Page 16 of Tessa and Nash

“Engaged, apparently⁠—”

“Never even knew he was dating⁠—”

“Well, good for him⁠—”

“Do you think it’s real?”

Someone brushes past me, nearly clipping my shoulder. I step back automatically, spine stiffening. I hate this part. The communal ownership. The way private lives become public puzzles everyone feels entitled to solve.

Thomas leans closer. “He’s been spreading the idea that he’s responsible now. Grown. As if a ring fixes years of half-finished ideas.”

My lips press together.

Then the front doors open.

Nash McCoy steps back into the hallway, and the atmosphere changes. Conversations falter. Eyes track him openly now. He looks rattled, the grin he usually wears as armor gone.

Good, I think, immediately annoyed at myself for thinking anything at all.

He moves quickly, boots striking the tile with more force than necessary, trying to outrun what he just did.

For one brief, inconvenient second, his eyes flick toward me.

We lock gazes.

And my body betrays me.

It’s subtle, but I feel it anyway. The sharp hitch in my breath, the way my shoulders tense like I’ve been braced for impact without realizing it. Heat curls low in my stomach, unwelcome and immediate, as if some traitorous part of me has been waiting for this exact second.

Ridiculous.

I tell my spine to stay straight. Tell my face to remain neutral. Tell my pulse to calm the hell down.

It doesn’t listen.

His eyes are the same hazel they’ve always been, too expressive for his own good. They flick over me fast… too fast to be polite, too slow to be accidental. I’m suddenly acutely aware of my coat, my braid, the fact that I’ve been sitting upright for two hours, and my back aches faintly between my shoulder blades.

Awareness sharpens, as if someone turned the volume up on my skin.

There’s a strange pull in my chest, a tight, twisting sensation that has nothing to do with logic and everything to do with proximity. With history. With the fact that Nash McCoy has always had a way of occupying space like it belongs to him, even mine.

I hate that my body remembers him.

Hate that it reacts before my brain can file him neatly under irritating, reckless, not my problem.

For half a second, a sizzle passes between us. Surprise, maybe. Or challenge. Or that old, familiar spark of competition that used to light me up in classrooms and hallways.

That spark is old.

Ancient, really. Polished smooth by repetition.

It takes me back to Buckhorn High, senior year, AP English. The classroom always smelled faintly of chalk dust and burnt coffee from the teacher’s mug that had World’s Best Educator printed on it in fading blue.

Essay grades were posted on the board.

I got there early, same as I always did. Stood perfectly still while my eyes scanned the list, neat columns of last names and numbers. Ninety-eight. Top of the class. Exactly where I intended to be.

I was still letting the satisfaction settle when Nash McCoy slid in beside me, too close, backpack slung carelessly over one shoulder.