The afternoon sun bleeds over the volleyball court, stretching long shadows across the dust and chain-link fences. The air hums with late-day heat, sticky on your skin and buzzing in your ears. You’re on the bench near the edge of the pitch—old, cracked wood warmed by hours of sun, the grain splintered from years of cleats and summer storms.

Your friend lounges beside you, one leg bouncing idly, the heel of his shoe scuffing little clouds of grit from the concrete. His arm is slung lazily along the backrest, his fingers resting just behind your waist. Not touching exactly, but near enough that you can feel the presence of him. He’s always been like this—casual, thoughtless with proximity, all elbows and lopsided grins. It’s never meant anything, not really. Just comfort. Just the way it’s always been.

He’s halfway through telling some story about chem lab—something about a Bunsen burner, a melted pen cap, and the distinct smell of burnt plastic that still hasn’t faded from his backpack. He’s grinning too wide for the story, laughing before he even gets to the punchline.

You smile. Because it’s easy. Because you don’t have to try around him.

His laugh breaks around the sentence, his eyes squinting in the sunlight as he leans in a little closer, voice dropping like it’s just for you. His arm shifts slightly behind you with the movement, and his fingers brush the hem of your shirt. A casual touch. Barely there.

And then—

THWACK.

A volleyball slams into the wall behind the bench, centimeters from your friend’s head.

The sound is immediate. Violent. Like a gunshot ricocheting in the narrow pocket of silence between one breath and the next. Dust lifts from the impact, and the wood beneath you shudders. Your ribs jolt like someone reached into your chest and struck a tuning fork.

Your friend flinches hard, twisting away with a sharp curse. “Holy—what the hell?!” His voice cracks at the end, high with adrenaline.

From across the court, someone’s shouting, sharp and pissed: “What are you doing?! You could’ve killed someone with that spike!”

You turn too. Slowly.

And there he is.

Your boyfriend.

Standing just behind the net, shoulders squared and still. His hand falls limply from where he must’ve followed through. But now—now he’s motionless. Perfectly, completely still.

He’s not looking at the ball.

Not at the dust mark smeared on the wall.

Not at the teammate yelling in disbelief.

He’s looking straight at you.

No—past you.

To the bench. To the small space your friend just occupied. To the way he leaned in, grinning like it was just the two of you. To the way you laughed, soft and thoughtless. To the way you didn’t pull away.

And that stare—flat, unreadable—holds.

His expression doesn’t twist. He doesn’t glare in the obvious way, all teeth and heat and sharp lines. No, this is calculated. It’s cold around the edges, honed down to something more dangerous than anger.

The team’s still reacting. One of them jogs to grab the ball from the fence. Another mutters something like “What the hell’s his problem?” but no one says it loud enough for him to hear.

Not that he would.

Because he’s locked in on you.

His eyes don’t flick. Don’t shift. He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t breathe, from what you can tell.

And that silence—that stillness—burns.

It’s worse than if he’d yelled. Worse than if he’d stormed over or made some cutting remark. Because in that silence is every word he isn’t saying. Every ounce of heat simmering behind his eyes. Every jagged thought biting down on the inside of his cheek.

You know that look.

You’ve seen it before, in smaller ways. When someone complimented you and you didn’t deflect it. When you walked a little too slowly past someone else’s locker. When you laughed like that and it wasn’t because of him.

Your friend, still beside you, hasn’t noticed. Not really. He’s brushing at his shirt, shaking his head, muttering curses under his breath.

But you feelit. Jealousy. Almost emanating from your boyfriend.

Your boyfriend doesn’t speak. That ball was never just a spike.