Not mine mine. But mine adjacent. Mine in every way that mattered except the one that did.
Miles doesn’t echo Harper’s enthusiasm. He’s doing that thing where he drums his fingers—index to pinky, repeat—which means his brain is churning. Processing. Recalculating.
A plate of salmon rolls glides by on the belt. Nobody moves.
“Well.” I force brightness into my voice like I’m programming a chatbot. “Should let you two enjoy date night. Code waits for no one.”
I snap my laptop closed with finality.
“Wait—” Miles sits forward. “We should get coffee. Just us. Catch up properly?”
The words hang between us. Harper’s perfectly shaped eyebrows draw together as she looks between us, and I watch her trying to solve an equation she doesn’t have all the variables for.
“Maybe.” I’m already sliding out of the booth. “Things are pretty crazy right now.”
“Right.” He’s still drumming those fingers. “Crazy.”
I grab my untouched sushi order—twenty dollars of fish I’m too nauseated to eat—and navigate through tables on autopilot. Pride is the only thing keeping my spine straight.
At the door, I make the mistake of looking back.
Harper’s talking, animated about something, one hand on Miles’s arm. But he’s not listening. He’s watching me leave with an expression I can’t decode and don’t want to.
For one perfect second, it feels like winning. Like finally being the one who walks away first.
Then reality sucker-punches me. I have exactly forty-eight hours to convince Ethan Prescott to be my fake boyfriend. Because if Miles sees through this lie, I’ll never recover from the humiliation.
Outside, March air slaps my heated face. I fire off a text to Alex.
Party still happening? Need costume ASAP
YES!!! Thrift store on Madison has good stuff!!
Can’t wait to catch up properly
Anything but clothes.
Because this situation needed to be more awkward.
I shove my phone away and start the walk back to campus, sushi bag swinging like a twenty-dollar reminder of my poor life choices.
“Not my type,” I tell the empty street, thinking of Ethan’s ridiculous plant and terrible jokes and 90% compatibility rating. “But desperate times.”
13
ETHAN
Idon’t know how Alex and Tara convinced us their anything-but-clothes party belonged at our place instead of their apartment, but here we are. Not that I’m complaining—our house has the superior party layout. Wide hallways for drunk navigation, a kitchen that’s survived four years of questionable decisions, and neighbors who gave up filing noise complaints sophomore year.
I live for a good party. Always have. But this close to graduation, everything hits different. Even the anticipation tastes bittersweet, like the cheap beer we’ll inevitably run out of by midnight.
I’m sprawled across my bed, machine learning textbook open on my chest like a very boring blanket. But I’m not reading. I’m watching late afternoon light paint patterns on the ceiling and trying not to spiral about how many “lasts” are coming at us.
Four years. Four years of Freddie’s post-workout protein shake symphonies, Alfie’s 3 AM documentary revelations, Troy’s shower concerts that would make Spotify weep. We don’t do the whole feelings thing often, but we have our ways.Freddie stocks everyone’s favorite snacks without saying why. Alfie fixes shit before you even know it’s broken. Troy declares mandatory boys’ nights when the vibe gets too heavy.
This is it—the only time in your life you get to live like this. Everyone figuring their shit out in real time, every bad decision softened by the fact that you’re all fucking up together.
Except now people are figuring their shit out for real.
