The sorority villa came into view around the corner and I understood immediately that party had been an understatement.
Cars were lined up down both sides of the block. Music bled through the walls. Through the upstairs windows, silhouettes moved behind curtains, and at the front door a loose crowd had gathered, half of them already holding cups and talking.
"Big party," Charlie said.
"You think?"
She laughed and linked her arm through mine.
Inside, the music was a wall of sound. Bodies packed the main floor, the hallway, spilling through every open door. The smell was warm and sharp, something sweet, something alcoholic, the humidity of too many people in a closed space. Charlie pulled me through the crowd until we found a corner near the back of the main room that was slightly less suffocating.
"This is fine," she announced.
"Sure," I said.
She gave me a look. "Eve. Try. Just a little."
"I am trying. This is my trying face."
"That's your resting face."
"Then maybe my resting face is trying very hard."
She laughed, which was what I'd intended, and the slight tightness in my chest eased a fraction.
Edd found us twenty minutes later, arriving with two cups of soda and a slightly guilty look.
"Sorry the queue was—" He stopped when he saw me. "Eve. You look really nice."
"Thank you, Edd."
"Like, genuinely. You should dress like this more often."
"Don't push it."
He laughed and handed me the soda. Lanky and honest and entirely without pretense,I'd never quite worked out how he and Charlie had found each other given how different they were. People pointed this out with a frequency that said more about those people than either of them. They had long stopped noticing.
He slid his arm around Charlie's waist. She leaned into it without thinking.
"You know, Eve, Adam's here tonight," Charlie said, her eyes bright with entirely too much mischief.
"Right," I said, in a tone designed to communicate that this topic was closed.
"He asked Edd if you were coming."
I looked at Edd. Edd looked briefly apologetic. "He did ask."
"That doesn't mean anything."
"Eve." Charlie turned to face me fully. "He is a nice guy, he is good-looking, and he clearly likes you. What is the actual problem?"
The problem was a quiet certainty lodged somewhere below reasoning that Adam wasn't it. Not in a way I could defend logically, just in the way that some things sat right and some things didn't. I shrugged instead of explaining any of this. Charlie looked at me the way she looked at puzzles she hadn't solved yet, then sighed and let it go.
He appeared about an hour later, arriving with the timing of someone who'd been quietly circling.
"Hey, Carver." That slow scan he did, not unkind, just thorough. "You look good."
"Thanks."
"Really good," he added, like the first time hadn't quite landed the way he intended.
"Thank you, Adam."
He smiled, the easy, open smile that was one of his better features and settled in beside me, and Charlie and Edd performed the world's least subtle disappearing act, melting sideways into the crowd until they were just gone.
"Your friends are very obvious," he said.
"I'm aware."
We talked for a while the easy back-and-forth that happened sometimes with Adam, the kind that made me like him well enough while knowing this wasn't going anywhere. He was funny in an uncomplicated way. Being around him wasn't difficult.
It was Natasha who changed the temperature.
She arrived from the left, and I clocked her before Adam did the way her eyes went to him first and then to me, sharp and deliberate.
"We need to talk," she said. Flat, controlled.
"Nat—"
"Please. Five minutes."
Adam looked back at me. I gave a small nod go, it's fine and he went, and Natasha walked away without looking back, which was a relief.
I stood alone and felt my shoulders drop.
Another drink seemed like the right next move. And finding Charlie.
Two floor sweeps turned up nothing. The girl tending the makeshift bar was quiet and efficient, and I smiled at her when she handed me the soda. I climbed onto a bar stool and watched the dance floor.
That's when I saw him.
Dark-haired. A blonde girl in his arms. They were kissing. It looked like it needed a separate room and not a dance floor,
Except that when I was already looking away, something made me stop.
He had opened his eyes.
And he was looking directly at me.
Still kissing her. Still entirely physically present in that moment but his eyes were open and they were on mine, clear and unhurried, like he'd been waiting for me to notice and was in no particular rush about it. It broke something unspoken some rule about what those moments were for. And yet here he was, watching me across the room like he had every right.
He kept looking.
So did I, longer than I should have, because there was something in it that made it hard to be the first to move. Not attraction exactly or not only that. More like being noticed by someone who wasn't supposed to be paying attention to you at all.
I broke away first.
Off the stool, through the crowd, out into cold air. I stood on the stone steps and breathed. My pulse was faster than it had any business being.
You don't even know who that is, I told myself. You saw a stranger at a party. This is not interesting.
My phone buzzed. Charlie! we're outside by the campfire, come find us!!
A campfire. At a college party. Of course.
The ground behind the villa was wider than I expected, the fire at the center throwing warm light over loose circles of people. At the far edge, separate from the larger crowd, Charlie and Edd had claimed two chairs. I made my way over and dropped into the empty seat beside her.
"There you are," Charlie said, already studying my face. "What happened? You look strange."
"Nothing happened."
"You're flushed."
"It's cold out."
"You're flushed and you just came from inside where it was warm, so—"
"Charlie." I took the soda she was already holding out. "I'm fine. Where did you two even go? That was a setup."
She had the grace to look slightly caught. "We just thought—"
"It was a setup."
"Edd, was it a setup?"
Edd, who was a fundamentally honest person, took a long sip of his drink. "I plead the fifth."
"I hate you both," I said, without heat.
Charlie laughed and bumped her shoulder against mine. "How did it go with Adam though? Actually."
"Fine. Natasha showed up."
The smile faded. "Oh."
"It's okay. Genuinely." The relief at being alone had been more immediate than any disappointment, and that told me everything I needed to know. "Don't do the protective face."
"What face?"
"That face. Save it."
She studied my expression for a moment deciding whether to push or let it rest. She let it rest, which was the right call, and folded her feet under her on the chair.
We stayed out there for a while, the three of us, the fire warm against the cold night. Someone nearby laughed very loudly at something. Edd and Charlie talked softly about something I only half followed. It wasn't terrible, sitting there.
Adam never came outside, which was a small relief.
Around midnight, Charlie drove me home. She sat outside my building for a moment after she pulled up, engine still running. "Text me when you're inside."
"I always do."
"I know. I just like asking."
I got out. She waited until I'd reached the door before she pulled away. That was the kind of person Charlie was.
Stormy's keys weren't on the hook. The apartment was quiet and mine. I changed, brushed my teeth, turned off the lights, and got into bed.
Through the gap where the curtains didn't quite meet, a strip of night sky was visible. A few stars caught between the fabric and the dark. I lay there watching the ones that made it through, and the night was still, and after a while my eyes stopped finding reasons to stay open.
Sleep came without me noticing.