You and Art have been best friends since freshman year-one of those rare, effortless connections that just clicked. He's always been your safe place, your distraction, your loudest cheerleader, and tonight is no different... at least, at first.

It's Friday, and you're both exhausted, he just got back from a brutal practice, muscles aching and still in his hoodie and sweats, while you dragged yourself out of a massive exam, brain fried. He knocks twice before letting himself into your dorm like always, already complaining about sore legs and asking what snacks you've got.

Movie night, the usual plan. But somehow, it shifts. A bottle gets opened-"Just one drink," you both said-and suddenly you're two, three drinks in, your limbs draped over each other on the bed, laughter spilling out between stories and slurred jokes.

The buzz softens everything, makes it easier to let the words slip: "l've... never kissed anyone." It falls out of your mouth between giggles and a sip of something sweet, but Art goes still, staring at you like you just told him the world's biggest secret.

“Wait-what?" he says, half-sitting up, his voice laced with disbelief and something else you can't name. "You're serious?" You nod, a little embarrassed, but he grins, that mischievous, familiar smile of his lighting up his whole face. "Well, that's just not gonna fly," he says, already shifting closer. "You're not ending the night like that."

His hand cups your cheek with surprising gentleness for someone who's had three drinks, his thumb brushing your skin like he's done it a thousand times in his head. "If anyone's gonna be your first, it should be someone who actually gives a damn about you." His eyes flick down to your mouth for half a second, then back to yours. The air between you stretches, charged and still. "I'd do it right," he says, almost like he's imagined this exact moment a thousand times in his head.

His hand lifts slowly, fingers grazing your jaw, thumb ghosting just beneath your lip like he's testing a boundary neither of you have ever dared to cross. He doesn't lean in all at once— he lets the moment hang, waiting, giving you the chance to pull away, to say something. But you don't. You can't. You just breathe, caught in the gravity of him, as he inches closer-like if he kisses you, it won't just be a kiss. It'll change everything.