The music shifts, a familiar song pulling a few people toward the floor.
Hazel laughs at something Addie says, her head tipping back just slightly, and the sound hits harder than it should. It always has. There was a time when that laugh felt like a promise. Like something I could count on.
Now it just reminds me how much work it took to stop wanting it.
I keep my distance. Not pointed. Just careful. I don't ignore her. I don't hover either. When our eyes meet, I lift my bottle in brief acknowledgment and look away before the moment can turn into something else.
This is supposed to be light. That was the point of coming. Noise. Distraction. A couple of hours where nothing matters beyond the next song or the next round.
It works. Mostly.
Still, my attention keeps pulling back to Hazel. The way she leans into the table when someone bumps it. The way she doesn't check her phone. The way she fits here without trying.
I tell myself that doesn't mean anything. That people can belong in places they don't intend to stay.
I take a drink and look back toward the dance floor, grounding myself in the noise and the movement and the simple fact that tonight doesn't ask me to decide anything.
Chace finds me near the edge of the room, beer already half gone, grin firmly in place like nothing in the world has ever stuck to him for long. He bumps my shoulder with his.
"You're wound too tight," he says, like he's commenting on the weather.
I don't answer. I don't need to. I just look at him.
Chace takes that in stride. He always does. "I mean it," he adds, lowering his voice just enough to pretend this is private. "She's trying."
My pulse skips. I keep my eyes on the dance floor, on the way Hazel shifts her weight with the music, how she laughs when Shae elbows her too hard.
"Trying isn't the same as staying," I say.
Chace hums, thoughtful in a way that doesn't quite match the grin still tugging at his mouth. "No," he agrees. "But it's also not nothing."
I take a slow drink. The beer tastes flat. I let the silence stretch, let Chace feel it instead of filling it for me. That's always been our balance. Chace talks. I listen. Decide later.
"You don't have to let her back in like that," he says, softer now. "I get why you're guarded. I really do." He tips his head toward Hazel without looking directly at her. "Just saying—keeping your distance might feel safer, but you're not even in the game. And I've never known you to sit on the sidelines. You didn’t before. Not with her."
I exhale through my nose.
Friendship—the word doesn't get said, but it's there. The years Hazel and I spent just being that, before it ever got complicated. Before it turned into something… more.
Maybe that's the risk now. Not falling back into love, losing the chance to stand beside her at all.
Can I separate the two?
Chace straightens, decision already made for him. "Anyway," he says, the grin sliding back into place like armor. "I'm not built for brooding."
With that, he drains the rest of his beer, sets the bottle down wherever there's space, and heads for the dance floor without hesitation. He doesn't scan the room. Doesn't second-guess. Just steps into the noise like it belongs to him.
Someone shouts his name. Addie groans when she spots him coming. Chace grins wider, already moving to the beat, boots light, shoulders loose, laughing like tonight is exactly what it's supposed to be.
I watch him go, the ease of it catching in my chest.
Letting go has never been Chace's problem.
I turn my attention back to the room. To Hazel.
She's dancing now. Not carefully. Not for show. Just moving because the music's good and her body remembers how. Her hair swings across her shoulders. Sweat gleams at the back of her neck. She's laughing at something Addie says, breathless and flushed, and I can't look away.
She looks alive. The way I remember from before she left. Before everything got complicated.
