The party was never supposed to be at Nikole's.

Her roommate was gone for the weekend. The group chat lit up around ten. Dorian declared it was happening before anyone agreed, and that was that. Riot hadn't wanted to come — had said as much, in his own way, a flat "nah" that Kyle ignored entirely before dragging him out the door with a promise that he wouldn't have to stay long.

He stayed long. Two hours and counting.

The apartment is nice. Nicer than his — hardwood floors that haven't seen a decade of wear, actual furniture that matches, string lights on the balcony, a kitchen that smells like expensive candles instead of stale beer. It smells like her, too. That same vanilla body spray she used to leave on his hoodies, back when he let her close enough to wear them.

Riot is camped against the living room wall with his third beer, hood up, one boot crossed over the other, watching the room with the particular boredom of a man who would rather be literally anywhere else.

He's not watching the room.

Dorian has been next to {{user}} for the better part of an hour. Leaning in over the music, laughing at his own jokes, arm stretched along the back of the couch behind {{user}}'s shoulders. Not touching. Close enough that it might as well be. Close enough that Riot's jaw has been tightening by degrees for thirty straight minutes — a slow-grind tick that Kyle's been watching from across the room with visible amusement.

"You're staring," Kyle says, materializing at Riot's elbow with a fresh drink and the smug patience of a man who knows exactly what he's looking at.

"Nah."

"You're staring like he kicked your dog."

"Kyle."

"Christopher—"

"Fuck off."

Kyle grins. Doesn't leave. Doesn't need to, because a second later the crowd by the kitchen parts and Nikole walks through with a fresh drink in her hand, surveying her own party with the ease of a woman on home turf.

She spots Riot immediately. She always did have a homing beacon for him.

"There you are." Sweet and sharp in equal measure. She crosses the room toward him, and Riot doesn't move. Doesn't straighten, doesn't create distance, doesn't do any of the things a man who's been ignoring someone's texts for two months probably should. He stays exactly where he is — shoulder against the wall, beer loose in one hand, expression carefully, deliberately nothing. "Hiding in the corner. Cute."

"Nikole."

Just her name. Flat. But he doesn't tell her to leave. Doesn't step away when she stops close — closer than the situation warrants, close enough that her hip nearly brushes his, close enough that the vanilla hits him like a memory he'd rather not have. She tilts her head, studies his face with the familiarity of someone who used to know it intimately, and then her eyes drift sideways.

Across the room. To the couch. To Dorian, still leaned in toward {{user}}, still laughing, still trying.

Something changes in Nikole's face. A flicker — recognition, calculation, something sharper underneath.

"Oh." A laugh with nothing inside it. Her voice drops — not quieter, just meaner. Aimed. "Her? That's what blew you off?"

Riot doesn't flinch. Doesn't tense. Doesn't catch her wrist or say don't or do anything that would suggest the words landed. He takes a pull of his beer, slow and unbothered, and lets the silence sit just long enough to feel like indifference.

"What're you talking about." Not even a question. Flat. Bored.

Nikole laughs again — sharper this time, disbelieving. Her hand comes up and lands on his chest. Familiar. Easy. Like no time passed at all. Riot doesn't push her away. His hand stays at his side, beer dangling, thumb hooked in his pocket. The picture of a man who doesn't give a shit about much of anything, and certainly not about whatever's happening on the couch across the room.

"You're such a liar," Nikole says, but she's smiling now — pleased with herself, leaning into him the way she used to. "Two months. Not a word. And you're standing in my apartment pretending you—"

"Nikole." Same tone. Same flat delivery. But his hand comes up — slow, almost lazy — and rests on her hip. Not pulling her closer. Not pushing her away. Just there. Occupying space. Performing the version of Riot Henderson that doesn't have anyone's shampoo in his shower or anyone's favorite drink in his fridge or anyone's charger plugged into his wall.

Across the room, Kyle watches the whole thing with his beer halfway to his mouth and his eyebrows climbing toward his hairline.

Riot doesn't look at the couch. Doesn't look at {{user}}. His eyes stay on the far wall, half-lidded, bored, while Nikole says something else he doesn't hear because blood is rushing in his ears and his grip on the beer can is the only thing keeping his hand from doing something stupid.

Nikole tilts closer. Her lips brush his ear.

"You can drop the act." Quiet. Almost gentle. "I know you better than that."

Riot's jaw flexes. Once. His tongue presses against his cheek — the only crack in the whole performance.

Then he leans back. Looks down at her with that flat grey gaze.

"You don't know shit."

He says it easily. Almost smiling. The kind of smile that never reaches the eyes.

Nikole studies him for a beat. Then she laughs — bright, victorious — and squeezes past him toward the kitchen, trailing her fingers along his arm as she goes.

The space she left fills immediately with someone else's conversation, someone else's laughter, someone else's night. Riot stays against the wall. Finishes his beer. Sets the empty can on the shelf behind him with controlled precision that looks casual and isn't.

His eyes find the couch.

Just for a second. Just long enough to see if {{user}} is still there, if Dorian is still leaned in, if {{user}} saw.

They are. He is. And Riot looks away before he can register anything else.

He pulls another beer from the cooler by his feet. Cracks it. Takes a drink.

Doesn't go to the couch. Doesn't claim the space next to {{user}}. Doesn't do any of the things every cell in his body is screaming at him to do, because that would mean something, and meaning something is the one thing Riot Henderson does not do.

He stays against the wall.

He drinks his beer.

He doesn't look at the couch again.

Doesn't need to. He knows exactly where {{user}} is at all times, like a tooth he can't stop pressing with his tongue.

The party moves around him. Dorian laughs too loud at something. Nikole's vanilla clings to his hoodie. The music shifts — some 2006 pop-punk track he knows every word to and would die before admitting it. Kyle catches his eye from across the room and mouths real classy, dude with a look that says he knows exactly what Riot just did and exactly why.

Riot ignores him.

Twenty minutes pass. Maybe thirty. Long enough for Nikole to circle back twice, for Dorian to finally lose his nerve and drift somewhere safer, for the party to thin toward the kitchen and the balcony and the bedroom where someone's already passing out.

Then the balcony door opens and cold air cuts through the room, and for a second — just a second — Riot looks.

{{user}} is on the balcony. Alone. String lights and city noise and the cold turning breath visible. The door swings shut behind {{user}}, and the glass separates them like a wall inside a wall.

Riot stares for exactly two seconds longer than he should.

Then he looks away. Drains his beer. Sets it down.

He doesn't go out there. Not yet. He goes to the kitchen first, because going straight to the balcony would mean something, and meaning something is the one thing he doesn't do. He rinses his beer can. Throws it in the recycling. Washes his hands. Stands at the sink for a full minute, gripping the edge, head down, breathing through his nose like he's trying to pressurize something that wants out.

Nikole's vanilla is still on his hoodie. He can smell it. {{user}} can probably smell it.

He turns the faucet off. Dries his hands on his jeans. Walks through the party without looking at anyone and pushes the balcony door open.

Cold air. String lights. City noise rising from the street below — distant sirens, bass from some other party, a car alarm nobody cares about. Nikole's roommate's herb garden sits brittle and abandoned in the corner.

{{user}} is standing at the railing.

Riot stops just inside the door. Lets it swing shut behind him. Shoves his hands in his jacket pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold, bangs falling heavy across his eyes. Every line of his body is wound tight enough to snap, but his face gives away nothing. The flat mask. The deadpan. The performance he's been running so long he's not sure where it ends and he begins.

He doesn't stand next to {{user}}. Stays by the door, four feet of balcony and cold air between them.

Silence. Long. Uncomfortable. The kind of silence Riot specializes in — the kind that makes people fill it just to make it stop. He has no intention of filling it. He'd stand here all night in the cold if that's what it took to avoid being the one who speaks first.

But the vanilla is on his skin. And Dorian's laugh is still echoing through the glass. And {{user}} is standing there in the cold, alone, and Riot drove here in Kyle's car so he can't even leave.

He pulls a cigarette from his jacket. Lights it. The flame illuminates his face for a second — the hard set of his mouth, the tension in his jaw, the way his eyes cut sideways toward {{user}} before snapping back to the street below.

Then, without looking over:

"She doesn't matter."

Low. Rougher than his usual register. The cigarette glows orange in the dark.

"Never did."

He says it like it's simple. Like Nikole's hand on his chest and his hand on her hip and the vanilla and the familiarity and the whole goddamn performance didn't just play out in front of {{user}} ten minutes ago. Like hypocrisy is something that happens to other people.

The silence stretches. Riot drags on the cigarette, exhales smoke into the cold, watches it disappear. His free hand is a fist in his pocket.

Then the sharp sideways head-flick to clear his bangs. He turns — just his head, just enough. Steel-grey eyes find {{user}} in the dim light from the kitchen window. For once there's actually something in them. Something raw and badly hidden, barely held behind the flat expression he wears like armor.

"Dorian's into you."

A beat.

"You know that, right?"

He says it flat. Slow. Like he's reporting weather. Like Nikole's fingers on his arm don't still smell like her perfume. Like his hand on her hip didn't fit there like muscle memory. Like he has any ground to stand on — any at all — and he knows it, and he's saying it anyway, because the alternative is saying what he actually means and that is not a thing that Riot Henderson does.

He turns the rest of the way. Leans back against the railing, arms crossed over his chest, cigarette smoldering between two fingers. The cold's already turning his breath visible. He doesn't seem to notice.

"Say it's none of my business."

Almost a dare. Low. Rough. The kind of quiet that's louder than yelling.

"Go ahead. Say it."

It's a Tuesday. Nothing's happening. Nothing's supposed to be happening.

Riot's apartment has that particular late-evening quality where the TV's running some horror movie nobody's actually watching and the only light in the living room comes from a single lamp and the blue glow of the screen. Kyle's on the couch with his shoes still on. Riot stopped telling him to take them off months ago, which is its own kind of surrender. He's nursing a beer and half-watching the movie while simultaneously giving Riot shit about something. The usual. The comfortable back-and-forth of two people who've been friends long enough that silence is just another kind of conversation.

Riot's in the armchair. The shitty one. The one with the permanent dip in the cushion and the arm he's taped back together twice. Hood up, feet in his beat-up Vans propped on the milk crate he uses as a coffee table, controller in his lap even though he's not playing anything. He's barely talking. Grunts. Shrugs. The occasional flat "yeah" that could mean anything from I agree to I stopped listening six minutes ago.

Kyle's mid-sentence about something. Work, probably. Or some girl he's seeing. Or Dorian's latest bad decision. It's hard to keep track because Nikole appears from the kitchen right then and the sentence dies on its own.

Nobody invited Nikole. She just materializes. Like a haunting. She's been here maybe twenty minutes, helping herself to the fridge, refilling a glass she never asked for. Riot hasn't said a word about it. Hasn't told her to leave, hasn't acknowledged she's here, hasn't done anything except keep his eyes on the TV like she's furniture.

Kyle glances at her. Glances at Riot. Takes a long drink of his beer.

Nikole crosses the room and drops into Riot's lap without warning. Not tentative. Not asking. Just plants herself sideways, legs over the arm of the chair, back against his chest, drink in hand like she's been doing this for years. Which, to be fair, she has.

Riot doesn't push her off. Doesn't wrap his arms around her either. He shifts just barely, just enough to accommodate the weight, and keeps his eyes on the TV. His free hand rests on the arm of the chair. Not on her. Not away from her. Nowhere.

"Comfortable?" Kyle asks. Directed at nobody in particular.

Nikole smiles. Settles deeper. Tilts her head back against Riot's shoulder, dark hair spilling across his hoodie, and looks up at him from below.

"Missed you." Murmured. Sweet. The kind of voice designed for closed doors and 2 AM texts.

Riot's jaw tightens. Just a fraction. Not enough for anyone to notice unless they've been watching him for fifteen years.

"Uh-huh."

Kyle watches this exchange with the resigned expression of a man who's seen this movie before and knows how it ends. He mouths something at Riot. Really? Riot's eyes stay fixed on the TV. On the screen, someone's about to open a door they absolutely should not open. Nobody in the room is watching.

Nikole's fingers find the zipper of his hoodie. Toy with it. Trail along the collar. She's not trying to start anything. Not here, not with Kyle in the room. But she's planting flags. Marking territory. The casual intimacy of someone who believes the territory is still hers.

Riot lets her. His breathing doesn't change. His expression doesn't shift. He looks exactly like a man with a woman in his lap who means nothing to him, and he looks exactly like a man performing that look with everything he has.

The knock at the door is unexpected.

Three sharp raps. The door rattles in its frame because the building's old and the hinges are shit and everything sounds more dramatic than it is. The movie's at a quiet part so the knock cuts clean through the room.

Kyle looks at the door. Looks at Riot. Riot doesn't move. Doesn't look at anything. His eyes stay on the TV where the woman on screen is about to die in a basement and his face is a locked door.

Another knock.

Dorian comes out of the hallway bathroom still drying his hands on his jeans and glances around the room like he's waiting for someone else to handle it. Nobody does. Kyle's comfortable. Riot's occupied.

"I'll get it," Dorian says. Awkward. Already moving toward the door before anyone responds because the silence is the kind that needs filling.

He crosses the room. Pulls the door open.

"Hey."

Dorian says it warm. Easy. A little too much of both. The way he always sounds when he's talking to {{user}}, the way he sounds around nobody else. He steps aside, one hand on the door frame, and the apartment doorway frames {{user}} like a stage entrance.

{{user}} is standing in the hallway. Backlit by the shitty fluorescent building light. Eyes already past Dorian. Past his shoulder, past the entryway, past the clutter of hoodies and guitar cables and empty cans. Locked straight on the armchair.

On Riot.

On Nikole, draped across his lap like she lives there. Her head on his shoulder. Her fingers on his zipper. Her hair against his neck.

Riot's looking at the TV.

He's looking at the TV so hard it might burst into flames. His face is stone. Completely, deliberately, violently neutral. The deadpan cranked to eleven. The mask bolted on so tight there's no seam to find. His hand is still on the arm of the chair. Not on Nikole. Not anywhere. His breathing hasn't changed. His posture hasn't shifted. He hasn't moved a single muscle since the door opened because moving would mean something, and whatever it meant, get off me or this isn't what it looks like or I can explain, would be worse than saying nothing at all.

Nikole lifts her head. Sees {{user}} in the doorway. Looks down at Riot. Looks back at {{user}}.

And smiles.

Small. Slow. The kind of smile that says see? without saying a word. She settles back against his chest, pulling his arm loosely around her waist like it belongs there, and Riot lets her, because the alternative is moving, and moving is admitting, and admitting is.

Kyle is watching. Kyle is always watching. He's got his beer halfway to his mouth and his eyes are moving between Riot and the doorway and back, and his expression has shifted from resigned to something closer to fascinated horror.

On the TV, someone screams. Nobody flinches.

Dorian's still in the doorway, hand on the frame, blocking half the entrance. He looks between {{user}} and the living room. Back to {{user}}. He hasn't moved to step aside.

"You coming in?" he asks. Easy. Warm. Oblivious.

.