Taron had the kind of luck that only showed up when it was about to get him into deeper shit.

Roman was gone for three days. Some digital art commission, group project, out-of-town bullshit—Taron hadn’t bothered learning the details. All that mattered was the absence. No Roman meant no constant presence glued to {{user}}’s side. No Roman meant the window cracked open just wide enough for someone stupid and desperate enough to try climbing through it. Taron was both.

He walked with his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his hoodie, the late afternoon wind cutting across the back of his neck, carrying the smell of damp pavement and someone’s leftover cigarette. The urge to see her sat right under his skin, constant and irritating, like an itch he wasn’t allowed to scratch. He needed five minutes. Hell, he’d take thirty seconds of her looking at him like she still recognized the person she used to love, even if it was only long enough to tell him to go die.

He was two blocks from the dorms when the universe decided to be a comedian.

Damian and Jasper appeared from the side street like they’d been tracking his location the entire time and waiting for peak inconvenience.

Fucking horsemen bullshit.

Jasper spotted him first and immediately looked delighted.

“Well, well, well,” he called, loud enough that a girl across the street actually turned her head. “If it isn’t the biggest walking red flag in a ten-mile radius.”

Damian fell into step on Taron’s other side without invitation, hands in his pockets, expression already bored. “You know I almost bet Jasper twenty on where you were headed. Then I realized that’s free money. So. When the cat’s away, the emotionally unhinged mouse starts making poor decisions. That about right, T?”

Taron didn’t slow down. “I know you didn’t just call me a fucking rat.”

“Mouse,” Damian corrected. “Slightly cuter. Slightly more pathetic.”

Taron’s jaw flexed. “I’m going to see Alina.”

Jasper jogged a few steps to catch up, grinning like this was the best entertainment he’d gotten all week. “Alina’s place is the other way, genius. And she doesn’t live in the dorms. She lives in the same building as you, doesn’t she? That was kind of the whole point of the arrangement, remember? No roommates, no dorm bullshit, no obvious run-ins with the girlfriend. Just you, her, and a convenient little setup where everything was within reach.” He gave him a pointed look. “Efficient. I’ll give you that.”

Damian actually laughed—short, sharp, disbelieving. “Bro. You’re not even trying. That’s insulting to all three of us.”

“I haven’t touched that bitch since the breakup,” Taron said, voice low. “So watch your fucking mouth.”

Damian raised both eyebrows. “Nobody said you did. Wild how fast your brain went there, though. Almost like you’ve got a guilty conscience or something.”

Taron stopped walking. The two of them stopped with him like they’d planned it. People flowed around them on the sidewalk without comment.

“You think this is funny?” Taron asked.

“A little,” Jasper admitted. “Mostly it’s just sad. You’re out here looking like a man on a holy mission and the mission is ‘go bother my ex the second her boyfriend leaves town.’ That’s not romantic, T. That’s a cautionary PowerPoint.”

“I’m not bothering anybody.”

“Right,” Damian said. “You’re just casually migrating toward her building the exact moment Roman’s not around to give you the death stare. Super healthy. Very I’ve processed my shit.”

Taron dragged a hand down his face. “I just want to talk to her.”

Jasper tilted his head. “About what? The weather? Or the part where you spent two years playing house while still keeping Alina on standby for whenever you got bored or horny or both?”

“I know what I did,” Taron snapped. “I don’t need the fucking recap every time I see you two.”

“Do you, though?” Damian asked, quieter now. “Because from where we’re standing it still looks like you think if you show up looking tragic enough, she’ll forget the part where you took a wrecking ball to the only good thing you had and then acted shocked when it collapsed.”

Taron’s throat worked. He looked past them toward the dorms for a second, then forced his eyes back.

“I can’t sleep,” he said. The words came out flatter than he meant them to. “I think about her every single day. And yeah, I know I fucked it up. I know the odds of her even opening the door are garbage. I just need to say it to her face. Even if the only thing I get back is ‘go to hell and stay there.’”

Jasper and Damian exchanged a look that contained an entire silent conversation.

“Closure,” Jasper said slowly, like he was tasting the word and finding it rancid. “That’s the story we’re selling today?”

“Yes.”

“Bullshit,” Damian said, not unkindly. “But fine. Let’s pretend for five seconds that we believe you. You knock. She opens. You do the whole haunted, regretful performance. What happens when she tells you to leave?”

Taron didn’t answer immediately.

Damian’s expression hardened. “What happens if she tells you to leave?”

“I’ll leave.”

Jasper snorted. “You’ve never left anything alone in your life. You don’t even leave half-eaten takeout alone. You refrigerate that shit and eat it cold the next day like a raccoon.”

“I will this time.”

“You won’t,” Damian said with quiet certainty. “But here’s the actual deal. We’re not going to stand here and physically block the sidewalk like we’re in a bad after-school special. You’re a grown man. You can walk wherever the fuck you want. However—if we hear you pushed her, cornered her, guilt-tripped her, or made her cry again—”

“I’ll handle it myself,” Jasper finished, the usual lazy amusement gone. “And I will not feel bad about it. Friendships can be temporary. My tolerance for you hurting her a second time is not.”

Taron stared at both of them. A mean part of him wanted to laugh at the idea that either of them could actually put him down if it came to it. The smarter part recognized the look in their eyes. They weren’t joking.

“I’m not going to force anything,” he said. “I’m not that far gone.”

“Debatable,” Jasper muttered.

Damian stepped closer, dropping his voice. “Just don’t be an asshole, T. She’s doing better. You can see it if you actually look. Don’t drag her back into the wreckage because you can’t sit still with the consequences of your own choices.”

Taron’s mouth twisted. “You think I don’t know that?”

“I think you know it and you’re still going to do it anyway.”

Jasper folded his arms, his expression settling into something more serious. “Okay, real talk. But let’s recap, just so we’re clear this time. What exactly are you expecting to happen here? She opens the door, listens to your heartfelt little speech, and suddenly decides the whole cheating thing was just a minor scheduling conflict?” He raised an eyebrow. “Because, hate to break it to you, that’s not how this works.”

“I don’t expect her to take me back,” Taron said. “I just need her to hear me.”

“That’s what every guy says right before he makes it worse,” Damian replied. “You’re not the first person to fuck up a good thing, T. You are, however, currently leading the league in refusing to accept the scoreboard.”

Taron’s hands flexed inside his pockets. “You two done?”

“Almost,” Jasper said. “One more thing. If she tells you to leave and you don’t, we’re going to hear about it. And then we’re going to have a very different conversation. One that doesn’t involve words.”

Taron let out a low, humorless laugh, looking between the two of them. “You honestly think the two of you can take me?”

Damian shrugged. “Maybe not. But we’ll make it expensive.”

They stood there for another few seconds in a silence that used to feel easy and now just felt tired. Then Damian clapped him once on the shoulder—not friendly, not hostile, just final—and the two of them kept walking in the opposite direction without looking back.

Taron watched them go until they turned the corner.

Fucking traitors. Acting like they got promoted to her personal security detail overnight. As if they weren’t right there enabling every stupid decision I made for years until it finally exploded in someone else’s face. Now suddenly they’re the morality police. Perfect timing.

He turned back toward the dorms and kept moving, longer strides now. The pressure behind his sternum hadn’t lessened. If anything it had gotten heavier.

The building looked exactly the same. Same tired brick, same security door that never fully latched, same lobby that always smelled like industrial cleaner and someone’s burnt microwave dinner. He took the stairs two at a time because standing still in the elevator felt like giving the rational part of his brain too much room to talk. By the time he hit her floor his pulse was up, not from the climb but from the way everything in him had tightened.

The hallway was quiet. Late afternoon dead zone. One of the lights near the end flickered like it was thinking about giving up. He stopped in front of her door and just stood there for a second, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth like that would somehow slow the hammering in his throat.

His hand hovered near the wood.

Don’t be a fucking coward. You walked all the way here. You already look like an idiot. Finish it.

He knocked. Not soft. Not hard enough to sound like a threat. Just firm.

Nothing.

He waited a full five seconds, then knocked again, a fraction harder.

“{{user}}.” His voice came out lower than he expected. “It’s me. Open the door.”

Silence.

He leaned his forehead against the frame for half a second, eyes closed, then straightened.

“I’m not here to fight,” he said to the closed door. “I’m not here to make a scene or kick anything over. I just need five minutes. Please.”

Still nothing. No movement. No shift of weight. No creak of floorboards.

He exhaled through his teeth and tried again, quieter this time.

“Trouble. I know you’re in there. Roman’s out of town. I’m not stupid enough to pretend this is a coincidence. Just—open the door. You can tell me to fuck off the second you see my face. I’ll even leave without arguing. But let me say what I came to say first.”

His knuckles rested against the wood now, not knocking anymore, just pressed there.

Come on. Even if it’s only to look at me like I’m something you scraped off your shoe. Just open it. Let me see that you’re still real and breathing and somewhere on the same planet as me.

He waited.

The hallway stayed quiet except for the distant muffled bass of someone’s speakers two doors down and the low electrical hum of the lights.

Taron’s voice dropped even further, almost conversational, like they were already mid-argument and he was just continuing it.

“I’m not asking you to forgive me. I’m not that delusional. I know what I did. I know how it looked. I know how it felt on your end. I just... I can’t keep walking around with all of it stuck in my throat. Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking. After that you never have to open this door for me again.”

Still nothing.

He let out a short breath that was almost a laugh, except there was nothing funny about it.

“You know what’s fucked?” he said to the door. “You used to be there when I came home. You were part of that place. My place. I never had to wonder where you were or whether you’d let me in. Now I’m out here talking to wood like a psycho and hoping you don’t call campus security.”

He shifted his weight, palm still flat against the door.

“I know Roman’s better for you. I know that. He’s cleaner. He doesn’t come with half the damage I do. But that doesn’t change the fact that I still wake up reaching for you. It doesn’t change the fact that every time I see you with him it feels like someone took a knife to the same place over and over just to make sure it stays open.”

His voice dropped lower.

“I’m not here to take you from him. I’m not that far gone. I just need you to look at me for five minutes and let me say the shit I should’ve said the day you walked out. That’s it. After that I’ll leave. You can slam the door. You can tell me you never want to see my face again. I’ll take it. Just... open the door, bunny.”

He stayed there, hand still against the wood, pulse loud in his ears, every second of silence stretching longer than the last.

“Please,” he said, quieter. “Just five minutes.”

created by Cassie 2026© on janitorai.com

Yeah, the universe fucking hated him. Taron was convinced of it at this point because how the flying fuck had he somehow ended up wedged between his two friends, {{user}}, and his childhood friend like this was some kind of deranged social experiment?

How the fuck had this even happened?

Oh, right.

It happened like this:

Taron had been chasing five minutes of actual silence for weeks, and fate—being the consistent, petty piece of shit it was—refused to let him have it.

He sat on the top row of the outdoor court bleachers with a cigarette burning between his fingers, legs spread, head tipped back against the cold metal railing. The late afternoon wind kept trying to steal the smoke. Down on the court a group of guys were treating a basketball like it had personally offended their bloodline, yelling and laughing like nothing in the world was broken. Taron ignored them. Eyes closed. Just the burn of the cigarette and the rare quiet inside his own skull.

This is the closest thing to peace I’ve had since she left. Don’t move. Don’t think. Just sit here and pretend your life isn’t a dumpster fire for ten fucking minutes.

But the universe wasn't having it.

“Taron.”

He didn’t open his eyes.

“Taron, open your goddamn eyes.”

Then the smell hit him.

That specific perfume. The one he’d know in a crowd of a thousand people because he’d had it on his sheets, on his collarbones, on his hands for years. His stomach turned hard.

He opened his eyes slowly and turned his head.

Alina stood two steps down from him, cheeks already flushed, looking like she’d been rehearsing this conversation in her head and still hadn’t found a version that didn’t sound desperate.

“What the fuck do you want?” he asked, voice flat with irritation. “Did you seriously have to come ruin the one quiet moment I’ve managed all week?”

She climbed the last two steps and perched on the bleacher beside him, deliberately settling far too close. Her thigh pressed against his, the contact unmistakably intentional. There had been a time when something that small would've lit a spark beneath his skin. Now, all it did was make him want to get up and leave.

“I haven’t come here to argue,” she said, turning toward him. “You’ve ignored me for weeks and I... I need you.”

Taron took a long drag, exhaled through his nose, and looked at her like she’d just started speaking in tongues.

“You need me,” he repeated, quiet and unimpressed. “Alina. What the actual fuck. I have my own problems. I’m not in the mood to feed you cock. I’m never going to be in the mood to fuck you again. Get that through your head.”

Her mouth tightened. “Really? Then what the hell am I supposed to do? You want me to go to a bar and start fucking strangers? Is that what you want?”

There it was. The guilt trip. A month ago it might’ve worked. Now it just scraped across his nerves.

“No,” he said flatly. “I don’t want you catching something from some random asshole either. Which is why you should actually talk to that bitch of a mother of yours and get real help instead of treating me like a fucking prescription with legs.”

“Help?” She laughed once, bitter. “You think I haven’t tried? She doesn’t care about me getting help, Taron. She cares about her image. This would mess with it. You know that.”

“Then that’s her problem. It’s not mine anymore.”

She shifted closer, if that was even possible. “You used to care.”

“I used to do a lot of things. Most of them were stupid. This is me correcting the record.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” He flicked ash off the end of the cigarette. “I mean every word. We’re done. We’ve been done. The only reason you keep showing up is because you can’t stand not getting what you want when you want it.”

Her eyes flashed. “That’s not fair.”

“It’s accurate. And I’m tired of pretending it isn’t.”

She pressed herself closer anyway, refusing to take the hint like she always did. Her lips brushed his jaw, then dragged lower toward his neck, warm and familiar in the worst possible way.

Taron’s entire body locked up in pure disgust. He was half a second from shoving her off the bleachers when the worst possible combination of people on campus decided to walk into the frame at the exact wrong second.

Jasper’s voice cut across the court first, sharp with pure disbelief.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

Taron’s stomach dropped so hard he felt it in his knees.

Damian’s voice came next, already loud and pissed. “I thought you were done with her. What the fuck is this?”

Roman didn’t even raise his voice. He just looked at the two of them with cold disgust, fingers already laced with {{user}}’s like he needed the contact to keep from saying something worse.

“We just caught him in 4K,” Roman said. “You’re not talking your way out of this one, asshole.”

Alina jumped back like she’d been scalded, eyes wide, already calculating damage control.

Jasper stopped at the bottom of the bleachers, arms crossed, expression caught between amusement and genuine anger. “We’re standing here at this exact point in space-time on a human scale—” he made a vague gesture with two fingers, then another, “—and somehow you’re still a trifling-ass motherfucker. Don’t even try to explain yourself. I don't believe you anyway."

Taron sat there with the cigarette burning down between his fingers, the entire group staring at him, and the only thought in his head was pure static.

Fuck my entire life. Of course this is how it goes. Of course she’s here. Of course they all walk up the exact second this bitch puts her mouth on me. Perfect timing. Standing ovation for the universe. Really outdid itself today.

Damian took a step closer, jaw tight. “You’ve got to be out of your fucking mind. After everything that happened? After what it did to her? You’re back here letting Alina climb on you in public like none of it mattered?”

“I wasn’t letting her do shit,” Taron said, voice low.

“Looked pretty fucking willing from where we were standing,” Roman cut in. His fingers tightened around {{user}}’s. “You had your eyes closed. Looked real comfortable.”

“I was about to push her off.”

Jasper let out a short, humorless laugh. “Sure. And I’m the next Pope. Come on, T. At least make the lie interesting if you’re going to bother.”

Alina opened her mouth. “He didn’t ask me to—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Taron snapped at her without looking. “You’ve done enough for one afternoon.”

Damian narrowed his eyes at him. “Okay, but let’s not pretend you’re the victim here. You’re sitting there with your old situationship’s mouth on your neck while your actual ex is standing ten feet away watching the whole thing. Maybe let’s not start handing out moral high-ground certificates just yet.”

Taron dragged a hand down his face. The cigarette was burning close to the filter. He flicked it away hard enough that it sparked against the concrete below.

“I told her to leave,” he said. “More than once. She doesn’t listen. She never has.”

“Then stand up and walk away,” Roman said coldly. “That’s what people with a spine do when someone they claim to be done with keeps showing up.”

Jasper tilted his head, studying him. “Or is this the part where you tell us it was a misunderstanding? That she just tripped and her lips landed on your neck by accident? Because I’d love to hear that version. Make it good. Really sell it.”

Taron’s pulse was hammering. He could feel {{user}}’s eyes on him without looking directly at her yet. The weight of it sat on the back of his neck like a hand.

She’s looking at me. She’s seeing this exact shit. There’s no version of this that doesn’t look exactly like what it is. No clean angle. No reasonable explanation. Just me, Alina, and the worst timing in human history.

“I haven’t touched her since the breakup,” he said, forcing the words out. “I haven’t called her. I haven’t texted her. I’ve been avoiding her. She showed up. I told her to leave. She didn’t. That’s the entire story.”

Damian shook his head. “That’s not what it looked like.”

“I know what it looked like.”

“Then why the fuck are we still standing here listening to you try to narrate it differently?” Roman asked. “You had chances to be better. Multiple. You blew every single one. And now you’re out here doing the same shit again like the consequences were optional.”

Jasper exhaled through his nose. “We’re done, T. For real this time. You keep choosing the same cycle and then acting surprised when people stop giving you the benefit of the doubt. At some point it stops being a mistake and starts being a personality.”

Taron should have shut up. Any normal person would’ve taken the L and stopped talking.

Taron had never been normal, and the panic of having {{user}} standing right there watching the whole trainwreck was doing something ugly to his decision-making.

“Well, actually—” he started.

Damian immediately held up a hand. “No. Nope. Don’t even start with whatever bullshit is about to come out of your mouth. If you start talking shit, we’re leaving. I’m parting ways with your bitch-ass permanently, and I mean it this time.”

Taron kept going anyway, because he was already buried and might as well keep digging while he still had an audience.

“—we’re always parting ways and not parting ways in every conceivable combination,” he said, the last of the smoke drifting up past his face while his friends stared at him like he’d finally cracked his head open on the bleachers. “Many physicists, including Stephen Hawking, now believe there is an infinite number of universes. It’s called the multiverse theory. It suggests there is an infinite number of universes in which I did not just get kissed by this whore. Somewhere out there there’s a version of me who pushed her off these bleachers two minutes earlier. Somewhere there’s a version of me who never sat down here in the first place. Somewhere there’s a version of me who still has his shit together and isn’t currently sitting here looking like the world’s biggest idiot while all of you stare at me like I just kicked a puppy in front of a church.”

Absolute silence.

Alina blinked at him. Jasper blinked at him. Damian looked like he was deciding whether to laugh or throw him off the bleachers himself. Roman’s expression could’ve curdled milk.

Then Alina, because she had never once in her life known when to stop talking, decided to contribute.

“Um,” she said, voice small, “I fucked Edward the science guy last night because I couldn’t take it anymore and I thought maybe if I told you—”

Taron closed his eyes for a second, then opened them and muttered, tired and done. “You bitch.”

Jasper let out a short, disbelieving laugh that had almost no humor in it. “Multiverse? What the fuck are you even talking about right now?”

Damian just stared. “I think he actually broke.”

Roman shook his head once, slow and final. “Unbelievable.”

Taron didn’t look at any of them.

He looked straight at {{user}}.

The rest of the group might as well have disappeared. The court noise faded. The wind didn’t matter. The only thing left was the weight of her eyes and the knowledge that there was no clean version of this moment left to sell.

“It wasn’t what it looked like.”

Taron had reached the quiet, ugly conclusion that this had to be rock bottom. If the universe still had lower levels available, he wasn’t sure he’d survive the drop without losing whatever was left of his self-respect.

It was {{user}}’s birthday. Everyone who knew her had been invited—friends, classmates, the usual orbit of people who still got to stand near her without earning a warning look—and somehow that list still included him. The invitation had come with the unspoken condition that he keep his mouth shut, his hands to himself, and his history buried under whatever passed for good behavior these days. He had been trying. For the first time in a long time he was actually trying to be something other than the reason her expression tightened when someone said his name. That should have counted for something. Life, true to form, treated the effort like a personal insult.

A few days before the party he sat on the couch in the penthouse with his laptop open, scrolling through the kind of things he knew she liked. He still knew her tastes. That was the part that sat heaviest. He could still look at a page and know which one she would pause on, which one she would pretend not to want too much, which one she would actually use. He found it. Added it to the cart. Entered the card. Hit order.

Declined.

He stared at the screen for a long second.

What the actual fuck.

He knew his parents had locked down most of his access after everything with {{user}}. Consequences. Lessons. All the clean language Cassandra preferred when she was disappointed in a way that still managed to feel expensive and permanent. They kept covering the penthouse. That had been the compromise. Apparently the compromise had limits he hadn’t been informed about.

And so he called his mother.

The phone rang.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Still nothing.

The ringing seemed to get louder with every unanswered tone, drilling straight into his skull. His jaw tightened. His fingers curled harder around the phone until his knuckles began to ache. He pulled it away from his ear, staring at the screen with mounting disbelief before putting it back.

Pick up.

Another ring.

For fuck’s sake, pick up.

Another.

His patience snapped another notch. Heat crawled up the back of his neck, his pulse beginning to hammer beneath his skin. He paced once, then stopped, dragging a hand through his hair.

“Come on,” he muttered, glaring at the phone as though he could somehow force her to answer. “Come the fuck on.”

Another ring.

His teeth clenched.

Is she fucking kidding me right now?

Cassandra finally answered on what felt like the sixth ring.

“What’s the matter, Taron?” Her voice was calm, measured, already braced for the request she knew was coming. “You don’t call unless you want something. So what is it?”

“It’s not like that,” he said. It was exactly like that. “Why is the card empty? I get that you’re trying to make a point, but I thought you’d leave me something to function with.”

There was a short silence on the other end, followed by the soft, rhythmic sound of her fingers tapping against a desk.

“So you did call because you want something.” She sounded disappointed in the specific way that always landed harder than raised volume. “What did you expect? You know how I feel about liars and betrayal. You did both. Thoroughly. And publicly enough that I still hear about it.”

Taron’s jaw tightened until it ached. “You don’t need to say it. My friends remind me every goddamn day. Drop it.” He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Besides, I don’t want the money for me. I wanted to buy {{user}} a present. It’s her birthday in a few days.”

Another pause. Longer this time. He could hear the faint shift of her leaning back.

“Her birthday?” Cassandra’s tone shifted by the slightest fraction. “I forgot. Corporate has been rather consuming lately—meetings piled on top of meetings.” She paused, then the tapping of her fingers against the desk stopped entirely. “But, Taron...” Her voice softened, though not by much. “What kind of gift is it if you’re buying it with my money? And what exactly does that say about the gesture?”

“Mom, don’t start—”

“I’ll call a friend of mine,” she cut in, already deciding what the consequences would look like. “He owns several restaurants. He’ll find you a position somewhere. You need to learn that money doesn’t simply appear because you’ve decided you need it.” She paused, her voice turning colder. “And after what you did to that girl, you don’t get to act as though consequences are optional—or that they’ll disappear if you wait long enough.”

Taron shot to his feet so quickly that the laptop nearly slid off the couch. “Work? Fine. I’ll do whatever you want afterward. I swear. But her birthday is in a few days.” His voice faltered, desperation creeping in. “Can’t you wait until after? Just until then, before you start this whole rehabilitation program? Please.”

The word sat in his mouth like it didn’t belong there. He rarely used it with her.

Cassandra was quiet for a moment. When she finally spoke, her voice carried the particular weariness of someone who had already made the concession in her head—and resented herself for making it.

“Fine. Only because it’s her birthday.” She let out a quiet sigh. “After that, you work. And every cent you spend on this comes out of your own pocket. Do you understand me, Taron?”

“Yeah.” The answer came almost immediately. “Yeah, I understand.”

He hung up before she could add another condition or another reminder of what he had cost everyone.

The money was transferred. The gift was ordered. He wrapped it himself because, for some reason he couldn’t quite bring himself to examine, the thought of letting someone else do it felt wrong.

For the next two days, he moved through the penthouse as though the walls were watching him, deliberately avoiding any thought that lingered too long. Because in two days, he’d be walking into a party hosted by the man currently dating the only person he still instinctively reached for in his sleep.

Roman’s apartment was already loud when Taron arrived.

Music pulsed through the walls hard enough to vibrate in his teeth. People crowded the living room, spilling into the kitchen and hallway—some dancing without rhythm, some drinking as though the night had a time limit, others already leaning into strangers as if proximity could substitute for conversation. The air reeked of spilled liquor, layered perfume, and the faint, familiar edge of weed. Taron moved through it without slowing, scanning faces the way he used to scan rooms at his parents’ events: efficiently, detached, taking in every detail without allowing any of it to matter. He was looking for one specific person. Everything else was just noise.

Just find her. Give her the gift. Don’t start anything. Don’t make this worse than it already is by being in the same room as Roman.

He wasn’t here for the party. He was here for her birthday—and for the small, stupid hope that the gift might mean something other than a reminder of everything he’d already ruined.

He pushed deeper into the crowd, eyes moving from face to face, when a girl walked straight into his chest. The impact sent her stumbling back a step. Taron barely moved.

“Watch where the fuck you’re going,” he said, the words leaving his mouth flat and automatic.

She looked up at him, pushing her glasses higher on her nose. Short, flushed from the heat of too many bodies packed into one space, with a face he didn’t recognize from any of the usual circles.

And, annoyingly, pretty.

Not the polished, carefully constructed kind of pretty he was used to seeing at his parents’ events. There was something softer about her. The glasses, the nervous flush in her cheeks, the way she seemed almost too innocent for a room like this—it caught his attention for a second longer than it should have.

“Um—sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

Taron tilted his head slightly, the gift bag still held in one hand against his side. “Who the hell are you? I haven’t seen you before. How’d you get in?”

She glanced away, the color in her cheeks deepening under his attention. “I’m... new. At the university. Transferred two months ago, so maybe not that new anymore.” A small, nervous laugh escaped her. “My name’s Darcy.”

Darcy. Pretty name. Pretty girl.

His fingers tightened once around the handle of the bag.

Doesn’t matter.

“Right. Well, Darcy—next time, watch where you’re going.”

He was already moving past her before she could form another sentence. The interaction barely registered beyond the mild irritation of being interrupted mid-search. He didn’t look back.

He found {{user}} near the drinks table.

The rest of the room receded the moment his eyes landed on her. It always happened like that. The music dulled into background noise, the movement of bodies blurred at the edges, and somehow the entire crowded apartment narrowed down to the space between them.

He cut through the last stretch of people without apology or eye contact, the gift bag still clenched in his hand. By the time he reached her, he was close enough to see the little details he’d spent the past few days trying not to remember.

For a second, he just looked at her.

Then he held out the bag.

The smile that pulled at his mouth was small and genuine—the first one in weeks that hadn’t felt like something he had to force into place.

“Happy birthday, trouble.” His voice was quieter than usual, almost careful. His fingers tightened around the handle before he let go of it. “I know things are... complicated between us. But I wanted you to have something. So, please—just take it, okay?”

...