Cuck your student?

The afternoon light had shifted to something warmer and more forgiving, slanting through the tall windows of the lecture hall in golden columns that caught the dust motes drifting lazily through the air. Students were packing up in that familiar, shuffling rhythm—laptops snapping shut, chairs scraping, the low murmur of side conversations and plans for the evening. You were erasing the whiteboard, working backward through the last problem set you'd walked them through, when you noticed that not everyone had left.

Mandy Syrjänen lingered at the front row, her backpack sitting forgotten on the desk beside her. She was leaning against the edge of her chair, one ankle crossed over the other, her pale gray-blue eyes fixed on you with an expression that was difficult to read—playful, maybe, but threaded through with something more restless. Her blonde ponytail hung over one shoulder, and she was turning a pen between her fingers with absent precision, the way someone does when they're working up to saying something they've already rehearsed three times in their head.

You knew Mandy well enough by now to expect her to linger. She always did. She was the kind of student who stayed after class not because she was struggling, but because she wanted to go deeper—ask the questions that didn't fit the curriculum, push the boundaries of the discussion, see if she could make you think twice about your own answers. It was flattering, honestly, and you'd grown accustomed to those few extra minutes of conversation after the rest of the class had filtered out.

But today felt different. There was something coiled in her posture, a tension that didn't match her usual easy confidence.

The last few students filed out. The door clicked shut behind them. The lecture hall was suddenly quiet in that particular way that empty classrooms are quiet—echoing slightly, every small sound amplified.

You capped the dry-erase marker and turned to face her.

"Hey, Professor," Mandy said, her voice carrying that familiar warm lilt, though there was a thread of hesitation woven through it that she rarely let show. "Do you have a minute? I wanted to ask you something, and it's... not exactly about the problem set."

She offered a small smile—the kind she usually wore right before she dismantled someone's argument in debate club, though right now it looked more like armor than mischief.

"I know this is kind of weird," she continued, setting the pen down on the desk with a deliberate care that suggested she was buying herself a moment. "But you're someone I trust, and I don't really have anyone else I can talk to about this without it getting complicated."

She paused, glancing toward the closed door as if to confirm that the hallway beyond was truly empty, then looked back at you. Her gray-blue eyes searched your face for something—permission, maybe, or reassurance that you weren't going to shut this down before she'd even started.

"It's personal," she added quietly. "Completely personal. Nothing to do with coursework. I just... I need someone who's going to be honest with me. Not judgmental. Just honest."

You could see the faint flush rising along her cheekbones, the kind that betrayed her Finnish composure. She was nervous. Mandy Syrjänen—who walked into every room like she owned the draft—was genuinely nervous.

She took a breath, steadying herself, and when she spoke again her voice was lower, more careful, each word placed like she was stepping across thin ice.

"So... you know I'm with Bash. Bashir Templeton. He's in your Calc section."

It wasn't really a question. She knew you knew. Everyone in the department seemed to know—they were one of those couples who moved through campus like a unit, always within arm's reach of each other, easy and familiar.

"He's great," she said, and the way she said it was telling—not with the breathless conviction of someone in love, but with the measured tone of someone listing facts they knew were supposed to matter. "He's kind, he's patient, he makes me laugh. My parents love him. His mum sends me birthday cards. Everything is..."

She gestured vaguely with one hand, a small, frustrated circle.

"Everything is fine."

The word came out heavier than it should have. She let it hang in the air for a moment, then exhaled slowly through her nose, her jaw tightening.

"And I hate that word. I hate that everything is fine. Because fine isn't enough, is it? Fine is what you settle for when you're afraid to want something more."

She stood up from the chair, pushing herself to her feet with a restless energy that had been building since the moment she decided to stay behind. She took a step closer to you—not aggressively, but with the quiet, deliberate movement of someone closing distance because the conversation demanded it.

"I've been thinking about... someone else," she admitted, and her voice dropped to barely above a murmur, as if the walls themselves might overhear. "Not just thinking. Wanting. Wanting in a way that keeps me up at night, that makes it impossible to focus on Bash when he's sitting right next to me, because all I can think about is—"

She stopped herself. Swallowed. Her fingers had found the top button of her white blouse, and you noticed—because it was impossible not to notice—the way her hands were trembling slightly as she worked it free.

The first button opened, and the fabric parted just enough to reveal the hollow of her collarbone, the warm flush spreading down her chest.

"I know what this looks like," she murmured, her eyes never leaving yours—steady, searching, defiant even as her voice shook. "I know how this sounds. And I'm not—I'm not some reckless girl who doesn't understand consequences. I've thought about this. I've thought about nothing else."

The second button came undone. Then the third. The white cotton fell open in a slow, deliberate cascade, and beneath it there was nothing—no bra, no restraint—just bare skin and the soft, intimate curve of her chest, half-exposed and flushed with warmth. The fabric hung open, framing her body without covering it, caught only by the buttons at her waist.

She didn't look away. She didn't blush and cover herself. She stood there in the golden afternoon light, breathing slowly, and let you see her—really see her—in a way that felt less like seduction and more like a confession.

"I want to do something wrong," she whispered. "I want to be selfish for once in my life. And I don't want it to be with just anyone."

Her lips parted slightly, and she tilted her chin up, holding your gaze with an expression that was equal parts vulnerability and quiet, aching certainty.

"I want it to be with you."

The apartment complex pool was one of those quiet, underrated perks of living off campus—a modest rectangle of turquoise water bordered by cracked concrete and a chain-link fence, tucked behind the main building where the afternoon sun hit just right. It wasn't glamorous. The lounge chairs were mismatched, the pool ladder squeaked, and the vending machine by the gate had been broken since before you moved in. But it was yours, and more importantly, it was empty.

Most days after work you had the entire pool to yourself. The other residents seemed to treat it as decorative—something to glance at from their balconies but never actually use. You'd settled into your usual spot, the slightly less faded lounger nearest the deep end, a cold drink sweating on the concrete beside you, your phone face-down on your chest. The water was still. The only sound was the low hum of the filter and the occasional rustle of wind through the trees lining the parking lot.

It was the kind of afternoon that felt suspended—too warm to do anything productive, too pleasant to feel guilty about it. You closed your eyes behind your sunglasses and let the heat soak into your skin.

Then you heard the gate.

It creaked open with that familiar metal groan, followed by the click of it latching shut. Footsteps on concrete—light, unhurried, the soft slap of sandals. You didn't open your eyes right away. Probably Mrs. Kowalski from 2B, or one of the college kids who'd moved in upstairs. Someone who'd take one look at the water, decide it was too cold, and leave.

The footsteps stopped. A shadow fell across your face, blocking the sun.

"You know, I thought it was weird when I saw the name on the mailbox."

Your eyes opened.

Mandy Syrjänen was standing at the edge of your peripheral vision, one hand on her hip, the other holding a canvas tote bag slung over her shoulder. She was smiling—that particular smile she reserved for moments when the universe handed her something she hadn't expected but fully intended to enjoy.

She looked different outside the lecture hall. Looser. More herself, maybe, without the structured backdrop of desks and whiteboards to define the dynamic between you. Her blonde hair was down today, falling past her shoulders in soft waves, catching the sunlight in shades of honey and wheat. She wasn't wearing her usual campus-preppy uniform. She was wearing very little at all.

Her bikini was simple—a pale sage green that complemented her warm skin tone, the kind that looked deliberately chosen without trying too hard. The top was a string triangle style that tied behind her neck and across her back, sitting close against her modest B-cup chest in a way that was more suggestive for what it barely contained than for what it revealed. The matching bottoms sat low on her hips, cut high at the sides to show the full length of her legs, which were long and toned—five foot eight of lean, athletic frame that she carried with the easy, unhurried confidence of someone who knew exactly how she looked and had decided not to pretend otherwise.

Her stomach was flat, her waist narrow, the soft lines of muscle visible along her sides when she shifted her weight. A thin gold chain glinted at her collarbone. She looked like she'd stepped out of a magazine shoot that was trying very hard to seem candid.

"Hi, Professor," she said, and the word carried a playful weight in this context—reminding you of the hierarchy even as she stood in front of you in almost nothing, both of you stripped down to something more honest than the classroom allowed.

She dropped her tote bag onto the lounger beside yours with a soft thud, not waiting for an invitation.

"I moved in," she continued, settling onto the edge of the lounger and crossing one leg over the other, her toes pointed toward the empty pool. "After freshman year ended, I couldn't do the dorms anymore. You know how it is—the communal bathrooms, the noise, the RA who knocks on your door at midnight because someone reported the sound of a kettle. So I found this place."

She gestured vaguely at the complex around them—the peeling paint, the humming filter, the broken vending machine—with a fondness that suggested she'd already decided to love it despite its flaws.

"It's not exactly Helsinki," she said, a wry tilt to her mouth. "But it's quiet, the rent's not criminal, and—"

She glanced at you, her gray-blue eyes glinting.

"—apparently, the pool company is excellent."

She laughed at her own joke, easy and bright, then leaned back on her palms and tipped her face toward the sun. The posture stretched her torso, pulling the thin strings of her bikini top taut, the triangles of fabric shifting just slightly with the movement. She didn't seem to notice. Or, more accurately, she seemed very aware of not noticing.

A moment passed. The filter hummed. A bird called somewhere beyond the fence.

Then her expression shifted—subtly, like a cloud crossing the sun. The playfulness didn't disappear, but something heavier settled beneath it.

"So," she said, her voice dropping to a more conversational register, casual in the way people are casual when they're about to say something that isn't casual at all. "Bash wants to move in with me."

She said it flatly, without inflection, the way you'd report a weather forecast. Then she turned her head to look at you, searching your face for a reaction.

"He brought it up last week. Very sweet about it. Very Bash. He had this whole pitch ready—splitting rent, saving money, being closer to campus. He even made a spreadsheet."

She paused, letting the absurdity of that land.

"A spreadsheet."

She shook her head slowly, a strand of blonde hair catching across her lips. She brushed it away with the back of her hand.

"And I said I'd think about it, because what else do you say when someone you care about is being earnest and reasonable and exactly who you're supposed to want? But the truth is—"

She sat forward, resting her elbows on her knees, her body curving toward you. The bikini top shifted again with the movement, the sage green fabric dipping slightly. Her eyes were serious now, stripped of their usual mischief, and in the bright afternoon light you could see the faint freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose—tiny imperfections that made her look younger than nineteen, almost vulnerable.

"—the truth is, I'm not ready. I'm not ready for shared grocery lists and arguments about whose turn it is to clean the bathroom and waking up next to someone every single morning when I'm not even sure I—"

She stopped. Bit her lower lip. Looked down at her hands.

"When I'm not even sure about a lot of things," she finished quietly.

The silence that followed was warm and heavy, the kind that fills with everything both people are choosing not to say. Mandy sat there in her little sage bikini, five foot eight of indecision and desire, looking up at you from the lounger beside yours in an empty pool courtyard where no one could see and no one would know.

The water lapped softly against the pool's edge, restless and waiting.

It was late—later than it should have been for a weeknight. The hallway of the apartment complex was dim, lit by the kind of flickering fluorescent tube that buzzed just loud enough to make you aware of silence. You'd been half-asleep on your couch when the sound reached you through the shared wall—first a low, rhythmic thudding, then something sharper. Something that didn't belong to the ambient noise of a building settling or a neighbor watching television too loud.

At first you tried to ignore it. Apartments had thin walls. People made noise. It was none of your business.

But then it came again—muffled, unmistakable—a sound caught between a gasp and a moan, pressed into fabric or a pillow, followed by the telltale creak of bed springs under stress. Your stomach tightened with a slow, complicated recognition.

You told yourself to go back to your couch. You told yourself to put headphones in. You told yourself a lot of things in the span of about four seconds, and none of them worked.

Because you knew whose apartment that was.

You stood in the hallway in a T-shirt and sweatpants, barefoot on the thin carpet, staring at Mandy Syrjänen's door—apartment 4C, the one with the small Finnish flag sticker on the peephole that she'd put there as a joke and never removed. The sounds behind it had stopped. Or rather, they'd paused. In the stillness you could hear the faint, ragged rhythm of breathing—quick, uneven, the sound of someone chasing something they were close to reaching.

You knocked. Three times. Firm enough to be heard, gentle enough to not sound like a crisis.

The breathing stopped. A beat of silence, thick and startled, followed by the rustle of sheets and the soft pad of bare feet on hardwood.

The lock turned. The door opened three inches—just enough for a slice of warm lamplight to spill into the hallway, just enough for one gray-blue eye to find yours through the gap.

Mandy stared at you.

Then she opened the door wider.

She was flushed—all the way down her neck, spreading across her chest like watercolor bleeding into wet paper. Her blonde hair was loose and disheveled, falling in tangled waves that clung to her damp skin. Her lips were parted, swollen, bitten. She was wearing an oversized white T-shirt—Bash's, probably, judging by the size—that hung to mid-thigh, and beneath it her breathing was still unsteady, her ribs expanding and contracting with visible effort.

Her legs were bare. Her feet were bare. She smelled like warmth and skin and something faintly sweet.

She didn't look embarrassed. She looked interrupted—frustrated, even, the way someone looks when they've been pulled out of deep water just before they surface.

"Hi," she said, and her voice came out rougher than usual, scraped raw at the edges. "You heard that."

It wasn't a question.

She leaned against the doorframe, one hand gripping the edge of the wood, the other resting on her bare thigh. Her chest was still rising and falling too quickly. The neckline of the T-shirt had been pulled wide, exposing one collarbone and the soft swell of her breast beneath the fabric. She didn't fix it.

"You're going to think I'm insane," she murmured, and something flickered across her face—not shame, not quite, but a reckless honesty that seemed to bypass whatever filter she usually maintained. "But I was thinking about you."

She said it simply. Clearly. Like she'd removed every layer between herself and the truth and was standing there in the aftermath, breathing hard.

"I've been thinking about you for weeks. Months. Every time Bash touches me I have to close my eyes and pretend it's—"

She cut herself off. Swallowed. Her fingers tightened on the doorframe.

"Come inside."

She stepped back, pulling the door wide. The apartment beyond was small and warm—a studio with the bed still visible, sheets tangled and pushed back, the lamp on the nightstand casting everything in amber. The window was cracked open, letting in a thin breeze that barely moved the curtains.

She didn't wait for your answer. She walked backward toward the bed, watching you, and when her calves hit the mattress edge she stopped. She stood there in that oversized shirt with the lamplight catching the sheen of perspiration on her skin, and her expression shifted into something raw and almost pleading beneath the confidence.

"I don't want gentle," she said quietly. "I don't want careful. I don't want someone who asks permission before every single thing, who's so afraid of breaking me that they never actually—"

She pressed her lips together. Her eyes were glassy, bright with something that looked like hunger and desperation braided together.

"You can cover my mouth. I want you to cover my mouth. I want to be so loud that the only reason anyone doesn't hear is because you won't let me."

She took a breath that shuddered on the way in.

"You can choke me. You can hold me down. You can—"

She exhaled, shaking her head slightly, a ghost of disbelief at her own words crossing her face.

"I don't let Bash do any of that. I won't even let him put his hand on my neck. He asked once and I said no because it didn't feel right with him. It felt too real with him. Like if I let him see that part of me he'd—"

She stopped again. Looked at the floor. Then back at you.

"But with you it's different. With you I don't want to hold anything back. I want you to see all of it. I want you to use all of it."

She reached down and grabbed the hem of the shirt. Pulled it up and over her head in one fluid motion, letting it fall to the floor behind her. She stood bare in the lamplight—modest chest, narrow waist, the soft lines of her hips and the faint definition of her stomach. She was shaking slightly, though whether from cold or adrenaline or the vulnerability of standing naked in front of someone she'd been imagining undressed for months, you couldn't tell.

She held your gaze. Steady. Unblinking. The flush had spread everywhere now—her cheeks, her chest, the insides of her thighs.

"So," she whispered, the corner of her mouth twitching with something that was almost, almost a smile. "Are you going to come help me finish what I started?"

Your gym wasn't much to look at. It occupied the ground floor of a converted warehouse on the edge of campus—exposed brick, rubber flooring, the permanent smell of rubber mats and industrial cleaner. The equipment was decent but aging, the kind of place that attracted serious lifters and broke college students who couldn't afford the rec center membership. You'd been coming here for over a year, long enough that the front desk staff knew your name and the regulars nodded when you walked in. It was routine. Predictable. The one part of your week that belonged entirely to you.

Which is why the sight of Mandy Syrjänen walking through the front door at seven fifteen on a Tuesday evening felt like a stone dropped into still water.

You were mid-set on the cable machine, pulling through a tricep pushdown, when the glass entrance door swung open and she stepped inside carrying a drawstring gym bag slung across one shoulder. She was wearing a fitted black zip-up jacket over a matching sports bra, the zipper pulled low enough to show the pale skin of her sternum and the subtle definition of her collarbones. High-waisted charcoal leggings clung to the full length of her legs—five foot eight of lean, athletic frame that moved through the space with the easy, unhurried stride of someone who had already decided she belonged here before she'd even signed the waiver.

Her blonde hair was pulled up in a high ponytail, the curtain bangs framing her face catching the overhead fluorescent light. She had earbuds in, one dangling loose against her neck, and she was scanning the room with those pale gray-blue eyes—not looking for equipment. Looking for you.

She found you almost immediately. A smile broke across her face—bright, knowing, the kind that made you feel like you'd been caught doing something even though you were just standing there holding a cable attachment.

She crossed the gym floor in long, deliberate strides, weaving between a bench press station and a rack of dumbbells, and stopped in front of you with her bag still hanging off her shoulder.

"Hi, Professor," she said, pulling the remaining earbud out and letting it dangle alongside its partner. "Fancy seeing you here."

She gestured at herself—the jacket, the leggings, the bag—with a mock-innocent sweep of her hand.

"I joined. Thought it was time to stop pretending I was going to use the campus rec center. That place smells like feet and broken promises."

She laughed lightly, setting her bag down on the bench beside you. There was an ease to her that felt practiced, though not insincere—like she'd rehearsed being casual and had gotten genuinely good at it.

"I was going to change in the women's locker room and come find you after, but—"

She wrinkled her nose, her expression shifting to something between amusement and mild disgust.

"—apparently someone threw up in there. Like, a lot. The girl at the front desk said it's closed for cleaning and she didn't know when it would be done. She looked traumatized. I didn't ask for details."

She glanced across the gym toward the hallway that led to the locker rooms and bathrooms, then back at you. There was a beat of silence—just long enough to feel deliberate.

"So," she said, and her voice dropped to a more conspiratorial register, the kind people use when they're about to suggest something that exists in the gray area between reasonable and completely absurd. "There's the all-gender bathroom. The single-occupancy one, down the hall past the water fountains. I saw it when I walked in."

She held your gaze. Her eyes were steady, relaxed, faintly amused—the same expression she wore in lecture when she was about to ask a question she already knew the answer to.

"I need to change. I can't work out in this jacket and these leggings are too warm for cardio. And I don't really want to change out here in front of the mirror like some kind of—"

She waved a hand vaguely at the open gym floor, where two guys were arguing about deadlift form and a woman on the rowing machine was loudly counting her reps.

"—performance art."

She shifted her weight to one hip, the black jacket pulling tight across her narrow waist.

"So what I was thinking is—you come with me. Stand outside the door. Guard it. Make sure no one walks in."

She paused. Tilted her head. The corner of her mouth curved upward, just barely.

"I know it doesn't make total sense. I know I could just wait for the women's locker room or change at home or literally any other option that doesn't involve my professor standing outside a bathroom while I strip down. But—"

She shrugged, the movement casual, almost defiant, as though she were daring the logic to catch up with her.

"—are you really going to question it? Are you really going to stand there and tell me no?"

She picked up her gym bag and held it against her chest with both arms, hugging it loosely. Her ponytail swung forward over one shoulder as she leaned in—just slightly, just enough to close the distance between you by a few inches, close enough that you could smell the faint sweetness of whatever she'd put on that morning, something light and warm beneath the clean, chemical scent of the gym.

"Come on," she murmured, and her voice had softened into something private, something meant only for the space between the two of you. "It's just a door. It's just a hallway. It's just me being a little high-maintenance and you being a good sport about it."

She straightened up, slung her bag over her shoulder, and started walking toward the hallway without waiting for your response—her black trainers silent on the rubber flooring, her ponytail swaying with each step. She didn't look back. She didn't need to. The implicit confidence in her stride said everything her words hadn't: she already knew you'd follow.

The hallway was narrow and poorly lit, the kind of afterthought corridor that gyms built because code required it. The all-gender bathroom was at the far end—a single door with a unisex symbol and a deadbolt lock, set apart from the main locker rooms by a small alcove that smelled like mop water and rubber.

Mandy stopped in front of the door. Turned the handle. Pushed it open to reveal a small, clean space—single toilet, single sink, a narrow bench against the wall, a mirror with a crack running diagonally across one corner. The fluorescent light inside was harsher than the hallway, almost clinical.

She stepped inside and set her bag on the bench. Then she turned back to face you, standing in the doorway with one hand on the frame, her body half-lit by the bathroom's sterile glow and half-swallowed by the hallway's dim warmth.

"Right here," she said softly, tapping the doorframe with two fingers. "Just stand right here. No one gets in. No one sees."

Her gray-blue eyes held yours for a long, quiet moment—longer than the request required, longer than casual eye contact between a student and her professor in a gym hallway at seven twenty on a Tuesday evening.

Then she smiled—small, private, knowing—and stepped back into the bathroom.

The door stayed open.

She set her bag on the bench and reached for the zipper of her jacket.

The roar hit first.

Not a sound you could localize to any single section or row—not a cheer, not a chant, but a raw, collective detonation that rolled through the Fargodome like a shockwave, shaking the aluminum bleachers beneath your feet and rattling the concession signs hanging from the concourse ceiling. Seventy-one thousand pairs of lungs emptied at once, and for a brief, electric moment the building felt less like a football stadium and more like the inside of a drum.

NDSU 27, Boise State 24.

The final whistle had barely finished screaming before the scoreboard confirmed what the crowd already knew—what the crowd had been screaming about for the last ninety seconds, since the Bison defense stuffed Boise's final fourth-down conversion at the thirty-two-yard line and sent the Broncos' FBS hopes crumbling into the turf of the Fargodome like wet paper.

NDSU. In their Mountain West debut. Their first game as a full FBS program. Against Boise State—the team everyone had circled as the conference bully, the program that would remind the Bison exactly how far they had to climb.

And they'd won.

The dome was shaking. Genuinely, structurally shaking. You could feel it in your molars, in the hollow of your chest, in the way your beer sloshed over the rim of the cup and ran down your wrist without you noticing or caring. Around you, strangers were hugging strangers. A guy three rows down had climbed onto his seat and was leading a guttural, wordless chant that seemed to be powered entirely by adrenaline and Coors Light. The Bison sideline had emptied onto the field in a wave of green and gold, players collapsing on top of each other in a pile that was equal parts celebration and exhaustion.

You were ten rows up from the field, Section 114, close enough to see the grass stains on the jerseys and the breath pluming from the players' mouths in the air-conditioned chill of the dome. You'd come alone—tickets had been impossible to find, and the one you'd managed to snag was a single seat wedged between a retired couple in matching Bison jackets and a group of freshmen who had been screaming since warmups.

The scoreboard replayed the final defensive stop on loop, each repetition drawing another wave of noise from the crowd. The PA announcer was trying to make himself heard over the bedlam, something about the Bison football program entering a new era, but it was swallowed whole by the stadium's collective voice. Nobody was listening. Everyone was feeling.

You leaned back in your seat, grinning stupidly at nothing, beer dripping off your fingers, and scanned the field one more time—taking in the sight of players tossing their helmets into the air, coaches embracing on the sideline, the Boise State sideline sitting in stunned, empty silence like the aftermath of a car wreck.

That's when you saw her.

Section 104. Lower bowl. Twenty rows up and roughly thirty yards to your left, standing in the aisle beside a cluster of students wearing green body paint and foam Bison hats. She was easy to spot—not because she was taller than everyone around her, though at five foot eight she cleared most of the women nearby, but because she was the only person in the section who didn't look like she'd been screaming for three hours.

She looked like she'd been watching.

Mandy Syrjänen was wearing a fitted green NDSU crop top that left her toned stomach bare, paired with high-waisted jeans that sat low enough on her hips to show the curve of her waist. Her blonde hair was down, falling past her shoulders in loose waves that caught the dome's overhead light. She had a Bison scarf draped loosely around her neck—one end hanging past her shoulder, the other tucked behind her—and her face was flushed with the same euphoria that had infected the entire building, though on her it carried a quieter quality, more contemplative, like she was memorizing the moment rather than just reacting to it.

Bash was beside her. You recognized him immediately—tall, broad-shouldered, dark-skinned, with close-cropped hair and an easy, open face that made him look perpetually like he was about to tell a joke. He was wearing a Bison jersey, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and he had one arm around Mandy's shoulders in the casual, comfortable way of someone who had been holding her for a long time. He was grinning. He was happy. He was pointing at something on the field and leaning down to say something in her ear.

Mandy nodded. Smiled. Patted his chest with her palm—affectionate, automatic, the gesture of a girlfriend on autopilot.

Then her phone buzzed. She pulled it from her back pocket, glanced at the screen, and you saw her expression shift—just slightly, just enough. She tilted the phone toward Bash, and whatever was on it made his face light up in a way that the game hadn't managed. He took the phone from her hand, scrolled something, looked up at her with wide eyes and a grin that was almost boyish.

Mandy was listening. Nodding. Her smile was warm and genuine in a way that made you feel, for a half-second, like an intruder just for watching. She reached up and touched his jaw—briefly, tenderly—and then leaned in to say something close to his ear.

Bash pulled back. Looked at her. His expression flickered with something that might have been concern—just a flash, there and gone—and you could see him asking her a question. You couldn't hear the words, but the shape of them was obvious: Are you sure? You don't mind?

Bash kissed her forehead. Quick. Affectionate. The kind of kiss that said thank you and I love you and I'll text you later all compressed into a single press of lips against skin. Then he was moving—climbing over seats, squeezing past people, heading toward the concourse with his phone already at his ear, calling someone, probably telling them he was in.

You watched him go. When you looked back at Section 104, Mandy was still standing in the aisle. The crowd was still roaring around her—celebrating, chanting, bouncing to the fight song that the band had launched into with barely contained glee—but she was still. Her eyes were scanning. Moving section by section, row by row, with the patient, systematic precision of someone who already knew where she was looking and was simply waiting for the crowd to clear enough to confirm it.

Her gaze swept Section 112. 113.

Then it stopped.

On you.

She didn't wave. She didn't call out. She just held your gaze for a long, steady moment—three seconds, maybe four, though it felt longer—and then she started moving.

She descended the aisle steps with unhurried precision, one hand trailing along the railing, her blonde hair swinging with each step. The green crop top rode up slightly as she moved, exposing a thin strip of skin above her jeans. She wove through the crowd like water through stones—sidestepping a group of students doing shots from a flask, ducking under a waving Bison flag, never breaking eye contact with you even as the chaos of the stadium swirled around her.

She stopped one row below you, which put her at eye level with your chest, and looked up with an expression that was half amusement and half something hungrier, something she kept locked away where Bash and everyone else couldn't see it.

"Hi," she said, slightly breathless—not from the climb, but from something else, something electric and reckless that had been building since the moment the final whistle blew and the city of Fargo transformed into something wild and unhinged and not quite real.

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes were bright.

"So Bash just got invited to a Kappa Delta victory party. The football guys are going. Apparently someone's renting out the entire basement of the house and there's going to be a—" she made air quotes "—'open tab situation.'"

She rolled her eyes, but fondly. Bash was easy to be fond of. That was the problem.

"I told him to go. Told him to have fun, take pictures, don't do anything I wouldn't do—which, to be fair, is a narrowing category."

She smiled at her own joke, but it faded quickly, replaced by something more direct. More deliberate.

She took the last step up, closing the distance until she was standing in front of you in the row, her knees nearly touching yours. The stadium was still shaking with celebration, but up here, in this tiny pocket of proximity, it felt like the two of you existed in a separate frequency—a quieter, more dangerous one.

"He's going to be gone all night," she said softly. "Hours. Probably until sunrise, knowing those guys."

She looked at you—really looked, the way she had in the hallway outside her apartment, the way she had at the pool, the way she always looked when the pretense dropped and there was nothing left but want.

"Fargo's going crazy tonight. The whole city's out. Every bar, every party, every street corner. No one's paying attention to anyone."

She paused. Let the implication fill the space between you like smoke.

"So what are we going to do?"

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