might be nice to show up as a unit instead of four individuals who happen to share a mailing address." His smirk widens. "Better to ask now before someone tries to steal what is ours."
He winks.
Ours. The word blooms in my chest with a warmth that the cold air cannot touch.
"I have never been to prom," I admit, the confession slipping out with a vulnerability I did not intend to display on a public sidewalk. "Or homecoming. Or any school dance. The communal housing system does not exactly coordinate formal wear and limo rentals for its residents. The closest I got was watching other girls post photos from their events while I sat on my shelter bunk and pretended I did not care."
Cal's expression softens.
"A Valentine's Day dance is not prom," he says gently. "But it is close enough. And you deserve at least one ridiculously overdressed evening where you dance badly under cheap decorations with people who want to be there with you."
My throat tightens.
"Well," I murmur, blinking against the sting that has suddenly appeared behind my eyes. "That would be nice. Yes. I would like that."
He grins, stepping closer until his ocean salt scent fills the narrow space between us. We have stopped near a row oflockers in the connecting corridor between the academic wing and the dormitories, the traffic around us thinning as students disperse toward their afternoon destinations. The Valentine's decorations are dense here, streamers crisscrossing the ceiling, paper cupids taped to locker doors, the whole scene a visual assault of pink and red that should be tacky but instead provides the perfect backdrop for what I suspect is about to happen.
Cal's gaze drops to my lips.
"So how unhinged would it be," he murmurs, his voice pitched low enough that only I can hear, "to kiss you more deeply right now since we do not have an audience?"
I giggle. The sound bubbles up from a place in my chest that has been dormant for most of my life, the part of me that always wanted to be the girl laughing against the lockers with a boy who looks at her like she hung every one of the paper hearts on the ceiling.
"Oh, how romantic," I tease, tilting my chin up. "Two giddy students kissing up against the lockers. Very cinematic. Very after-school special. The Valentine's cupids are judging us from every available surface."
I smirk.
Then I lean up and press my lips to his. Light. Brief. A preview that is deliberately insufficient.
"Totally unhinged," I whisper against his mouth. "But I approve of the behavior."
He chuckles.
The sound vibrates against my lips, warm and low, and then his hand comes up to cup the back of my neck, his fingers threading into my hair, and he kisses me properly.
Firmer. Slower. The kind of kiss that is not performing for a hallway audience but is instead happening because two people want it to happen and have found a semi-private corner of a university building decorated in tissue paper hearts. His lipsmove against mine with a confidence that is different from Etienne's tender deliberation, more instinctive, more physical, the kiss of a man who communicates through action rather than words because words have never been his strongest tool.
His ocean salt scent thickens around me, mixing with the faint trace of ice from his practice session and the warmth of his skin, creating a fragrance cocoon that makes my knees unreliable. I grip the front of his hoodie for balance, my fingers curling into the fabric, and he makes a low sound against my mouth that sends heat cascading through my body from my scalp to my toes.
When we break apart, his forehead rests against mine, his breath warm on my lips.
