The night air was cool against my skin as we stepped off Tessa's porch, the muffled bass of the party fading behind us.
Saraph looped her arm through mine, still buzzing from the spin the bottle chaos, replaying Aaron's kiss with the energy of someone filing it permanently into their highlight reel.
I was only half listening.
Because Daniel's voice was still in my ear. Low, certain, unhurried.
I'll have you later. You don't even want to know what I've imagined doing to you.
I'd laughed it off in the moment, or tried to. But walking home with the night air doing nothing to cool the warmth still sitting in my chest, I couldn't entirely pretend the words hadn't landed somewhere they weren't supposed to leave so quickly.
My phone buzzed.
Daniel: You left without saying a proper goodbye.
I glanced at Saraph, who was busy retelling the Aaron moment to herself under her breath. I typed back.
Nuella: I said goodnight.
Daniel: That wasn't a goodbye. That was an escape.
Nuella: Maybe I needed one.
Three dots appeared immediately. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Daniel: you got away Tonight. you won't be so lucky next time.
I stared at the screen for a second longer than I needed to.
Nuella: Is that a threat?
Daniel: It's a promise. Sleep well, Nuella.
Saraph finally looked over at whatever expression was on my face. "What?"
"Nothing," I said, pocketing my phone.
She narrowed her eyes. "That was a very specific kind of nothing."
"Goodnight, Saraph."
He showed up the next morning.
Not at my door, at the campus café, already seated at the table by the window when I walked in, two cups in front of him like he'd been expecting me at exactly that time.
He looked unbothered and entirely too pleased with himself.
"How did you know I'd come here?" I asked, sliding into the seat across from him because standing there was making the point he wanted me to make.
"You come here every morning before your first lecture." He slid one of the cups toward me. "Oat milk, two sugars."
I looked at the cup, then at him. "That's slightly alarming."
"That's called paying attention." His eyes held that particular warmth that had always been the most dangerous version of him, not the teasing, not the charm, but the quiet underneath it.
The part that actually meant it. "You ran away last night."
"I went home. Normal people do that at the end of parties."
"You went home right after I said something that made you nervous."
"I wasn't nervous."
"You tucked your hair behind your ear three times in thirty seconds after I said it." He leaned forward slightly, elbows on the table, unhurried. "That's your tell, by the way. When something gets to you."
I picked up the cup just to have something to do with my hands. "You're very pleased with yourself this morning."
"A little," he admitted. "I meant what I said, though. Last night wasn't enough."
"Daniel—"
"I'm not pushing anything," he said, and his voice dropped just enough to make the sentence feel different from how it started.
"I'm just telling you the truth. I've missed you. Not just the party version of us, all of it.
The quiet parts. The easy parts. The complicated parts that we haven't finished talking about yet."
The café hummed around us, ordinary and unhurried, as if it had no idea what kind of conversation it was hosting.
"You can't just say things like what you said last night and then follow it up with feelings," I said.
"That's whiplash, Daniel."
He laughed, genuine, unguarded, the best version of his laugh. "I contain multitudes."
"You're insufferable."
"You came and sat down though."
I had. I absolutely had.
"I missed you too," I said finally, quietly enough that it felt more honest than loud.
"That doesn't mean everything's figured out."
"I know," he said. "I'm not asking for figured out. I'm asking for this." He gestured between us, the two cups, the table, the morning light coming through the window. "Just this. For now."
I looked at him across the table, this boy who had made everything in my life feel both more complicated and more worthwhile, who could be infuriating and tender in the same breath, who apparently knew my coffee order and my tells and still somehow managed to make me feel seen rather than studied.
"Fine," I said. "But you're buying breakfast."
His smile widened slowly, the way it did when he'd won something and was trying not to be obvious about it.
"Already ordered it," he said.
"Of course you did."
"I told you." He leaned back, that grin settling into something softer and more certain. "No escape today."
shook my head, reaching for my cup, trying and mostly failing to hide my own smile.
No escape.
Honestly? I wasn't sure I was trying that hard anymore.