For one breath, no one is really looking.
Octavia pulls back from the hug just enough to see my face. Then she rises onto her toes, kisses me once on the cheek, whispering so softly I feel the words before I hear them.
“I love you.”
That one simple sentence lands with more force than the stairs, the dress, the hug, the camera flash, all of it.
Suddenly every dangerous thing about tonight feels worth it just because she said it out loud in a house full of people who almost understand.
CHAPTER 39
Octavia
The formal feels like another world.
Champagne catches the light in long crystal flutes. Professors stand in little polished circles, smiling too tightly while students drift between them in satin, velvet, black suits, expensive perfume, and nervous laughter. Everything gleams. Gold light spills over the room in soft pools, making the polished floors look almost liquid. Somewhere near the back, a string arrangement hums through the speakers, elegant enough to make the whole thing feel older than it is.
My group has barely made it through the entrance before one of the wait staff stepped toward me, hand already lifting toward the clasp of my coat with the sort of smooth, practiced confidence that assumes girls in dresses are part of the evening’s décor.
He stops the second he sees Silas.
Not because Silas says anything.
Because he doesn’t have to.
The waiter’s hand halts midair, his eyes flicking once to Silas’s face, then away again. Whatever he reads there is enough to make him step back without a word. Silas doesn’t even lookat him. He just reaches for my coat himself, fingers brushing my shoulders as he eases it down my arms with far more care than a stranger ever would. The coat leaves my body in a slow slide of fabric. The look on his face while he takes me in properly almost makes the noise of the room disappear.
He hands the coat over to the stunned waiter like the whole interaction was always going to end this way.
It only takes seconds before he’s beside me again.
Maria and Cheyenne are already chattering at my shoulders, both of them drinking the room in with obvious delight, while I try to guide Silas through the crowd by quietly pointing people out. A professor from Intro Psych. The girl from my Lit seminar who cries every time we read Sylvia Plath. The student body president pretending not to stare at us while very obviously staring at us. My voice keeps moving, naming faces and affiliations, filling the space because it feels easier than acknowledging the way Silas hasn’t really looked at anyone but me since we walked in.
Every time I glance over, he is watching me.
Not in a creepy way. Not even in a possessive way. Worse than that.
Like he still can’t quite believe I’m real.
Like he’s standing in a crowded room full of beautiful people and somehow still thinks I’m the most dangerous thing in it.
“What?” I murmur at last, nudging him lightly when his mouth curves again for no apparent reason.
His smile deepens, slow enough to make my stomach tighten.
“You look so fucking beautiful.”
The words land, my cheeks warming before I can stop them. To cover it, I reach up and adjust his collar, fingers smoothing the edge of it with more confidence than I actually feel.
“You clean up very well yourself, Corvin.”
His hand comes instinctively to my hip then, settling there like it belongs, only to pause a beat later as if he’s remembered where we are. The pressure eases as he starts to pull it away.
“No,” I whisper, catching his wrist before he can retreat. Guiding his hand back into place, I hold it there. “I don’t feel like hiding it anymore.”
Something in his face softens so suddenly it almost hurts to look at.
Not weakness. Not relief exactly. Something deeper. As if all day he’s been waiting for the room to demand I step back from him, and instead I’m standing here in front of half the school and choosing the opposite.
