Not Stella.
Me.
Because I had made a rule about not falling in love, then walked straight into a bonfire wearing his name across my back.
And heaven help me, I was starting to like how it felt.
The worst part was that Stella was not awful.
Awful would have been easier. Awful would have let me keep hating her cleanly, with both hands and my whole chest. Awful would have let me blame her for the way Tristan had looked through me and still somehow seen her standing behind my shoulder every single time.
But Stella Cortez stood beside me at the edge of the water, one hand wrapped around a can of hard seltzer, dark hair moving in the ocean wind, and she looked less like a villain and more like another girl who was tired.
That was deeply inconvenient for my bitterness.
Behind us, the bonfire party had started pretending it hadn’t almost turned into a full-contact male ego showcase. Music thumped again. Someone laughed too loudly. The football players clustered near the keg like a herd of wounded buffalo in Stanford hoodies. Basketball stood on the opposite side, doing the same thing with prettier cheekbones and more emotional repression.
I could feel both men without looking.
Tristan, somewhere behind Stella.
Drew, somewhere behind me.
The difference was that Tristan’s attention used to feel like a prize I had to earn.
Drew’s felt like weather.
Heavy. Certain. Coming whether I was ready or not.
Stella took a sip of her drink, then glanced over at me. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think he meant to hurt you.”
I looked at her. “That is almost never worth what people think it is.”
Her mouth curved faintly. “Fair.”
The waves rushed in, hissing around the sand near our boots before sliding back into the dark.
I stared at the water because looking at her made too many things complicated.
“I stopped wishing longterm Covid on you. That’s progress, right?”
Her laugh was low and surprised. “That might be the most honest thing anyone has said to me all semester.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“I won’t.”
We stood there another minute, not friends, not enemies, not anything clean enough to name. Just two girls at the edge of a beach party while the men behind us recovered from the devastating realization that women could walk away from them mid-drama.
Then Stella looked past my shoulder.
Her expression shifted.
Not alarmed.
Amused.
“Your boyfriend is coming.”
