𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You’d never really cared about parties. Not in high school, anyway. They always felt the same — the same music, the same cheap liquor, the same handful of people pretending they weren’t bored out of their minds.

So when your best friend insisted you had to go out one last time before graduation, you rolled your eyes. “High school parties are boring,” you told her, flat, certain.

Her grin only widened. “Then let’s not go to a high school one.”

That’s how you ended up here, at some off-campus house that smelled like weed and spilled beer, the music so loud you felt it in your ribs. She’d dragged you through the front door, laughing, shouting in your ear over the music: “Don’t ever tell them your real age. I’m serious. You’re nineteen tonight, got it?”

You nodded, even if your stomach was already twisting.

And then, ten minutes later, she was gone. Slipped upstairs with some guy whose name you didn’t catch, leaving you pressed against the wall of a house where you didn’t belong. The crowd in the living room surged and shifted like a tide, too many bodies, too much noise. You couldn’t breathe.

So you drifted into the kitchen.

It was quieter there, though not silent. A handful of people leaned against counters, smoking, laughing about something you didn’t understand. Their heads turned when you walked in, curiosity flickering before they went back to their conversations.

You pretended not to notice, heading straight for the counter where the drinks were lined up. You grabbed a red cup, filled it halfway with beer from a tapped keg, and tried to look like you belonged. Like you weren’t seventeen and completely out of place.

That’s when you felt it — eyes on you.

You turned, and there he was.

He wasn’t like the others. He didn’t glance and look away. He studied you, slow and deliberate, like he had all the time in the world. A beer was loose in his hand, and a joint was tucked behind his ear, forgotten. He leaned over the counter, resting on his elbow, like the chaos of the party bent around him.

Something in the way he watched you made your throat tighten. Not threatening. Just… interested. Like he’d picked you out of the crowd for a reason you couldn’t name.

You forced a sip from your cup, trying to steady your hands.

And then he pushed off the counter and came closer, weaving through the half-empty kitchen until he stood in front of you. Close enough that you could smell the faint bite of weed clinging to him, the sharper tang of beer on his breath.

“Hey,” he said, voice low but cutting through the noise like it was meant for you alone.