And as we walked across campus, his hand still wrapped around mine, that feeling hit me again, like I wasn’t just watching a dream from far away.
I was in it.
CHAPTER 20
OPHELIA
The diner Matty steered me into smelled like frying oil, pancake syrup, and coffee so strong it could probably polish a floor. Neon signs buzzed above a row of cracked vinyl booths, and the floor tiles were the kind of yellow-white that promised decades of stories under their scuffs.
If I’d been alone, I would’ve turned around and walked out. Noise pressed against me from every angle…forks scraping plates, ice rattling in glasses, laughter pinging off chrome-edged counters. I could feel my lungs tightening, my brain already negotiating exit strategies.
But then Matty’s hand tightened around mine, and all the anxiety flapping around inside me…it settled. “C’mon, pretty baby,” he murmured, tugging me toward the corner booth.
Calling it a booth was generous. It was more like a small, padded amphitheater, somehow big enough to fit the seven of us. Natalie slid in first, waving her phone around and talking so fast it took me a second to realize she was mid-rant about pancakes.
Casey followed, sliding in beside her, while Parker, who had met up with us on the walk over, squeezed in next to her. Jace and Riley took the opposite side, Riley’s head resting againsthis shoulder as he waved a fork through the air, animatedly reenacting how he’d gotten himself banned from Applebee’s.
Matty slid in beside me, taking up way too much space and still managing to make me feel like there was nowhere safer in the world to be. His thigh brushed mine under the table, warm and solid, and I could smell soap and skin and the faint scent of salt on his neck when he leaned close.
He pressed a quick kiss to my temple before anyone noticed. “You okay?”
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure if that was true. My heart was already racing, but not from panic this time. Fromthem. Fromthis. From the realization that I was sitting at the same table as the people who filled Matty’s world.
“FiFi!” Natalie announced suddenly, pointing at me with her fork like she’d just spotted a celebrity. “You have to tell me more about being the tiger!”
Every head turned.
Matty blinked. “What did you just call her?”
Natalie looked positively delighted. “FiFi. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Jace echoed with a grin, stealing Natalie’s syrup packet.
Natalie pointed her fork at him in warning before turning back to Matty. “Don’t give me that look. She’s part of the No Drama Llamas now. You can’t sit at this table without a nickname. It’s, like, the first commandment.”
Matty stared, his expression somewhere between disbelief and resignation. “The first what?”
“The firstcommandment, Adler,” Natalie said with a straight face. “Commandment one: Thou shalt have a nickname. Commandment two: Thou shalt eat a pancake. She’s fulfilling the prophecy.”
“I don’t think everyone in the group has a nickname,” said Parker, disengaging himself from staring at Casey long enough to join the conversation.
“Sorry, but you’re wrong, Davis,” Natalie said. “We all do.”
“It’s true,” said Jace. “And Riley has, like, twenty.”
“I have twenty?” Riley asked, raising an eyebrow.
Jace hooked an arm along the back of the booth behind her and leaned in, his eyes bright with mischief. “Riley-girl,” he said instantly, as if no one had asked a question so easy sincewhat’stwo plus two. “Riley-bean. Ri-baby. Ri-ri. Riles. Rye Bread. Rye Whiskey. Ri-licious. Ri-nator. Riley-from-the-Block. Riley-won’t-admit-she-snores?—”
“I don’t snore,” Riley said, shoving an elbow into his ribs.
“She doesn’t,” he agreed without missing a beat, then added in a stage whisper, “She sings quietly through her nose. It’s adorable.”
Riley flattened her palm against her face. “I regret asking.”
“Want me to keep going?” Jace offered, delighted. “Because I’ve got at least ten more locked and loaded. Ri-gasm. Ri-pocalypse. Ri?—”
“Stop,” she hissed, turning so red I thought steam might whistle out of her ears.
