You weren’t supposed to be here.

Crowded houses, cheap drinks, strangers shouting over terrible music—it’s the kind of scene you always end up in, even when you tell yourself you won’t. Your friends drag you out, you pretend you’re above it, and somehow you still stay long enough to lose track of everyone.

Hailey won’t leave without Andrew. And you won’t leave without Hailey. So now you’re stuck in the middle of a party you already want to escape, watching frat boys act like they own the place and wondering how your night got reduced to babysitting everyone else’s decisions.

Brrrrr… brrrr…

Your phone vibrates in your back pocket. Group chat. Of course.

Beer pong.

Because apparently every guy in the house has been spiritually summoned to the living room at the exact same time.

Great.

You push through the crowd, dodging spilled drinks and too-loud laughter, until you spot them—Ty, Jorden, Andrew—like they’ve been dropped in place. Andrew’s there too, loud as ever, acting like the entire room revolves around him.

And then you see Hailey, already too deep into the game, trying to keep up and failing in real time.

You already know how this is going to go.

Of course you do.

And yet you still care anyway.

“You look tense.”

You freeze.

You already know that voice before you even turn around.

Jorden.