NESSA

Chandeliers glimmered above us, casting a glow over the ballroom. A floor-length gown teased my ankles, and my freshly manicured nails tapped on the linen tablecloths. Beauty was woven into the fabric of the night, and from a glance, you'd think we were living in a goddamn fairytale.

But with how the evening started, I doubted a happy ending was on the menu. For anyone.

"Madie, just go talk to him."

She glanced at me with a slight huff. "I don't want to talk to him right now."

I snorted. "True. You just wanna fuc—"

Madie clapped a hand over my mouth before I could finish my sentence, her eyes darting quickly to Bren to see if he'd heard. She'd angrily banished him to the other side of the round table we were at, and I couldn't help but laugh a muffled laugh. When she released me, I lowered my voice.

"The air is so thick with sexual tension that I think I'm gonna choke on it."

"It is not," she insisted, staring hard at her salad plate.

Glancing across over the floral centerpiece, I noticed Bren's eyes were on Madie again. They were tortured, willing her to look up.

Raising a brow, I leaned over to murmur in her ear. "You worked that spoon over pretty good, and I think Bren nearly passed out."

A flush spread across Madie's face. "Oh my god, shut up."

"Go make-up with him, Madie."

I understood why she was pissed at him. I'd be too if I were her. Actually, I was pissed at him for lacking basic freaking communication skills and messing this evening up for them. But it wasn't worth it to ice him out all night long. I'd give just about anything to have a guy who cared about me like Bren cared about Madie. To have someone who looked at me like that.

"Look at that man, and tell me he isn't thinking about how he wants to give it to you," I muttered, trying to drive my point home, urging her to give in to Bren's sultry gaze. The only thing he wanted was her.

Madie chewed on her lip for a second before looking up at him, and then I had to glance away because there was serious eye-fucking going on.

There. My job was done.

My attention turned to Jonathan instead—my date for the evening. He was indelicately sipping his soup on the other side of Madie, unphased by the drama going on around him. He didn't seem bored. But he didn't seem interested, either. He was friendly. Polite. A little quiet. Nice. Just nice.

"Nessa." Madie's low voice reached my ears before she nudged me. "I don't think Bren is the only guy in the room imagining things."

I rolled my eyes before following her gaze. "No, I'm sure there are a lot of horny ass men in—"

Shit.

What the hell was he doing here? And how on earth did I miss him before? He might be wearing a suit and black mask just like every other guy here, but with a look like that, I was surprised I hadn't sensed him.

"Is that—?"

"I think so," Madie replied smugly.

I hadn't told her anything about what had happened between Grayson and me. But Madie wasn't an idiot. She'd caught on to the fact that I couldn't act normal around that guy for the life of me.

Grayson flashed Madie and me a smile that sent an annoying amount of heat hurtling down my body. And then he looked back down at his hands. Hands that were rapidly moving across a grand piano in the forefront of the massive ballroom.

Of course, he played the piano. Of course, he was amazing at it. Of course, he was here entertaining hundreds of people at a charity gala.

I watched him, transfixed. Grayson playing the piano might be an even more attractive sight than when he'd pulled out the guitar for me. There was an intensity in his performance that sucked me in.

Shit, I really wished he wasn't here. I wasn't ready to face him. Not again. Not after this week.

"Do you guys know that guy?"

Jonathan. My date. Right.

After clearing my throat, I leaned around Madie. "He's in one of our classes," I said.

Not the whole truth but definitely not a lie.

"That's cool." He nodded before patting down his perfectly parted blonde hair—as if worried a little hair had moved out of place.

"Yeah," I said, not knowing what else to say.

Suggesting that we go to this masquerade gala hosted by the OSU history department was my way of getting Madie's mind off of everything else going on. The goal was to dress up and go out to a place where I was sure there wouldn't be any football players around.

Guess I was wrong about that.

It had been a hell of a week. Monday kicked it off on a bad note. A horrible, out-of-tune, terrible key, kind of note.

I'd raced into Western Civ that morning with only seconds to spare before class started, and the only thing on my mind was how to avoid Grayson after our drunken encounter. I sure as hell didn't imagine that I'd be walking in to find Madie teary-eyed with our professor hovering nearby, a look of obvious concern on his face.

A security guard stepped in the doors behind me, gesturing to the hallway. I blinked five times real quick, trying to figure out what the hell was going on before Professor Evans pulled me aside and told me he'd walked into class to find a group of football players cornering Madie before lecture. That same asshat from last time harassed her about Quinton, spewing that their break-up had messed with the team dynamics before play-offs.

It took everything in me to swallow my anger and calmly walk Madie back to our room, flanked by our security detail. I put my arm around her, and when she said she didn't want to talk about it, I tried to do what I could to make her smile. And it worked—a little. She was still upset, though. I could see it; there was brokenness there that she was trying to hide.

We were only a few steps away from our room when Grayson appeared. Out of nowhere, he just showed up, like he always did. And I snapped. After all, he'd been there when Brodie had said shit to her before and hadn't said a damn thing otherwise. So I assumed he was in the group this morning. That he was one of them.

But confusion had clouded his face before he went on to say he'd missed the lecture completely because of a doctor's appointment. Madie also confirmed that he wasn't there, and crap, I felt so defeated. Felt so dumb and horrible and everything in between.

Of course, Grayson hadn't been there. He wasn't like them. I knew he wasn't like them. I'd snapped at him, but I wasn't mad at him. Not for this, anyway.

I was mad at myself.

Glancing over at Madie again, I saw she was back to avoiding Bren. Poor girl had gone through hell. Literal hell. While I spent my winter break being bored and lonely and pining after Grayson, Madie had spent hers helping piece Bren back together after Quinton tried to shoot him down in a dirty bar in LA.

Correction: her abusive ex-boyfriend did shoot Bren down in a dirty bar in LA. He'd stalked their location, showing up with a loaded gun. But luckily, the bullet had only grazed Bren's shoulder.

Nausea always threatened to overwhelm me when I thought about how horrible that must have been for both of them. My problems were like dust compared to hers.

The good news was that Quinton had finally been arrested. The bad news was that it shook Bren up enough that he was hell-bent on never letting anything come between him and Madie again. Meaning he'd gone off on some daddy issues crusade, trying to hunt down his stalker. He hadn't come back to campus with Madie, and it tore her up.

The bottom line was that Bren had been counting on me to take care of her while he was gone. And I'd been so tired and lazy that morning that I let Madie walk to class alone when I'd been running late. She faced Brodie and those other football players alone. Fought them off alone.

I wasn't mad at Grayson.

I was mad at myself. Apparently even mad enough that I decided my punishment should be asking Jonathan over here on a date.

I studied him. He was definitely cute. A little dry and lacking that spark, but I'd noticed how he watched me during our Biology lecture. Interested but also shy. None of that cocky confidence that immediately became a turn-off for me after high school. I figured asking Jonathan to the gala was a good test. If a dude was willing to get all dressed up and tag along with my friends for the night, he might be worth giving a chance.

"I'm going to run to the restroom," he said when the awkward lull in conversation didn't disappear. And then he picked my hand up off the table and kissed it.

I supposed it sort of fit the mood, the atmosphere. This was definitely a formal event with the vaulted ceilings, elegant dress code, and classical music. And that was definitely a formal way to say goodbye.

But internally, I cringed.

"Did he really just do that?" Madie hissed as soon as Jonathan was out of earshot.

"What?" I shrugged. "Come on, it was cute."

It was definitely not cute. But it was all the romance I would get tonight, so I was going to pretend otherwise.

"It could be cute," Madie said. "But I don't know. That...that was just weird."

I rolled my eyes. "Okay, spoon girl."

"You should go talk to Grayson," Madie persisted. "You know, after he's done performing his masterpiece."

"Why the hell would I do that?" I scoffed. But it took all of my effort not to glance at Gray again. I wanted desperately to watch him play, but I would die if he caught me staring.

Madie tipped her head back and forth as if in thought. But I knew she was just mocking me.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe because he likes you."

"I'm here with Jonathan."

It was a simple truth.

"And I don't do football players, Madie. You know that's not my type."

Also true. Even if Grayson Everett was a little bit my type, football players were not.

"Grayson was friends with Quinton for crying out loud. No, thank you," I added, figuring that would deter her. And it was also true. Grayson never denied that they weren't friends. Just that he hadn't hung out with him since that day I told him the truth about what an asshole Quinton was.

"He wasn't." Madie's tone was forceful, and I frowned, surprised.

"What?"

"Grayson wasn't really friends with Quinton. They never really hung out. And he doesn't seem like the others. I mean, look at him. He's playing the piano." I shook my head, but Madie just leaned closer to whisper in my ear. "I bet he's good with his hands."

I took a quick sip of water, snorting into my glass to try to mask the redness that was definitely erupting on my face. Yes. God yes, he was good with his hands. And I'd only had a short sample.

"Go back to staring at your boyfriend," I mumbled.

Madie pouted, crossing her arms over her chest in a way that made her cleavage spill over the top of the sparkling white gown she had on. With a smirk, I glanced over at Bren to find him fisting his glass of water so hard I thought it might shatter.

I couldn't really feel sorry for him, though.

Madie and I spent hours getting ready for tonight. My roommate deserved a little pampering, and I was more than happy to make that happen. By the time Beau picked us up in the evening, I was pretty damn proud of my handiwork. Madie was stunning, and I'd been eager to see Bren's reaction, suspecting he would go crazy.

And I was right. Bren was definitely crazy. Only it wasn't in the way that I'd thought.

After weeks of being apart from his girlfriend, off on his dad-crusade, Bren dared to show up tonight with one of his high school fuck-buddies on his arm. I mean, she was Beau's date, so it really shouldn't have been that dramatic. If only he had freaking told Madie about it. She watched them walk toward us, and even with the small, glittery mask covering part of her expression, I could see her brain jumping to all sorts of conclusions.

Bren deserved to be tortured a little bit. But I hoped she would give in and talk to him soon.

Sighing, Madie turned to mutter that she was going to the bathroom, taking off just as Jonathan returned to the table. I watched Bren swivel as she walked away, his eyes glued unashamedly to her ass. He started to stand, but Beau yanked him back down in his chair, making his date—and Bren's ex fuck-buddy—cover her mouth to try to keep a laugh in.

As annoyed as I was at Bren for bringing her along, I was glad Beau had someone tonight. The girl's curly hair hadn't stopped bouncing all evening as she flirted up a storm with Beau, and I even heard her giving Bren a hard time for being a thick-headed idiot.

"Cool your jets and give Madie a damn minute before you go pawing after her," Beau directed at Bren, who made a grunting noise in response. I wondered how long he would last before defying his friend and bolting after his girlfriend.

A dry laugh slipped through my lips before I turned toward Jonathan. His eyes were bright, taking me back. Something in them had changed since he'd pulled that little hand-kissing stunt a few minutes ago.

"So," he said, eyes wandering down my front. "Wanna get out of here?"

💗
not going to lie, i really hated writing this chapter.
i apologize because i know it was repetitive to what happened in the fire we started. trying to piece everything together was annoying the crap out of me. but now we can move on!

xoxo amelie