Chapter 05: Run, Hide, Lie.

EVA.

The whole room was still staring at us.

I felt every single eye in that hall settle on me and Graham at once, like the entire party had paused just to watch what happened next.

I looked at him for a long moment, my heart was still loud from everything that had just happened.

Graham looked back at me, and something in his expression shifted from shock into something quieter and more dangerous.

"Eva," he said, his voice low enough that only I could hear it. "You've always wanted me to yourself anyway....So, do it now."

I opened my mouth to answer him, to tell him exactly what I thought of that statement, when two guys came bursting through the entrance doors, screaming at the top of their lungs.

"Security! The school security is here! Everybody disperse, now!" The guys yelled.

The entire hall broke apart in seconds.

People scattered in every direction, bottles dropping, chairs knocked over, voices overlapping into one loud wave of panic.

I stood frozen in the middle of it all because I genuinely had no idea what was happening.

I was a freshman.

I had been at Brentford for less than a week, and nobody had warned me that parties here came with the possibility of getting caught.

Someone's hand landed on my shoulder and shoved me forward. "Run. Run! Get out!"

I ran.

Jody was somewhere ahead of me, swallowed by the crowd, and I just followed the bodies moving around me because that was the only plan I had.

My heart pounded against my ribs as torchlights swept across the lawn, students scattering through the bushes and over the fence in every direction, and I stood there for half a second too long, completely lost, trying to figure out where I was even supposed to go.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed mine.

Before I could scream, another hand clamped over my mouth, and I was dragged sideways into a narrow gap behind a row of hedges near the fence.

I fought and struggled, hitting at whatever I could reach, my whole body twisting against the grip until the person finally spoke.

"Shut up, or they'll hear us. You don't want that." the voice whispered.

I stopped moving instantly because I knew that voice.

I opened my eyes slowly and found Graham crouched beside me in the dark, his hand still over my mouth, and his face close enough that I could feel his breath.

My heart was beating so fast I was sure he could feel it too, but I forced my face to stay calm, because the last thing I needed was for him to know how much he still rattled me, especially knowing exactly why he had pulled me here in the first place.

He hadn't saved me out of kindness.

He had saved me because he still wanted his kiss.

I pulled his hand off my mouth and whispered, "Graham, I know exactly why you did this, and I'm telling you one more time. I am not kissing you."

He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. "Fine. You don't want to kiss me. But I need you to tell the whole school we already kissed, so I can say I completed my dare."

I stared at him for a long moment, and despite everything, I almost laughed.

"Do you really think the world revolves around you?" I asked.

He blinked, like the question genuinely confused him. "Maybe I do but why does that bother you so much?"

I felt my anger rise fast, mixing with something else I didn't want to name.

The fact that I had once, for one stupid moment, actually been attracted to this man.

"Graham, you're a selfish human being," I said. "First, you recorded us without telling me. Do you really think I would have refused if you'd just asked me properly? And then you had the audacity to share that video with the entire school!"

He laughed.

Actually laughed, low and careless, like none of it mattered. "It was a party, Eva. What's the big deal?"

"Listen to me," I said, keeping my voice as steady as I could. "I don't care what you're trying to do because I know you're taking off your shirt right now just to distract me, but let me make this very clear, I am not kissing you or letting the school know you completed the dare."

"I didn't realize I was going shirtless," he said, smiling. "But since you mentioned it."

He pulled his shirt over his head anyway.

I swallowed hard and hated myself for the way my brain went momentarily blank.

His chest was exactly as ridiculous as I remembered from across the party, and for one second my thoughts scattered completely before I forced myself back together.

He stepped closer and reached for my hand. "Come on. Just kiss me."

I pushed his hand away. "Let go of me, Graham. I'm not doing that. Is this what you do? Go around bullying girls until they give in?"

His jaw tightened. "You don't know anything about me. You're a freshman."

"I'm a freshman," I shot back, "but I know exactly what you and your five teams do, and how proud you all are of doing it."

A torchlight swept close to our hiding spot, and Graham raised a finger to his lips, his eyes locked on mine until the light passed and the footsteps faded further down the path.

He looked back at me. "Fine. I'll get the video taken down and make sure you don't go viral or end up in front of the head of staff."

"How exactly are you going to do that?" I asked. "Take everyone's phone and delete it yourself?"

"No," he said, completely serious now. "But last time I checked, I'm the hockey alpha. I have enough pull in this school to make sure nobody who crosses me walks away clean. I can use that for you."

I almost laughed in his face. "You're dreaming if you think I'm falling for that."

I turned away from him, but he wasn't done.

"Fine," he said, his voice shifting into something almost convincing. "How about this. You fake-date me for one week. Everyone backs off the video the second they think we're official, because nobody touches what's mine. After the week, we go back to normal. Moreover, You're the IT Girls captain and I'll remain the hockey alpha which makes sense. Don't you want to be the first freshman this school has ever actually noticed?"

I looked at him for a long moment.

Some small, foolish part of me genuinely wanted to believe him.

But I had read enough books, enough stories about boys exactly like him, to know one simple rule: you never trust a word that comes out of a hockey captain's mouth when he wants something from you.

"I don't believe you," I said. "And whatever deal you're trying to make has nothing to do with me."

"What the hell, Eva?" His voice rose slightly. "Can you just listen? Let's actually talk this through properly."

I stared at him, my mind racing.

Even if I agreed to negotiate, I wasn't planning on staying at Brentford past this month anyway.

And if this video turns into something bigger, something that reaches the head of staff, something that touches my cousin's name...I wasn't sure any deal with Graham Hartway would actually fix that.

"You know what," I said, standing up. "Suck your balls, Graham. I'm out."

Graham stared up at me, and just as I turned to leave, a torchlight swept hard and fast across the hedge, followed by the sound of boots crunching on gravel, much closer than before, and Graham grabbed my arm and yanked me back down.

My face landed close against his chest, his hand pressing firmly over my mouth, and his eyes locked on mine in the dark. "Don't move. Don't make a sound."

The security guard's footsteps grew louder, the torchlight sweeping closer and closer to where we crouched, and I could feel my heart slamming against my ribs so hard I was sure it was loud enough to give us away on its own.

I was a freshman.

I wasn't even supposed to be at a party like this in the first place, and if security found me hiding behind a hedge half-dressed and shirtless boy beside me, there was no version of that conversation that ended well.

They would call my aunt.

They would tell her everything.

And whatever clean image I had promised my cousin I would maintain while she recovered, would be gone before the night was even over.

The light swept directly over the hedge.

Graham's whole body went rigid beside me, and for one second I genuinely believed we were both about to get caught.

Then he stood up.

"I'm here, sir," he said, stepping out into the light with his hands raised.

The guard turned his torch fully onto him. "You. Hartway. Do you ever stay out of trouble?"

"I'm sorry, sir," Graham said smoothly, not a hint of panic in his voice.

The guard's torch swept past him slowly, scanning the hedge, the darkness, the space right beside where I was still crouched.

"Is someone with you?" The guard asked. "Is there someone there with you?"

I stared at Graham's back through the gap in the hedge, my whole body frozen, my heart slamming against my chest as I waited to see exactly what kind of man Graham Hartway really was when it actually mattered.