Chapter 03: The Smell Of His Cologne.

SYDNEY.

The car pulled up and I could already hear the music from inside.

That low steady bass that moved through walls before you even opened the door.

I sat in the car for just a second because this was actually happening now.

Fiona had spent two hours on my face and another hour fighting me about the heels, and somehow I ended up here, outside an actual party, in an actual dress, looking like a version of myself I did not fully recognize yet.

Corbin got out first, he came around and opened my door.

I stepped out into the night air, looked at him, and smiled. "Look who's being a gentleman."

But when I looked at his face there was nothing there.

No smile, no warmth, just that flat expression he had been carrying since our last conversation.

I felt my own smile fall because I already knew I had pushed him into this.

He did not want it.

He was still here anyway, standing outside a party in a fitted shirt looking like he belonged on a billboard, doing me a favor he never signed up for.

I looked at him. "I know you are not happy, but you could at least say something about my outfit."

He turned and looked at me then, properly, slowly, from the heels upward, and something happened in those few seconds that I was not ready for.

The way his eyes moved was careful, unhurried, and it did something to my chest that I had not given it permission to do, pulling at a memory I had kept in a very tight box since we were sixteen.

I swallowed hard and looked away first because I was not doing that tonight, not even a little.

"You look good," he said finally. "I guess."

I stared at him. "Just that?"

He rolled his eyes in frustration. "Do you really want me to say the same lie twice?"

The audacity of this man was genuinely breathtaking.

I rolled my eyes, grabbed his arm, and started walking. "Fine. Just don't go in there and tell everyone you are suffering from my fake-relationshipist."

He frowned. "Is that even a full sentence?"

I clicked my tongue and walked ahead because if I stood there one more second I was going to turn around, go home, cry properly, and that was not the plan for tonight.

Inside was something else entirely.

The whole room was warm and golden, fairy lights strung across the ceiling, round tables draped in white, everyone in their best outfits sitting close to people they clearly wanted to be seen with.

The energy was the kind that made you feel like you had accidentally walked into someone else's life.

I slowed down just to take it in because this was genuinely only my second party ever.

The first was prom, which I was absolutely not thinking about right now, especially not while standing next to the exact reason prom was a disaster, and I was completely over that by the way, completely and totally, it was not even a thing anymore.

A woman in a fitted blazer smiled and led us to a table near the center of the room.

Corbin fixed his collar and looked at me like he had personally constructed the venue. "Look who got us a table."

"You look like you're impersonating someone important," I told him.

He laughed, and we sat down.

The moment we did, my eyes started moving around the room on their own, scanning the bar, the entrance, every cluster of people standing near the door, because I needed to see him.

That was the entire reason I let Fiona strap a heel onto my foot tonight.

A hand covered mine on the table.

I turned fast, half expecting Marcus, and it was just Corbin looking at me with the flattest expression a human face could produce.

"Really, Sydney." He raised a brow.

"I was looking around," I said. "I have genuinely never been to a party like this."

"He is going to come," Corbin said quietly, "but what is the point of this whole thing if you are going to run to him the second he walks in."

"I am not running anywhere," I said, meaning it completely, "and you are the one who is going to spot some girl across the room and forget this entire arrangement exists."

He opened his mouth, then closed it.

I felt briefly victorious, about three seconds of it, and then my eyes drifted to the door because I had absolutely no control over myself, and that was when I saw him.

Marcus.

He was wearing something dark and fitted and it should not have worked as well as it did, but it did.

The way it sat across his shoulders, the line of his jaw, the easy confidence in the way he walked into a room like he already knew everyone in it was going to look at him.

I knew that walk.

I had known it the very first time I saw it and I still knew it now.

"Jesus Christ..." I whispered before I even realized I had opened my mouth.

"Here comes the girl who said she does not give a damn about her ex," Corbin said beside me.

I was about to say something sharp back when I stopped.

Because standing right next to Marcus, close enough that their arms were touching, was Sasha.

The same Sasha.

The girl from the apartment, the girl who was the reason I was sitting here right now in heels that were slowly destroying my feet, and something hot tightened around my chest.

I gripped the edge of the table.

"You need a drink, let me get you one." Corbin said, starting to stand.

"No," I said immediately, pulling him back down. "Stay here, and talk to me. Tell me something, just talk."

He sat back slowly and looked at me like I had spoken in a foreign language. "That was not in the contract."

"Can you act normal for five minutes," I said through my teeth, reaching out and taking the only glass of wine nearest to me, drinking more of it than I intended in one go.

Corbin watched me. "Are you getting drunk because of Marcus or because of who he is with."

"Both," I said honestly. "Why is it specifically Sasha, out of every single person on this campus, why is it the exact same girl."

He turned and looked across the room and I could tell the exact moment he found her because his expression shifted slightly. "Okay she does have a really nice figure though."

I kicked him hard under the table.

He flinched. "What the hell."

"I did not come here for you to rate my opponent," I said, "look at me when I am talking to you."

He turned back. "It's so hard when you are covering everything up there," he said, gesturing vaguely upward, and I looked down at myself and back up at him.

"I genuinely cannot stand you right now." I sighed.

He smiled mischievously and whispered. "Sydney....Marcus is kissing her."

I did not turn around.

I reached for the wine glass, held it in both hands, and stared straight ahead. "I am fine. I am completely fine. I am here with my boyfriend and that is all that matters."

"Except I am not your real boyfriend." He winked.

"Corbin, I swear...." I paused.

My heart was doing things it had no business doing, beating way faster than this situation required, and the worst part was that even from across the room I could almost smell his cologne, which was strange... except he was very much close to me.

Suddenly, a hand touched my shoulder from behind.

I froze.

I set the glass down carefully and turned around slowly.

Marcus was standing right there, closer than I expected, close enough that I could see everything properly now.

His jaw, his eyes, the slight curve at the corner of his mouth, and he looked at me for a moment with an expression I could not fully read.

"Wow," he said quietly. "You look amazing."

Every part of me wanted to say thank you in the most embarrassingly grateful way possible, so I arranged my face into something calm and said, "oh, thank you. Is there something you need."

He smiled. "I wanted to ask if you would dance with me tonight."

My heart slammed once under the table, and I pressed my fingers into Corbin's hand.

Corbin looked up and said easily, "she can't. She's having a good time right here, so if you could let us be."

Marcus looked at Corbin, then he looked back at me. "Sydney. Do you want to come with me."

Corbin said, "I already answered that."

Marcus did not even look at him. "I was not talking to you. Last I checked, she is the one who knows me. Not you."

I blinked because what he had just said was something else entirely, the kind of thing that changed the temperature of a room.

I watched Corbin's jaw tighten slowly as I looked back at Marcus and said, "he was taught well enough. I am not going anywhere."

Marcus took one step closer and I could feel the warmth coming off him.

My brain was running in several directions at once, and none of them was useful.

He looked at me in that specific way he always had, like he already knew the answer before he even asked the question.

He said quietly, "I love how hard you are trying right now, but we both know you want me. So are you coming with me or not?"