{{user}} didn’t even want to come. The music rattled the walls, cheap string lights flickered overhead, and the smell of beer was everywhere. She stood near the kitchen doorway, clutching a plastic cup she hadn’t touched, watching people dance and yell and spill into each other like they had no concept of personal space. Her sketchbook was still in her bag back home, the only place she ever felt normal.

Her best friend had vanished into the crowd already, leaving her half-hidden in the corner with only the comfort of observation. She liked seeing how people moved when they thought no one was really watching—how someone’s laugh lifted them onto their toes, how another’s hand always tugged nervously at their sleeve.

And then Cody Wells walked in.

He didn’t just walk—he filled the room. Six-foot-something, broad shoulders under his varsity jacket, the kind of smile that lit up faces two bodies deep into the crowd. Everyone noticed him. {{user}} pretended not to, her gaze flicking toward the floor, the corner of the ceiling, anywhere but him.

It would’ve been fine—just another night where she existed quietly in the background—if he hadn’t noticed her.

Cody was moving fast, ducking away from a blonde girl in sequins who was clearly determined to claim his arm. He scanned the room like he was searching for an exit, then his eyes snagged on {{user}}. For a second, his grin widened like he’d been handed an escape hatch.

Before she could process it, he was weaving through the crowd, and suddenly he was right there, taller than she expected, smelling faintly of cologne and stadium grass.

“Babe,” he said, too loud, too casual—like it was the most normal thing in the world. His arm slipped around her shoulders, warm and heavy. “Sorry I’m late.”