We do.

Within twenty minutes, we’ve made it to the biggest freshman courtyard party on campus. No booze (yet), but the energy’s manic. There are blankets spread out, people tossing a football, acoustic guitars, neon cups, bad decisions already loading in the background.

I slip in like it’s second nature. Laughing. Smiling. Winking. Girls lean toward me instinctively, boys elbow each other when they figure out who I am.

Wes blends in differently. He’s got that “don’t care if you like me” vibe that somehow makes everyone want to talk to him. We’ve been doing this for years. Since we were kids sneaking out of events with our ties undone, lying about our names, pretending we weren’t cursed with spotlight blood.

“You’re already famous,” Wes says, passing me a soda. “That girl in the purple skirt asked if she could smell your hoodie.”

“Did you let her?”

“Duh. You’re welcome.”

We spend an hour drifting through the crowd. Someone hands me a cupcake. A guy with a man-bun challenges Wes to a chug-off. It’s stupid, it’s chaotic, it’s exactly what I needed.

I even forget about her for a while.

Almost.

There are two ways I deal with a problem:

Ignore it.
Or make it wish it never met me.

Eliana Rae is currently getting both.

Wes and I hit the courtyard party like we’re trying to erase the first five hours of move-in day. I flirt. I charm. I laugh too loudly at jokes that aren’t funny. I give my number to a girl in red sneakers who smells like peaches. I tell myself I’m fine.

And for a while, I actually believe it.

The air is warm, the campus buzzes with first-night chaos, and nobody here knows me as anything other than some guy with good hair and a dangerous smile. For a moment, I feel weightless.

But the second I open the dorm door, it all drops.

The suite’s dark.

Empty.

No hoodie girl. No laser stare. No emotionally bankrupt roommate on her side of the room.

Relief hits me like cool water. I didn’t realize how much tension I was carrying until it disappears.

I drop onto my bed, arms splayed. “She’s gone.”

Wes collapses into the desk chair, kicking his feet up. “Maybe she dropped out already. Mysterious vanishing act. That’d be sexy.”

“She’s not sexy,” I say automatically.

He smirks. “You noticed, though.”

I throw a pillow at his face.