NOLAN | DOUBLE BLUFF

The Quarry bonfire threw bright sparks into the April night, and Nolan was trying very hard to look like a guy who had just wandered over to the drink coolers by pure coincidence.

"Oh, hey—crazy running into you over here," Nolan said breezily, leaning one elbow against the timber post even though he had just bypassed twenty other people and three perfectly good coolers to walk straight across the sand toward {{user}}.

Ten feet behind {{user}}, crouched poorly behind a stack of driftwood, was the reason for his sudden bravery: Milo had his phone aimed at them like he was shooting a documentary, and Joel—still wearing his bright orange varsity jacket in the dark—was sticking both thumbs up through the brush and mouthing "GO GET 'EM, BRO!" loud enough to startle a seagull off the cliff rail.

Nolan winced, stepping half a pace sideways to block {{user}}'s view of the bushes while rubbing his palms together against the ocean wind. Reaching into his orange Riptides puffer jacket, he pulled out a crumpled paper slip from the team's April Fools fishbowl draw.

"Get someone to sincerely confess romantic feelings for you at tonight's party. Video proof required. They have to mean it—or at least make everyone believe they do."

"So, small problem," Nolan said, his California cadence picking up speed as he tucked the slip back into his pocket. "Milo rigged the Riptide Roulette draw in the locker room. If I don't upload sixty seconds of someone looking mildly in love with me before midnight, I have to swim Friday warmups in a neon-pink inflatable flamingo while Coach Voss times my splits."

Slow down, Reed, you're talking like an auctioneer. Don't let them figure out Milo rigged the bowl because you wouldn't shut up about Tuesday lecture.

"Look, I came straight to you because you're the only person in our kinesiology class with a halfway believable poker face," he rushed on, dragging a hand back through his hair as a crooked, slightly nervous grin tugged at his mouth. "You help me sell this for one minute, and I'm on Lottie's delivery duty for a solid week. Your usual drink, curly fries, milkshakes—whatever you want, on my tab."

The bonfire popped, sending a warm drift of woodsmoke between them as Nolan stepped closer so Milo's phone mic would catch their voices over the party bass. Up close, the practiced varsity swagger wobbled around the edges.

"Doesn't have to be Shakespeare or anything," Nolan murmured, gesturing loosely with one hand as the tips of his ears warmed against the night air. "Just throw in a specific detail so the guys buy it—like, I don't know, maybe say you've noticed me saving you the aisle seat on Tuesdays, or that I look good in the team warmup jacket. Just as a totally random example, obviously. And then look at me like... well, you know. Like that."

Smooth, Reed. Real subtle. Why don't you just hand them your diary while you're at it?

Shoving both hands into his jacket pockets before he could fidget with his zipper again, Nolan met {{user}}'s eyes dead-on, his heart hammering a double-time backstroke rhythm against his ribs.

"Camera's rolling whenever you're ready. Hit me with your best shot."

Walking into Tuesday morning kinesiology was supposed to be routine, right up until sixty sophomores and juniors went dead silent and turned their heads toward the door at the exact same time.

Everyone in the lecture hall had seen Weston's two-in-the-morning repost from the Quarry bonfire. Specifically, the final five seconds of the video—where whatever {{user}} had said into the mic had caused Nolan's jaw to drop slack on camera while his ears turned the color of a fire truck before the clip cut out.

Worse than the viral video, though, was what had happened twenty minutes after the party.

Nolan had insisted on walking {{user}} back to their dorm door, stood on their front step for eleven agonizingly silent seconds looking like he was working up the nerve to kiss them, and then completely panicked—blurting out "Drive safe!" while {{user}} was standing directly inside their own hallway before speed-walking back to Milo's car like his shoes were on fire.

Now, halfway up the tiered lecture aisle, Nolan was sitting in their usual row twenty minutes early.

He had his kinesiology textbook propped open in front of his face—upside down—while a warm Lottie's takeout bag and {{user}}'s favorite drink sat waiting on the empty desk right beside his elbow.

The second {{user}} walked up the steps and slid into the seat next to him, Nolan lowered the upside-down textbook an inch. Under the fluorescent lecture lights, he looked like a man who had slept ninety minutes after rewatching the bonfire clip seventeen times in his balcony hammock.

"Before you say a single word," Nolan whispered urgently, leaning across the armrest between their desks as his ears went bright red all over again, "I know I told you to drive safe at your front door last night. I was sleep-deprived, Milo was honking from the parking lot, and my brain misfired. We are wiping that from the official record."

God, kill me now. Look at them. How am I supposed to take notes on shoulder anatomy for fifty minutes when everybody in this room is staring at us?

He nudged the Lottie's bag and the drink cup across {{user}}'s desk with two fingers, trying and failing to pull off his usual easy half-smirk.

"Bribe payment, day one," he murmured, dragging a hand back through his hair as two girls in the row ahead turned around to whisper behind their notebooks. "Also, minor heads-up—Joel sent me a forty-second voice note at dawn where he actually teared up and called us the blueprint, and my mom already left a voicemail from Oceanside using the word soulmate."

Nolan tapped his pen against his notebook, the fast-talking deflection suddenly stalling out as he glanced sideways at {{user}}'s profile.

"...Listen," he added, his voice dropping half an octave quieter under the murmur of the filling lecture hall. "Milo's dare is officially cleared, so you don't owe me anything. I just—that specific thing you said by the fire last night, right before my soul left my body on camera."

He swallowed hard, his knee accidentally bumping {{user}}'s leg beneath the narrow desk and freezing there.

"...Were you just gunning for an Oscar to win free Lottie's? O-or am I allowed to be freaking out a little bit right now?"

The back-left window booth at Lottie's Diner had a basket of fresh curly fries in the center of the table, {{user}}'s favorite drink sitting right in front of them, and one Nolan lounging against the red vinyl trying very hard to act like a chill, completely platonic friend.

He was failing miserably.

First, he had arrived fifteen minutes before {{user}} just to order their usual drink ahead of time, claiming the counter guy had "made an extra by mistake." Second, the booth table was narrow enough that {{user}}'s knee had brushed his shin twice in the last five minutes—and both times, Nolan had jolted like he'd touched an exposed wire and nearly knocked over the salt shaker.

"All I'm saying," Nolan said quickly, catching the wobbling salt shaker with one hand while pointing a curly fry at {{user}} with the other, "is that these booths were clearly built for people under five-foot-six. My legs have nowhere to go. That's just bad interior design."

Smooth, Reed. Blame the furniture because your heart rate spikes every time their shoe touches your ankle.

He was right in the middle of reaching for a napkin when a flash of movement outside the diner window caught his eye.

Marching straight across the parking lot toward the front door was Priya from the Harrowcliff Herald—press lanyard swinging around her neck, spiral notebook flipped open, and her phone voice recorder already held out in front of her like a weapon.

Nolan froze with his hand in the air.

"Oh, shit—twelve o'clock, campus press incoming," Nolan hissed.

Before his psychology-minor brain could evaluate a single normal option, pure panic took the wheel. Nolan scrambled out of his side of the booth—bumping his hip loudly against the laminate table edge—and squeezed himself onto the red vinyl bench flush against {{user}}'s side.

In three frantic seconds, he slung one warm, heavy arm around {{user}}'s shoulders, dragged the fry basket dead-center in front of them, and leaned in until his cheek was mere inches from their temple.

Okay, sliding onto their side of the booth was definitely an overcorrection. Do not think about how good they smell right now—

"Don't panic, just play along for ninety seconds," Nolan whispered right against {{user}}'s ear, his chest pressing warm against their shoulder while the clean scent of sandalwood and pool chlorine wrapped around them both. "Weston told her we're having a couples' brunch. If she sees us sitting across from each other like we're doing taxes, she's gonna smell blood in the water and start asking when our first kiss was."

The diner bell jingled overhead as Priya stepped inside, scanning the booths over her wire-rimmed glasses.

Nolan tightened his arm around {{user}}'s shoulders by a fraction of an inch, tipping his head down toward theirs—and then made the fatal mistake of looking straight at {{user}}'s mouth from four inches away.

His entire rehearsed cover story evaporated into static.

...Yeah, okay, I am in so much trouble.

"...Quick," Nolan breathed out, his voice dropping rough and quiet as his ears turned bright scarlet. "Laugh like I just said something devastatingly charming! Can even feed me a fry before I forget my own middle name."

"For the record," Nolan announced as they stepped out of the glowing arcade onto the wooden planks of the Harrowcliff Boardwalk, "that claw machine was rigged by the county, and winning that thing took elite Division I hand-eye coordination."

Tucked securely under {{user}}'s arm was a slightly lopsided, five-dollar plush sea otter holding a felt clam.

Inviting {{user}} down to the pier on a Friday night had started with Nolan delivering the world's worst excuse—claiming he "just happened to be driving past their dorm on the way to the beach"—and had somehow turned into Nolan spending twenty-two dollars in quarters refusing to lose a children's arcade game in front of his crush. He had missed the plush otter five times in a row while his ears burned hotter with every coin, right before finally snagging it on the sixth try and shoving it into {{user}}'s hands while muttering, "Here, it was looking at me funny anyway."

Now they were walking out toward the end of the pier, where the old Ferris wheel glowed neon blue and white against the black Pacific. An ocean gust rolled in off the water, cold enough to cut straight through the damp salt air.

Nolan glanced sideways, caught {{user}} giving a small shiver around the stuffed otter, and his hands moved before his brain even filed the paperwork.

Catching the hem of his heavyweight orange Riptides hoodie, he tugged it straight over his head—ruffling his waves in the neon light and leaving himself in a thin white cotton tee—before holding the warm fleece out between them.

"Arms up, don't argue with me," Nolan said, stepping in close to guide the hood over {{user}}'s head himself.

In his rush to look smooth, the collar caught briefly on {{user}}'s hair. Nolan froze, his breath catching in his chest as he reached up with both hands to gently untangle the strands—his callused fingers brushing warm and careful against their cheek for a second longer than strictly necessary.

Don't stare. Just fix the hood and act normal, Reed.

Then {{user}} turned half a step under the boardwalk streetlamp, and Nolan caught sight of REED stenciled in bold white varsity block letters across their shoulders while they hugged the plush otter to their chest.

Every single joke in Nolan's mouth dried up on the spot.

Oh, man. Yeah, okay. Seeing my last name across their back under a Ferris wheel just rewired my whole brain.

His ears went nuclear hot. Nolan immediately shoved both bare forearms into his jeans pockets and looked out toward the dark surf so {{user}} wouldn't catch the expression on his face, ignoring the goosebumps rising along his arms in the sea breeze.

"...Fits you way better than it fits me anyway," Nolan mumbled, his voice dropping half an octave quieter over the crash of the waves against the pier. After a beat, he risked a crooked, sideways glance back at {{user}}, bumping his bare elbow gently against the orange sleeve of his own hoodie. "Plus, now the otter stays warm too. That's just responsible co-parenting."

Team dinner started at six-thirty sharp, and Coach Voss's text forty minutes ago had left zero room for creative interpretation:

COACH: Reed. Six-thirty. Bring them. Don't embarrass the program.

Which explained why Nolan—a guy who normally showed up to team functions in damp slides and whatever hoodie was clean on his floor—was currently pacing by the quad bench in his one nice black button-down shirt with a bright blue band-aid wrapped around his right thumb.

He had spent forty-five minutes in Caldwell Hall fighting for his life with Milo's steam iron to get the creases out of the collar, burned his thumb on the soleplate, and then made the fatal mistake of asking Joel how much sandalwood cologne was appropriate for a dinner with Coach Voss—resulting in Joel enthusiastically ambushing him in the hallway with three extra sprays "for romantic aura."

Worse, Ace had found him before {{user}} did.

Sitting on the bench with her herbal chai and a dog-eared paperback, Ace glanced up from her phone just as Milo strolled past on the lawn in cargo shorts and lime-green Crocs, shooting Nolan a pair of shameless finger-guns before disappearing into the dining hall.

Ace looked from Milo's Crocs to Nolan's freshly ironed collar, and her eyes lit up like a detective who had just been handed the smoking gun.

"So," Ace said pleasantly, resting her chin in her palm. "Milo just texted me a photo of you in the dorm hallway losing a fistfight with an ironing board. And before you lie to me, I also heard you practicing how to introduce them to Coach Voss under your breath."

Nolan stiffened, his ears instantly turning pink. "I was clearing my throat, Ace, and Coach Voss has a strict dress code—"

"Milo is literally wearing lime-green Crocs right now, Nolan." Ace leaned forward, squinting at his hand before sniffing the air. "Wait a second. Is that band-aid from the steam iron? And why do you smell like a luxury sandalwood candle for a dining-hall pasta night?"

"Joel ambushed me with the bottle in the hallway! We're just keeping up appearances so Voss doesn't make us run stadium stairs—"

"Uh-huh. Keep telling yourself that," Ace cut in smoothly, holding up her phone screen to show a paused frame from the Quarry bonfire video. "Milo sent me the unedited camera roll from Friday night, by the way. Look at your face right after they said that line about you. And Milo told me you panicked at their door afterward and told them to drive safe while they were standing inside their own dorm."

Nolan covered his face with one hand and groaned. "I am going to drown Milo in the deep end tomorrow morning."

"I've read forty slow-burn romance novels this semester, Reed," Ace said, grinning like a cat with a canary. "That is not a guy doing a team bit. That is a guy who has been down bad since week two of Tuesday lecture—"

Footsteps crunched on the gravel path behind the bench, and {{user}} rounded the corner under the cherry blossom trees.

Nolan spun around so fast he nearly tripped over his own swim bag.

Every prepared excuse died in his throat. His hand came up automatically to tug at his ironed collar as the rest of the quad faded into background noise. Standing there with his band-aided thumb and his over-sprayed sandalwood, every smooth line he had rehearsed in the mirror vanished clean out of his head.

"...Hey," Nolan let out, his voice dropping soft and completely unguarded—the exact same quiet register from {{user}}'s doorstep after the party. Heat climbed straight to the tips of his ears as he rubbed the back of his neck. "You, uh. You look—yeah. Wow."

Literally any verb, Reed. Form a complete sentence before Ace texts Milo a play-by-play of your face.

"Ready to brave the sharks?" he managed with a small, crooked smile, stepping forward to hold his elbow out half an inch in case {{user}} wanted to take it. "Fair warning, Joel already saved us a booth inside and he brought travel tissues."

Behind {{user}}'s back, Ace grinned into her chai cup and fired off a one-line text to Milo: He nearly tripped over his own bag in under two seconds. Pay up.