Chapter 1 - The Boy She Shouldn’t Notice
Lilly
The music was too loud to talk over, which was probably why Lucas had stopped trying.
His hands settled at Lilly’s waist as she moved with him in the middle of the crowded living room, his grin easy, familiar, slightly crooked from the drinks he’d already had. Someone bumped into his shoulder but he barely noticed. He just tightened his hold and pulled her closer.
Lilly laughed when he attempted to spin her and nearly sent her into another couple.
“Smooth.”
“Still worked.”
“Barely.”
Lucas caught her again before she could move away.
They’d been dating for almost a year and a half—long enough that Lilly knew exactly how his smile changed when he was pleased with himself, how his hands found her waist without thinking, and that he would kiss her whenever she laughed at him because he somehow considered that winning.
He did now.
Quick at first.
Then slower when she smiled against his mouth.
Lilly’s hands rested against his shoulders.
Everything around them blurred pleasantly into music, heat, and bodies moving too close together.
Until something shifted.
Not in the room.
In her.
That strange, prickling awareness of being watched.
Lilly opened her eyes.
Looked past Lucas’s shoulder.
And found Carter.
He stood across the room in the darker corner beside the windows, one shoulder against the wall, a bottle hanging from his fingers.
Oliver Carter.
Lucas’s older brother.
Twenty-one. Senior. One of the university’s best football players and something close to campus royalty because of it. On the field, Carter was the golden boy—the player people watched, talked about, and expected big things from.
Almost nobody called him Oliver.
Carter.
His teammates did. His friends did. Everyone on campus did. Even his family did, except his mother.
The name suited him too well.
Cold. Detached. Arrogant.
Off the field, Lilly mostly thought he was an asshole.
Cold enough that most people learned quickly not to expect much from him. Carter rarely explained himself, never apologized, and seemed perfectly comfortable letting silence do the work whenever he didn’t feel like talking.
Oliver had never made much effort to like her. For most of her relationship with Lucas, that had been easy enough to ignore—a look here, a sarcastic comment there.
Lately, though, something had shifted.
The looks lasted longer. The comments cut harder. And being in the same room with him had started to feel exhausting.
Lilly was getting tired of trying to figure out what the hell she had done to him.
He had an arrogance about him that should have made him easy to ignore.
It didn’t.
And tonight he was easily the last person Lilly wanted watching her.
He was clearly drunk already.
His dark hair had fallen over his forehead, nothing like the carefully pushed-back style he usually wore around campus. His black shirt sat open at the throat and partly untucked at one side. There was a looseness to the way he leaned against the wall that Lilly had never seen when he was sober.
Two girls stood around him.
One had her hand spread across his stomach beneath the open edge of his shirt.
The other was pressed into his side, talking close to his ear.
Carter barely seemed aware of either of them.
Because he was staring at Lilly.
Her smile slowly disappeared.
There was no softness in his expression.
No curiosity.
His eyes were dark and hard, fixed on her with enough intensity that Lilly had the ridiculous urge to check whether she had done something wrong.
She hadn’t.
She was dancing with his brother.
That was it.
Carter lifted the bottle.
Drank.
His gaze stayed on hers over the rim.
The girl beside him dragged her fingers slowly across his chest.
He didn’t look down.
Didn’t smile.
His jaw tightened instead.
Something about the stare made Lilly’s stomach pull strangely tight.
Not attraction.
Definitely not.
It felt closer to being accused of something without knowing what the accusation was.
She looked away first.
Lucas’s fingers pressed lightly into her waist.
“Hey.”
Lilly blinked. “What?”
“You disappeared.”
“I’m standing right here.”
“Physically.”
She smiled despite herself.
“Shut up.”
Lucas laughed and pulled her against him again.
Lilly let herself settle back into the moment.
Still, several minutes later, she glanced toward the windows without meaning to.
Carter was watching again.
His expression had changed.
Sharper now.
As though he was frustrated that she had caught him doing it twice.
Their eyes met.
A small, unpleasant current moved through her chest.
Carter looked away abruptly and turned toward the girl beside him.
This time, he seemed determined to notice her.
His hand settled on her hip.
He bent his head when she leaned closer.
Lilly turned back to Lucas.
Good.
Whatever Carter’s issue was tonight, he could keep it.
The party moved around them.
Someone changed the song. Emma appeared with drinks and immediately complained that the kitchen had become impossible to cross. Lucas disappeared with two teammates for several minutes and returned carrying chips he hadn’t paid for.
Normal.
Easy.
Lilly almost forgot about Carter.
Almost.
Until she looked across the room one last time.
He was gone.
The corner by the window stood empty.
Something in her shoulders relaxed.
She hadn’t realized how aware of him she’d become until he wasn’t there anymore.
That annoyed her almost as much as the staring had.
---
By eleven, Lilly had stopped pretending the second drink had been a good idea.
She wasn’t drunk.
Not really.
Just warm in a way the room didn’t completely explain, with a faint heaviness behind her eyes and the uncomfortable sense that the floor took half a second too long to settle whenever she stopped moving.
She leaned against the kitchen counter.
The bass from downstairs seemed to pulse straight through her skull.
Lucas noticed immediately.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“You look pale.”
“That’s flattering.”
He touched the back of his fingers to her cheek.
“You’re warm.”
“So is everyone in here.”
“Go lie down for ten minutes.”
“I don’t need to lie down.”
“Lil.”
She sighed.
Lucas nodded toward the stairs.
“There are rooms upstairs. Maybe one of them’s empty. Go. I’ll get you some water.”
“I can get my own.”
“I know.”
His mouth brushed her forehead.
“Go.”
Lilly rolled her eyes but obeyed.
The upstairs hallway felt cooler and blessedly quieter. The music became a dull vibration beneath her feet instead of something rattling inside her chest.
She walked toward the end of the hall.
Most of the doors were closed.
Lilly tried one.
Locked.
She tried the next one, unlocked.
She pushed it open.
And froze.
Carter was naked.
