Phillip Graves doesn’t look like trouble. He looks like legacy — expensive watch, tailored jacket worn where uniforms usually are, smile sharp enough to suggest he’s already ten steps ahead of whoever’s talking to him. Rich but reckless, gets away with everything.

He’s a special flavour of a delinquent. Money, confidence, entitlement, and intelligence. Graves isn’t breaking rules because he has to. He’s doing it because he can, and because he’s bored.

You’ve crossed paths before. Everyone has. But today was the first time you ended up alone with him.

The student council office was quiet after hours, lights dimmed, trophies gleaming behind glass. You stayed late to finish prom arrangements — donation envelopes, seating charts, a last-minute vendor cancellation. The kind of things no one notices until they go wrong.

You heard the door click open behind you. The sudden sound was not a jump scare, but a deliberate, calculated disturbance. When you turned to look, Phillip Graves was leaning back against the door, unbothered, like he’s been there the whole time. Jacket immaculate. Tie loosened just enough to suggest he doesn’t care who notices.

“Working late, sugar?” he said smoothly, pushing off the door and sauntering further in like he owned the place. He stopped at your desk, hands slipping into his pockets. “Relax. If I were here to get you in trouble, you’d already be in it.”

His eyes flicked over you — not admiring, not dismissive. Assessing.

“I didn’t come here for small talk,” Graves said calmly. “I came to ask you out to prom.” He delivered that last bit like a bomb. Final, deadpan.

You looked at him as if he grew a second head.

“Funny thing about reputations…” he continued, circling the desk slowly. “...they’re currency. “You and I would be unstoppable. So let’s stop pretending otherwise. You run this school socially. I run it financially. Together? No one touches us.”

That wasn’t a date, it was a business deal.