1:01 | The Night the Sparks Fly
The smell of alcohol, the roar of laughter, and speakers are cranked so loud the music physically vibrates in my chest. Red Solo cups, swaying bodies, a crush of people packed into every corner — this is a college frat party, exactly the way I’d picture it. Weaving through the crowd, I finally let myself feel it for real: I’m actually a college student now.
I duck around a junior making some truly unhinged noise and pull out my phone.
11:45 PM.
I’ve been here for over an hour already. Somehow, that’s surprising.
Fifteen minutes until I am supposed to meet him. Should I head over early and wait? That seems like the right thing to do.
I scan the room.
Mark — who’s dragged me here in the first place — is over by the far wall, completely absorbed in a beer pong game with his friends. Sebastian is… I catch a flash of his back disappearing toward the kitchen, probably going for a refill. Star slugger for the Belmont Stallions, and it shows — he has a full head on everyone else in the room, easy to spot even through the noise and the bodies. You’d never lose Sebastian Thorne in a crowd.
Either way, with neither of them watching me, this is my window.
I start drifting toward the staircase, keeping low, staying out of their line of sight.
“Hey. Kiddo. Where do you think you’re sneaking off to?”
The voice comes from directly behind me — low, unhurried, like gravel wrapped in velvet — and I stop dead. I checked. I literally watched him walk toward the kitchen before I even took a single step. How is he already right here?
I sigh, turn around, and look up at him. Because apparently that is my only move.
“That’s none of your business, Seby.”
I cross my arms over my chest for good measure, going for the look that says I’m in college now and I don’t owe you an explanation.
He raises one eyebrow, then he leans down, folding that ridiculous length of him toward me.
“Since when do you keep secrets from me?” His voice drops lower. “Minnie, I’ve known you since you were a baby. You really think you can hide something from me?”
Every inch he closes between us, his voice sinks deeper, until I can feel it against my eardrums.
“Or,” The corner of his mouth curves up. “Did you actually find something worth hiding?”
That smirk — slow, self-assured, infuriatingly easy — is Sebastian’s signature. On anyone else, it would be obnoxious. On him, it is devastating in a way that makes no sense and isn’t fair. If the girls across the room can see him up close right now, there must be screaming.
Standing directly in the path of that smirk, at this distance, with no escape route? There is no version of this where I don’t blush. It is just physiology. Completely out of my control.
I keep my heartbeat to myself and quietly look away.
“…Maybe?”
I say it with as much breezy mystery as I can manage, then draw in a slow breath to steady myself.
I regret it immediately.
The second I inhale, his cologne hits me — warm, clean, and far too close. The sudden awareness of exactly how little space exists between us makes my head go a little hazy.
“Oh yeah?” He tilts his mouth up even further and leans in closer.
“You are blushing.” His voice is barely above a murmur. “Gotta wonder what’s causing that. Or maybe I should be asking who.”
The noise of the party should’ve swallowed it. But somehow every single word Sebastian says lands directly in my ear — every syllable, every soft exhale grazing my cheek — and I feel my face getting hotter by the second.
I stare at him, quietly resentful. He tilts his red cup and watches me over the rim like he has absolutely nowhere to be. I hate how effortless he looked.
Still blushing, I hold his gaze and open my mouth.
“Why do you even care?”
For just a second — barely a flicker — something moved behind his eyes. But then his mouth curves back into that same lazy smirk, smooth and easy, like nothing has shifted at all. Enough to make me wonder if I imagined it entirely.
“Just curious, Kiddo.”
Kiddo. The nickname he’s had for me since we were kids — still the one he reaches for whenever he wants to get under my skin. I guess when you’re a six-foot-three draft prospect, a girl who barely hits five-foot-two just registers as microscopic. Even now that I’m finally, finally in college, he still manages to look down at me and make me feel like I haven’t grown a single inch.
“So?” He straightens up, eyes dropping down to hold mine.
“Is it someone I should know about?”
Arms crossed. Waiting. It is pretty clear that I am not getting past him without an answer.
She hasn’t changed at all since we were kids — same pink-flushed cheeks, same eyes darting every direction when she got flustered. I stand there watching Minnie and try to understand why picturing her with some other guy makes me want to put my fist through something.
She is supposed to be like a little sister to me. That’s what she is supposed to be. But every time I get too close, my heart rate spikes like I’ve just finished a conditioning run.
This is wrong. I know it is wrong. She is Mark’s little sister. My best friend’s little sister. I know that. And yet I can’t seem to stop it.
I’ve always been overprotective of Minnie — that is nothing new. But whatever I am feeling right now is beyond that, something with more weight to it, and I hate myself for it.
I know I shouldn’t be thinking about her like this. I know. But I can’t let it go — can’t not know who she is sneaking off to meet. I need the chance to shut it down before anything can start between her and whoever this guy is.
The thought of Minnie with someone else is enough to make me feel like I’m coming apart at the seams.
