Her eyes flash.
I see the answer before she gives it—the hurt, the pride, the instinct to strike before I can hit anything tender.
“Please,” she says. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
The lie is pathetic.
And she knows I know it.
So does everybody in the room, probably, even if they can’t hear the words.
She shoves once at my chest.
Not hard.
Warning, not force.
“Move, Tristan.”
Not Vale.
Tristan.
That’s what gets me.
Because Stella only uses my first name when the truth’s trying to crawl out of her with its throat cut.
I don’t move.
For one impossible, vicious second, neither does she.
We are too close.
The whole room is too close.
The season is too close.
Everything between us feels like dry grass and one lit match.
Then she says, low enough only I can hear:
“You don’t get to do this to both of us.”
That one slices.
Not because of the accusation.
Because of the us.
Because some part of me still hears that and wants the wrong thing.
My mouth goes hard.
“And you don’t get to decide what this is when it suits you.”
Her stare stays locked on mine.
Then she shoves harder this time, slips sideways under my arm, and steps out of the cage I built without meaning to.
