The first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes was that I didn't know where the hell I was.
Not unusual for me.
The ceiling above me was painted some shade of cream that had long ago given up trying to look expensive. There was a dreamcatcher hanging lopsided from the corner, dust clinging to its feathers. My head pounded like someone had used it as a drum last night. I reached for my phone on the nightstand—except it wasn't my nightstand. Just a cluttered table stacked with lip gloss tubes, empty vape cartridges, and a photo frame turned face down.
Next to me, a girl stirred. Blonde, half-asleep, tangled in sheets that smelled like too much perfume and stale tequila. Her makeup had smeared during the night, leaving her with raccoon eyes. She clung to me with the kind of familiarity you only earn after three dates. We'd had zero. It's like I was her boyfriend and not the guy whose name she probably couldn't remember.
I smirked at the thought.
Cole St. James: bad habit personified.
Sliding out of bed, I pulled on my jeans, careful not to wake her. Not because I cared. Because I didn't. That's the trick—you leave before they start asking questions like-- *Will you text me? Do you want to hang out again? What are we?* We're two ghosts who bumped shoulders in the dark and kept walking. That's it.
Jeans on. Hoodie over my head. Wallet and lighter, check. Tattoos peeking out at the wrists as I tugged my sleeves. Black ink coiled over my forearms—snakes, roses, a busted compass I got on a dare a year ago. People always ask if the ink means something deep. It doesn't. It's armor. It keeps people looking at my skin so they don't look past it.
I checked my phone. Five missed calls from Jax, two from Theo, and a flood of Snapchat notifications from girls I hadn't bothered replying to. I smiled at the mess of it and slipped out the door without looking back.
The morning air slapped me awake. City noise already on eleven—bus brakes screeching, a couple arguing across the street, a dog insisting on being a tenor. I lit a cigarette and let the smoke sit in my lungs until my chest burned, then exhaled slow enough to pretend this was peace.
Walking down the block, I scrolled through my camera roll from last night. Blurry selfies with strangers, girls kissing my cheek, a video of me chugging straight vodka while standing on a table. In the background, people cheered like I was some kind of rockstar. That's the thing—I didn't even need to try. Wherever I went, the party bent around me.
By the time I got back to my apartment, Jax and Theo had let themselves in and colonized my couch with the confidence of men who pay exactly zero of my rent.
"You fucking ghosted us last night," Jax said, throwing a pillow at me. "We were about to send out a search party."
"Yeah, a search party for your dignity," Theo added, grinning.
I dropped onto the armchair, rubbing my temples. "Relax, I was... busy."
"Busy," Jax repeated, raising a brow. "Translation: Cole found another lost soul to ruin."
Theo squinted at me, pretending to count. "Last week: brunette after the rooftop party. Tuesday: bartender with the septum ring. Friday: Pilates girl who said you were 'unsafe' but still gave you her number. What's the body count at, St. James?"
I stretched like a cat, tossed my phone from hand to hand. "High enough to make you both look like monks."
They were my boys—loud, stupid, loyal. We'd been running together since sophomore year of high school, and nothing had changed. Except now we had cars, fake IDs, and an audience.
"Untouchable," Jax declared, raising an imaginary trophy. "Cole St. James: patron saint of terrible decisions."
I half smiled because he wasn't wrong. It's not that I chase it. It chases me. The attention, the trouble, the easy way the night unbuttons for me like it was waiting.
"He's not wrong," Theo said. "It's disgusting. And unfair. Some of us actually have to try."
I smirked. "Some of us are just naturals."
They groaned, throwing more pillows at me.
We hit the skate park that afternoon because pretending to be athletic is cheaper than therapy. I'm not a real skater, but I like a crowd. A couple beers in, and I was on the top rail, arms out like a tightrope walker. Phones came out, kids who should've been doing homework gathered, a few girls with glossy ponytails started filming like I was a wildlife documentary.
"Cole, don't be stupid!" Theo called out.
"Too late," I shouted back, laughing.
I jumped. Landed. Almost ate concrete, but didn't. The crowd roared. Someone handed me another beer. Adrenaline rushed through me like gasoline on fire. This was my playground. Chaos. Attention. Danger without consequence.
The rush fizzled, leaving that familiar hollow behind.
Hollow is fine. Hollow is easy. You can fill hollow with noise.
Night fell like it owed me money, and we went and collected. We hit a party on the north side of town. Standard scene—red cups, a DJ who acted like owning a laptop made him a musician, too many bodies crammed into a house someone's parents definitely didn't know was being trashed.
Girls noticed me the second I walked in. They always did. I leaned into it, flashing that easy grin, the one that opened doors and bedsheets. Within minutes, I had two girls clinging to my arms.
One in a cherry dress with a slit up her thigh, hair in bubble braids. The other in a cropped hoodie and a smile she weaponized. Both upperclassmen, both too put together for this cheap beer crowd.
"You're Cole, right?" Cherry Dress asked, tilting her head like she knew the answer. "We've met."
"We haven't," I said, and she looked both offended and more interested. "But we can fix it."
Hoodie Girl laughed, fingers tracing one of the snakes on my arm like she was coaxing it to life. "He's worse than they say."
"I'm better than they say," I corrected, letting the smirk do most of the work. "Worse is for amateurs."
Jax drifted past to the pong table and clapped my shoulder. "Ladies, this is a cautionary tale wearing boots."
"I'll write a thesis," Hoodie Girl said, eyes not leaving mine.
"Great," I said. "Just spell my name right."
They flanked me, one hand on my chest, one at my hip, and for a minute I turned into the thing they wanted—a distraction in human form. We danced, if you can call it that in a room this crowded, bodies pressed and moving on the bass line while sweat clung to everything like confession. They laughed at nothing, I whispered nothing, and the night did that thing it always does where it makes you believe in everything and nothing at once.
Hoodie Girl—Lena, she finally shouted over the music. Cherry Dress—Kara. I filed the names away in the temporary folder in my brain where they wouldn't last long. Kara tugged my hoodie string, pulled me down and kissed me like we were late for something. Lena bit my ear like she was claiming territory. I let them. My hands knew where to go the way your hands know where the light switch is in your own bedroom.
"Upstairs?" Lena breathed.
"What, both of you?" I teased, already knowing the answer.
Kara rolled her eyes like *obviously,* then leaned in, lips ghosting my jaw. "Unless you can't handle it."
I grinned. I never turn down a dare.
We slipped through the crowd, my palm on the small of Kara's back, Lena's fingers hooked through my belt loop like a promise. Jax saw us on the stairs and raised his cup. "Untouchable!" he called, like it was my last name and my job title.
"Write me if I don't return," I shot back.
"Already writing your eulogy!" Theo shouted. "It's mostly emojis!"
The hallway upstairs was cooler and quieter, the music humming through the walls like a distant threat. We found a guest room with a sticky doorknob and a bed that didn't deserve what we were about to do to it. The lamp in the corner had a shade that threw weird shapes on the ceiling. We left the light on anyway.
I'm not going to get poetic about it. It wasn't. Poetry needs stakes, and this was a game with rules we all knew. Kissing, heat, the swipe of a shirt over a head, denim sighing to the floor, laughter when someone's knee hit the nightstand. A hush when hands found rhythm. It was mouths and breath and the slip of skin and the kind of closeness that looks like intimacy from far away but dissolves if you breathe on it.
We didn't sleep.
After, we lay tangled for a minute, the room smelling like perfume and victory. Kara ran a finger down my chest like she was drawing a map no one else would ever use. Lena giggled into the crook of my neck, then reached for her phone in the same motion, already half gone.
"You're trouble," Kara said, like she wanted me to deny it.
"I'm a hobby," I said. "Trouble requires follow-through."
Lena snorted. "You're not staying, are you?"
"Sweetheart," I said, tugging my hoodie on, "I'm barely here now."
They laughed. They knew the rules. That's why this type of thing works—we all lie the same lie and nobody asks for a refund.