My chest does that stupid warm thing, like my body reacts before my brain can tell it not to.
Weston’s eyes lock onto my phone like he’s a predator. “Oh? Is that your?—”
“No,” I snap, flipping the phone over. “Eat your chicken and mind your own business.”
Asher’s mouth twitches. “He’s not going to.”
Weston glares. “Traitor.”
Kai keeps eating, but I catch the flick of his gaze—quick, knowing. He won’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.
After lunch, Asher breaks off for the library because he’s a freak of nature who does homework like he’s trying to earn extracredit in adulthood. Weston announces he’s going to “rot,” then disappears. Kai and I walk back to the apartment.
The sun is bright. Campus is alive—students in hoodies, couples holding iced coffees, someone tossing a frisbee with no regard for the people trying to walk by.
Normal life.
I’m not sure what it would feel like to have one.
In the hallway outside our place, Kai pauses. “Harlow’s coming by later.”
I blink. “Why?”
Kai gives me a look, brow raised. “Because she can.”
Right.
Kai Mercer’s idea of supporting independence is offering safe places within his orbit.
I nod like it doesn’t matter, like my brain doesn’t immediately start inventorying what this apartment looks like when it’s quiet versus when it’s full of guys.
We step inside. Kai tosses his keys into the bowl and starts doing two dishes that don’t need to be done right now. Stress-cleaning, again. He scrubs a mug, jaw getting tighter by the second as if the mug is the target of his built-up tension.
I head toward my room, but before I can disappear, Kai says, low, “Just…keep it easy today.”
I stop and turn. “I’m always easy.”
Kai’s stare is deadpan. “That’s the funniest thing you’ve ever said.”
I flip him off and retreat.
In my room, I flop onto my bed and stare at the ceiling. My phone is beside me, face down, like that changes anything or makes my mind stop thinking about it.
I shouldn’t care, but I do.
My brain tries to build a person from fragments: a girl who hates loud places, who calls her brain loud, who jokes about tea being a scam, who says she missed the manual for being normal.
I shut it down before it can spiral.
Too convenient. Too messy. There are thousands of students at PCU. The odds are?—
My phone buzzes with a text from Kai.
Kai: she’ll be here in 20.
I stare at it, then toss my phone onto the bed and groan.
So much for hiding.
