Chapter five: A promise

"Tessa, wait," Jake called after me as I hurried in behind Blake, my heart hammering with dread.

By the time I stepped back into the hall, Blake had already snatched the microphone right out of the MC's hand, ignoring the man's protest. He stood in the middle of the circle, chest heaving, eyes locked on me from across the room.

"Everybody, I have an announcement," Blake said, his voice booming through the speakers, silencing every conversation at once.

"Blake, don't," I said, walking toward him, panic rising in my throat.

"Tell them, Tessa. Tell everyone what you promised me." His smile widened as he looked around the room, feeding off the sudden attention.

My blood ran cold.

"Blake, shut up," I hissed, close enough now to reach for the microphone, but he pulled it just out of reach.

"Why? Are you suddenly ashamed of your little birthday gift?" he asked, and a few people around us started laughing, unsure if this was some kind of joke or not.

"She promised me her virginity for my birthday," Blake said, and the words landed like a slap across the whole hall. A ripple of gasps and whispers spread through the room instantly.

My eyes burned with humiliation. I could feel every stare pinning me in place, could hear Monalisa's sharp laugh cutting through the noise somewhere behind me. I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole.

"Blake, that's enough," I said, my voice cracking, but he wasn't done yet.

"What, it's true, isn't it? Tell them, Tessa. Tell them how you were saving yourself for me." He held the microphone out toward me like a dare, grinning at how small I'd become in front of everyone I used to call my friends.

Then a chair scraped loudly against the floor.

I looked toward the sound, my heart already sinking before my eyes even found him.

Daven was standing there. His face had completely changed from the calm, gentle expression to fury. He slowly walked toward us, each step deliberate, the whole hall parting slightly to let him through.

"Blake," he said once he reached us, his voice dangerously calm in a way that felt louder than the microphone ever could. "I think you've said enough."

My heart stopped.

Blake looked him up and down, clearly unbothered at first. "And who exactly are you? Her new sugar daddy?"

A few snickers broke out from Monalisa's corner, but they died quickly under the weight of Daven's stare.

"I'm her father's friend, and right now, the only adult in this room acting like one," Daven said evenly, taking the microphone gently but firmly from Blake's loosened grip and handing it back to the stunned MC. "You've humiliated her enough for one night."

"This doesn't concern you," Blake snapped, though his voice had lost some of its earlier bravado.

"It concerns me the moment you decided to embarrass a young woman in front of a room full of people over something private," Daven said, stepping just close enough that Blake had to tilt his chin up to hold his gaze. "Now you can walk away on your own, or I can walk you out myself. Either way, you're done talking tonight."

The hall had gone completely silent, every eye bouncing between the two of them. Blake's jaw worked like he wanted to say something else, but whatever nerve had pushed him this far seemed to drain right out of him under Daven's stare. He scoffed, shook his head, and shoved past us toward the exit, muttering something under his breath that I didn't care to hear.

Daven turned to me then, his expression softening the second his eyes met mine. "Are you okay?"

I wasn't. My whole body was shaking, tears threatening to spill over no matter how hard I blinked them back. "I want to go home," I whispered.

"Let's go," he said simply, and placed a steady hand at my back, guiding me through the crowd of faces I no longer wanted to see.

The ride home was quiet at first. I turned my face to the window and watched the streetlights go by. My chest kept tightening every time I remembered Blake's voice on that microphone. Daven didn't say anything for a while. He just let me sit with it, his hand steady on the wheel.

"You okay?" he asked again, glancing at me.

"No," I said. "Everyone heard him, Daven. Everyone. My whole class knows now."

"He had no right to do that," Daven said, his jaw tight. "Whatever you told him in private was yours to share. Not his to throw around like that."

"I'm so ashamed," I whispered, wiping my eyes. "How am I supposed to face any of them again?"

"You don't owe them anything, Tessa. The shame is his, not yours. He's the one who made himself look small in front of everybody," Daven said. Something in the way he said it made me believe him. At least a little.

I sat with that for a moment, then Jake crossed my mind. "Jake apologized before we left. I actually like him, you know. He's sweet."

Daven went quiet. I glanced over and saw his fingers tighten a little on the wheel.

"Daven?"

"It's nothing," he said, eyes on the road.

"It's clearly not nothing. Why do you care so much about Jake?" I asked, turning to face him.

He let out a slow breath, like he was deciding whether to say it. "Seeing you with him tonight bothered me more than it should have. That's all."

I blinked at him, surprised. Daven had never let something like that slip before. Not once, in all the weeks I'd stayed close to his house. Not even after that night I walked into his room in the dark.

"Why would that bother you?" I asked, watching his face carefully.

"I don't know, Tessa. Can we just drop it?" he said, but his eyes gave him away. They flicked toward me for a second too long before going back to the road.

I sat back and let my mind spin. I thought about the way he looked at me that first night. His soft hands on my waist. The way he held my foot so gently while I fumbled with those shoes. The way his eyes never seemed to leave mine for long.

"Do you have feelings for me?" I asked before I could stop myself.

He didn't answer right away. The silence stretched on long enough to become its own answer. When he finally glanced at me, his face told me more than his words ever could.

"Let's just get you home," he said quietly. I let it go, but my heart wouldn't stop racing the rest of the way.

My phone buzzed the moment we pulled into the driveway. Blake's name lit up the screen. He was calling for the third time. I ignored it, same as the last two. But when it rang a fourth time, I finally picked up, mostly out of exhaustion.

"What do you want, Blake?"

"Tessa, I'm sorry, okay? That got out of hand back there. I wasn't thinking straight," he said, his voice rushed and desperate. I'd never heard him sound like that before.

"You humiliated me in front of everyone," I said flatly.

"I know, I know. I just... seeing you with Jake did something to me. And now this Daven guy too. Did he take you home?" His voice sharpened on that last question. The apology was already forgotten.

"That's none of your business anymore, Blake. We're done. You lost the right to ask me anything the moment that woman answered your phone," I said, and hung up. My hands were still shaking as I climbed out of the car.

A few minutes after I got to my room, a different message came through. This one was from Jake.

I'm sorry about the dare, and about what Blake did after. That wasn't fair to you. For what it's worth, I meant what I said outside. I like you, Tessa. Can I see you sometime, just us?

I read it twice. A small smile broke through, the first good feeling I'd had all night. I typed back a quick yes before I could talk myself out of it, then set the phone down and let myself hope for once.

What I didn't know was that Blake wasn't done either.

Still fuming, he pulled up an old number in his phone. One he'd saved back when we were still together, back when I didn't have my own line yet and used to call him from my dad's phone. He didn't check whose number it was now. He just typed and hit send.

You really think I'm going to let you replace me with your own father's friend?

A minute later, still angry, he sent another.

I know something is going on between you and Daven.

Across town, in his study, Victor's phone buzzed twice on the desk beside him. He picked it up, frowned at the number he didn't recognize, and read both messages slowly. His face changed with each line.

He set the phone down. Then picked it back up and scrolled to a different contact instead.

Daven's phone lit up on the nightstand. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, still turning the night over in his head. He glanced at the screen.

Victor.

He answered.

"Hello, Victor?"

Silence on the other end.

Then Victor spoke, his voice low and slow. Daven had never heard him sound like that before.

"Daven, we need to talk about my daughter."

Daven's face changed.