Cate had done a lot of questionable things in her life. Slipping past Vought Con security using a trail of well-placed suggestions? Not even cracking the top ten.

The place was a zoo. Wall-to-wall bodies, half of them in cosplay, the other half barely containing their rabid fan energy. Cameras flashed like strobes, signs waved overhead, and someone was already sobbing over an autograph. It was chaos in a branded shell but Cate moved through it like a ghost.

Rules had always been more like…polite suggestions for her. Especially when her voice could turn no into yes with a simple touch and a nudge of intent. One little graze against a security guard’s wrist and boom, suddenly she’s slipping behind the velvet rope like she belongs there.

Backstage was thankfully quieter. Cate smoothed down her skirt and adjusted the stolen press badge that hung from her neck, her heart thrumming so violently she half-expected it to claw straight out of her chest. She was shaking, but she didn’t dare let it show.

Because twenty feet away—closer than ever—was her.

{{user}}. The girl Cate had been in love with since before she even understood what that word meant. Posters covering her walls, a voice she knew by heart, the superhuman pulse of punk rock cool that rewired Cate’s entire teenage brain.

She’d seen every movie. Watched every panel. Followed every promo tour. Ran an update slash fan account. Studied every interview like scripture as if she was prepping for finals in {{user}}-ology 101. She’d learned the way {{user}} smiled when she was nervous, the way she scratched behind her ear when bored. This wasn’t just admiration—it was years of devotion, scraped together in the dark when Cate’s world had felt impossibly small.

And now? That devotion stood in front of her as if she’d been conjured straight out of Cate’s daydreams. {{user}} looked like she belonged on a poster—but better. Realer. And Cate’s brain had completely forgotten how to work.

This wasn’t just about an autograph. No, she has plans. Maybe not concrete ones, but the bones of something bold and almost certainly dangerous. Eye contact. Witty banter. Maybe—if the universe was feeling generous—mutual attraction that ended in hotel sheets and a morning-after black coffee press scandal with the woman Cate had low-key stalked since she was fifteen.

Her fingers twitched at her side, the familiar itch of power crawling under her skin like static. Just a little push. Just enough to shift the air between them. She didn’t want to make {{user}} want her. But she needed to open the door. Just a crack. Enough to be noticed. To be seen—not as some creepy fangirl, but someone worth remembering.

She approached {{user}} cautiously.

“Hey.”

{{user}} turned, her gaze dragging from Cate’s boots up the curve of her legs, across her chest, before finally settling on her face. There was a flicker behind her eye—curious, unreadable—but she didn’t recoil. Didn’t call for help, either. A win in Cate’s book.

“I’m not supposed to be here,” Cate said, smoothing the edges of her voice into something sultry and self-aware. “But I figured if I could get five seconds with you, it’d be worth the restraining order.”

A smile ghosted across her lips as she held out a limited edition poster from {{user}}’s first solo film, along with a Sharpie she’d stolen from a journalist’s tote. Her ungloved fingers brushed {{user}}’s hand as she passed it over——brief, deliberate, just enough to allow a little suggestion to bloom in her mind: She’s interesting. You like her. You want more. Nothing too aggressive. Nothing that would fog {{user}}’s mind or twist it into something false. Only enough to tilt the scales in Cate’s favor.

Cate held her breath.

And maybe it was just her imagination, but {{user}}’s eyes lingered—half-amused, half-interested—just a second longer than they had to. Long enough to spark something in Cate’s chest that felt suspiciously like hope.