Chapter 1
The cafeteria during the first week of second semester was absolute chaos, but the noise level reached an entire new peak near the central quad windows.
Sophie slid a tray containing a double-shot espresso and a spinach wrap onto the wooden table, leaning in with the intensity of a top-secret investigator.
“Look at him,” Sophie whispered, motioning subtly with her chin toward the counter across the room. “Just look at him, Amber. He’s carrying three books in one arm, talking to Professor Vance, and still managing to look like he’s starring in a high-budget sports drama.”
Amber didn’t even look up from her iPad, her digital highlighter smoothly marking a section on contract law. “He’s holding textbooks, Sophie. That is literally the bare minimum expected of a second-semester law student.”
“It’s not just textbooks!” Maya, another classmate sitting beside Sophie, dramatically gasped, resting her cheek on her hand as she stared across the room. “It’s the way he holds them. Did you see him during the soccer match last term? Noah Bennett is single-handedly keeping the university’s reputation alive. Half the campus has a crush on him, and at least three girls in our torts seminar have a written plan to ‘accidentally’ bump into him near the library.”
“Please tell me you’re joking,” Amber sighed, finally tapping her screen off and taking a sip of her iced coffee. “He’s just a guy.”
“Just a guy?” Maya looked offended. “Amber, he’s Noah Bennett. He’s smart, he’s a star athlete, he has that stupidly perfect jawline, and he acts like he doesn’t even know how popular he is. Even Sophie agrees!”
“I’m not ashamed to admit it,” Sophie said, taking a sip of her espresso. “If he looked in my direction for more than three seconds, I’d probably forget my own student ID number. You, on the other hand, look at him like he’s an unpaid parking ticket.”
Amber choked slightly on her coffee, coughing quickly to recover. “I do not!”
“You totally do,” Maya agreed, leaning across the table. “In fact, everyone thinks you two are low-key rivals. You’re top of the class, he’s top of the class and sports captain. Whenever you two pass each other in the law hall, the air gets so cold you could freeze ice cream.”
Amber rolled her eyes, hiding the sudden urge to laugh. Rivals? If only they knew that the high-and-mighty Noah Bennett had texted her at 2:00 AM last night complaining that he couldn’t find his matching sock and asking if she’d secret-deliver a toasted bagel to his morning lecture.
“We are not rivals,” Amber said smoothly, crossing her arms. “We just don’t interact. He has his crowd, I have mine.”
“Because you think he’s overrated!” Sophie accused playfully, nudging Amber’s shoulder. “Admit it! Every girl on this campus would jump at the chance to get his number, and you act like he’s entirely unimpressive.”
“Because he is normal,” Amber insisted, trying to sound as convincing as possible. “He’s not some mythical figure. He probably burns his toast, sleeps past three alarms, and uses cheesy pick-up lines.” (All of which were 100% factual, as she had witnessed firsthand for the last fifteen years.)
“That’s blasphemy,” Maya laughed. “He’s perfection on two legs.”
Right on cue, a shadow fell over their table.
“Who’s perfection on two legs?” a smooth, familiar voice chimed in.
Amber’s back stiffened for a microsecond before she looked up. Noah was standing right beside their table, holding a black coffee in one hand and a stack of folders in the other. He wore a simple grey university hoodie, his hair slightly messier than usual, and a faint, teasing smirk playing on his lips.
Sophie froze, her coffee cup hovering halfway to her mouth. Maya practically stopped breathing.
Noah’s gaze swept over the table, lingering on Amber for half a second with a flicker of amusements before settling politely on Sophie and Maya.
“Oh! Noah!” Maya blurted out, her face instantly turning bright red. “Hi! We were just... talking about... the law seminar syllabus!”
Noah’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “Right. The syllabus. Truly captivating stuff.” He looked directly at Amber, his voice dropping into that smooth, pleasant tone he used whenever he was playing the charming stranger in public. “Excuse me, Carter. You dropped your pen near the printer earlier.”
He extended his hand, placing a simple black pen onto the corner of her table.
It was her pen—the exact model she had left on his kitchen counter over the weekend when she was study-cramming at his place.
Amber looked at the pen, then looked up at Noah, narrowing her eyes slightly. He was enjoying this way too much.
“Thanks, Bennett,” Amber said coolly, her voice dripping with formal distance. “Appreciate the effort.”
“Anytime,” Noah said smoothly, stepping back and flashing a brilliant, effortlessly charm-filled smile that made Maya audibly catch her breath. “Don’t work too hard, Carter. Wouldn’t want you passing out before our contracts debate.”
“Don’t worry about me, Bennett. Just make sure you actually read the assigned pages this time,” she shot back without missing a beat.
Noah let out a soft laugh, resting a hand on his heart in mock offense. “Ouch. Harsh as always.”
With a polite nod to Sophie and Maya, he turned and walked toward the exit of the cafe, joining a group of guys from the soccer team who greeted him with loud pats on the back.
The second he was out of earshot, Maya let out a dramatic gasp and slammed her hands on the table.
“DID YOU SEE THAT?!” Maya squeaked, grabbing Sophie’s arm. “He talked to us! Well, he talked to you, Amber, but still! The tension! The quick banter! You two really are rivals!”
Sophie stared at Amber, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully as she watched her friend casually pick up the pen and toss it into her bag.
“I don’t know, Maya,” Sophie said slowly, a sharp, curious glint in her eyes. “That didn’t look like rival tension to me.”
Amber paused, her hand hovering over her bag zipper. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m just saying...” Sophie leaned in, whispering, “For two people who claim to be total strangers, he sure knew exactly which pen belonged to you.”
Amber’s heart did a sudden, quiet thud against her ribs, but she quickly smoothed her expression into her best unbothered smile.
“He saw me drop it, Sophie. It’s not that deep.”
“Rivalry or not,” Maya sighed dreamy, leaning back in her chair, “he’s practically a god.”
Amber buried her face in her hands, hiding a groan. If they only knew that ‘the god of the campus’ had accidentally put his hoodie on backward twice last week and still cried whenever he watched The Lion King.
The dorm room was almost pitch black, save for the soft glow of the streetlights filtering through the blinds and the tiny blue light on Amber’s phone screen. It was 12:05 AM.
Amber was tucked under her heavy duvet, holding her phone sideways as her fingers flew across the keyboard.
Amber: If you drop another pen on my table tomorrow to act cool, I’m stabbing your hand with it.
A second later, three dots popped up.
Noah: Admission of intent to assault a star athlete? Bold move, Carter. Besides, you loved it. Maya looked like she was going to faint.
Amber: Maya is delusional. And you’re an idiot.
Noah: An idiot who saved your favorite pen. You’re welcome, by the way. Go to sleep, law prodigy.
Amber bit back a smile, rolling onto her side and slipping the phone under her pillow.
“Amber?”
Sophie’s voice echoed softly from the opposite bed. Amber froze, holding her breath for a second before sighing. “Yes, Sophie?”
“Do you think... if I asked Noah Bennett out on a date, he’d say yes?”
Amber’s eyes snapped open in the darkness. Her heart did a weird, uninvited little flutter that she immediately tried to stomp down. “What?”
“I’m serious,” Sophie said, sitting up in her bed, her silhouette faintly visible. “I was thinking about it all evening. He’s single, right? I mean, nobody’s ever seen him with a girlfriend. If I casually approached him after our joint lecture on Thursday and asked him for coffee... do you think he’d give me a chance?”
“I... uh...” Amber stared at the ceiling, feeling an bizarre, uncomfortable knot forming in her stomach. Noah? On a date with Sophie? “I honestly couldn’t tell you, Soph. I don’t know how his brain works.”
“You two talk like you want to throw punches at each other,” Sophie giggled softly. “I just wonder what kind of girl he actually likes. He’s so guarded, you know?”
Guarded? Amber almost scoffed out loud.
Her mind immediately drifted back—way back, past the polished university halls and fake rivalries, to a time when Noah Bennett was anything but guarded.
How could anyone call him guarded when Amber had seen every single embarrassing, ridiculous, unfiltered version of him since they were four years old?
They didn’t just go to the same high school. They went to the same preschool. They grew up in houses directly across the street from each other, separated by a narrow asphalt road and two tidy front lawns.
Her mind flooded with memories.
Every single birthday party featured Noah blowing out half her candles because he couldn’t wait for cake. Every Christmas morning, he’d sprint across the street in his mismatching flannel pajamas before her parents had even turned on the coffee maker. Every family dinner, holiday barbecue, and summer vacation—Noah was just there, as permanent and constant as the sky.
She remembered the summer they were fifteen, sitting on her roof at 2:00 AM eating stolen slices of cold pizza. Noah had tried to jump off the garage roof into the inflatable pool to impress her, missed completely, landed in her mother’s prized hydrangea bushes, and spent two weeks hiding from her dad.
She remembered Ethan—her annoying little brother—standing in the kitchen doorway with a juice box, staring at them with a smirk that was far too mature for a twelve-year-old.
“Why are you guys always attached at the hip?” Ethan had sneered, taking a slow sip. “It’s creepy. You’re totally going to get married and have ugly kids.”
“Shut up, Ethan!” Amber had screamed, chucking a throw pillow straight at his head.
“I’d rather eat a handful of bees than marry her!” Noah had shouted from the couch, dramatically gagging.
“Good, because I’d rather jump off a cliff than date you, Bennett!”
“You guys are in denial,” Ethan had sung out, dodging the pillow and skipping down the hall. “Mom! Noah’s picking out wedding venues again!”
They had chased Ethan around the living room like absolute lunatics that day, tackling him into the rug until their mothers had to pull them apart.
They were inseparable. They had shared every victory, every heartbreak, every stupid, chaotic moment of their entire lives.
And then came the decision before moving to college: Let’s see who we are without each other attached to our names. They had agreed to play strangers, a hilarious inside joke between the two of them to escape the endless “are they or aren’t they” whispers that had followed them their whole lives.
“Amber? Are you awake?”
Sophie’s voice broke through the haze of memories, snapping Amber back to the dark dorm room.
Amber blinked, pulling her gaze away from the ceiling. “Yeah. Sorry, I was just thinking.”
Sophie leaned against her headboard, her phone screen lighting up her face as she scrolled through the university portal. “I was looking at the high school archives from our state. I noticed you and Noah went to the exact same high school in the same city. Oakridge High, right?”
Amber’s posture went instantly rigid under the blanket. She cleared her throat quickly. “Oh. Uh... yeah.”
“That’s so wild!” Sophie said, turning her head toward Amber. “It’s a pretty decent-sized school, but you guys were in the same graduating class. You lived in the same town, went to the same school for four years, and you still never talked back then either?”
Amber squeezed her eyes shut, frantically inventing a plausible explanation on the spot.
“Honestly? I never really noticed him in my school list,” Amber lied smoothly, her voice a masterclass in nonchalance. “Oakridge was huge, Soph. He was always off doing varsity sports stuff, and I was locked in the debate hall and AP classes. We belonged to completely different worlds back then. I barely knew he existed until we ended up in the same law seminar here.”
“Fascinating,” Sophie murmured, though her tone sounded suspiciously thoughtful. “So he was just an invisible ghost to you for four years?”
“Totally invisible,” Amber declared, pulling the blanket up to her chin. “Now go to sleep, Sophie. You have an 8:00 AM lecture.”
“Fine, fine,” Sophie chuckled, slipping back under her covers and locking her phone. “Goodnight, Amber.”
“Night.”
Amber lay in the dark, her heart pounding just a little too fast. She quietly reached under her pillow, pulled out her phone, and opened her text thread with Noah.
Amber: Sophie just asked if I think you’d say yes if she proposed to you.
The response came back almost instantly.
Noah: And what did my ‘invisible’ high school classmate say?
Amber gasped softly, her jaw dropping. He overheard? No, he couldn’t have.
Amber: How do you know about that?!
Noah: Ethan called me ten minutes ago laughing his head off because you told mom on the family group chat that I was ‘overrated.’ Also, tell Sophie I’m flattered, but I’m holding out for someone who actually knows how to handle my chaotic energy. 😉
Amber: You are the absolute worst.
Noah: Goodnight, Carter. See you in Contracts. Try not to stare.
Amber stared at the glowing screen, a soft, helpless laugh escaping her lips before she hid her face in her pillow. Playing strangers was getting harder by the day—especially when her traitorous heart was starting to forget why they were pretending in the first place.
