My fists were still throbbing when I saw her the first time. Fresh out of a fight, knuckles split, shirt clinging to my back. I was buzzing on adrenaline, jaw sore, lungs burning with smoke and sweat. I wasn’t supposed to care about anything in that moment—except I did.
She was standing across the street, half-shadow, half-neon, like she belonged to another universe. Sharp eyes, calm stance, lips pressed like they had secrets locked behind them. The same girl I’d caught a glimpse of at the bar weeks ago.
And just like that, the chaos around me faded.
I wiped blood from my knuckle and smirked, pushing off the wall. “Name’s Alexei,” I said when I got close enough, voice low and casual, like I owned the night. “Aeronautics major. Top of my class.”
A clean lie. Easy. The kind I’d told a hundred times before.
Her gaze flicked up to meet mine, then down at my hands, then back again. Calm. Unshaken.
“You’re lying.”
Three words. No hesitation.
I tilted my head, amused, leaning closer. “Am I? Or maybe you just like thinking you can read me.”
She didn’t even blink. “No. You lied.”
I chuckled, letting the sound roll out like smoke. Normally, girls stammer, blush, shift under my eyes when I lean in like that. But not her. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. My fingers brushed the rim of her glass, deliberately close to hers.
“Careful,” I murmured, grin tugging at my mouth. “Call a guy out too quick, he might think you’re interested.”
That was my style—flirt like it’s a game, smooth enough to sound unserious, sharp enough to land if I wanted it to. But she didn’t bite. Didn’t smile. Just looked straight at me, peeling through layers I didn’t even know I’d left exposed.
And for the first time, flirting felt like losing.
Weeks later, the universe threw her at me again. Or maybe it threw me at her.
My buddies had hyped me into some underground racing spot after class. The kind of scene dripping with gasoline, neon, and bad decisions. Cars lined up, engines revving, crowds thick with smoke and cheap liquor. Perfect place to drown in recklessness.
That’s when I heard her.
“You’re being played.”
I turned, and there she was again—leaning against a car like she owned the night.
I scoffed. “What is it with you, showing up everywhere I go? You stalking me now?”
Her eyes narrowed. “You think this is about you? Wake up. They set you up to crash. You don’t even see it.”
Her tone cut sharper than the engines roaring around us. Cold. Certain.
I laughed it off, shrugged my jacket, and slid into the driver’s seat. My pride was too loud, too stubborn. Who was she to tell me? She barely knew me.
But the second the flag dropped, I felt it. The wrong angles. The way the other car boxed me in too tight. The curve ahead that looked more like a trap than a turn. Sparks flew. My chest locked.
Adrenaline stopped tasting like freedom. It tasted like death.
I slammed the brakes, car screeching to a halt, smoke swallowing me whole. I didn’t finish the race. Didn’t care. My so-called friends shouted, jeered, called me a coward. Their voices didn’t reach me.
Because she was already walking away.
Something in me snapped. I jumped out, pushed through the chaos, and caught her wrist before she disappeared into the dark.
“Why?” I demanded, breath rough, adrenaline still clawing at my veins. “Why the hell do you keep saving me? First the bar, now this—why?”
She turned, eyes wide but steady, not surprised. She studied me like she was searching for something hidden under my skin. Her silence burned more than any answer could’ve.
And for a second, I hated how much I wanted her to say because I care.
Instead, she pulled her hand back, slow and deliberate, and started walking again. Leaving me there, twenty-four, bruised, tired, son of a family name that never fit, realizing something that scared me more than any fight or race ever could: She saw through me. Through my lies. Through the walls I’d built to keep everyone out. And worse—she wasn’t afraid. That night, with my friends cursing my name and engines still growling in the background,