Chapter 18

Rowan Hale realized something was wrong when she stopped tracking the score of the night.

She usually measured parties in minutes, how long until someone spilled a drink, how long until a teammate got too loud, how long until she could leave without it being noticed. It was a system. Reliable. Clean.

Tonight, time slipped.

The house was packed wall to wall, music vibrating through the floorboards, bodies pressed together in loose clusters that shifted and reformed like tides. Rowan stood near the living room doorway, cup in hand, posture easy on the outside and rigid underneath.

Then she saw Lila.

Lila wasn’t doing anything dramatic. She was just talking, smiling at someone, tucking her hair behind her ear, nodding along. But something about her presence felt sharper tonight, like she was more solid somehow. Less scattered.

More intentional.

Rowan looked away.

Then, immediately, she didn’t.

“You planning on staring all night, or are you going to pretend to socialize?” a teammate said, bumping her shoulder.

Rowan scoffed. “I am socializing.”

“By glaring at the kitchen?”

Rowan took a sip of her drink, eyes never leaving Lila. “Mind your business.”

The teammate followed her gaze and let out a low whistle. “Huh. Didn’t know you had beef with cheerleaders.”

Rowan’s jaw tightened. “I don’t.”

But Lila turned then, like she felt it.

Her eyes met Rowan’s across the room, and something flickered between them. Not a smile. Not a challenge.

An invitation.

Rowan’s pulse kicked hard against her ribs.

Lila said something to the person she’d been talking to, then moved. Cutting through the crowd with purpose. Rowan didn’t move. She didn’t trust herself to.

Lila stopped directly in front of her.

“You look miserable,” Lila said, voice calm but sharp around the edges.

“You look busy,” Rowan replied.

Lila’s mouth curved slightly. “Come with me.”

Rowan blinked. “What?”

Lila didn’t wait for an answer.

She grabbed Rowan’s wrist, not rough, but firm and pulled.

Rowan stumbled half a step, instinctively tightening her grip on her cup before realizing how ridiculous that was. “Lila—”

“Relax,” Lila said over her shoulder. “I’m not kidnapping you.”

The crowd parted just enough to let them through, eyes following, whispers already forming. Rowan’s heart hammered. Not from fear, but from the sudden awareness of being seen like this. Chosen. Pulled.

They moved down the hallway, away from the music, away from the heat of the party. Lila pushed open a door and tugged Rowan inside.

It was a spare bedroom. Dim. Quiet. The music reduced to a distant thrum through the walls.

Lila closed the door behind them.

The silence landed heavy.

Rowan pulled her wrist back gently, more to regain control than because she wanted distance. “You can’t just drag me places.”

“I just did,” Lila said.

Rowan scoffed, trying for casual. “What was that about?”

Lila leaned back against the dresser, arms crossed, eyes unreadable. “You’ve been watching me all night.”

Rowan stiffened. “You’re imagining things.”

Lila raised an eyebrow. “You’re bad at lying.”

Rowan looked away, jaw tight. “What do you want, Lila?”

The question came out sharper than she intended.

Lila didn’t answer immediately. She studied Rowan like she was piecing something together something fragile. “I wanted to know if you were going to keep pretending you don’t care.”

Rowan laughed once, humorless. “You dragged me into a bedroom to accuse me of something?”

“No,” Lila said quietly. “I dragged you in here because I was tired of pretending too.”

The words settled between them, heavy and dangerous.

Rowan took a step back, then another, until she felt the edge of the bed behind her knees. She didn’t sit. She just stood there, hands flexing at her sides.

“You shouldn’t do things like that,” Rowan said. “People talk.”

Lila’s gaze didn’t waver. “Let them.”

Rowan snapped her eyes up. “You don’t get it.”

“Then explain it to me,” Lila said. “Because from where I’m standing, you look like someone who’s terrified of wanting something.”

Rowan’s chest tightened. “You think this is easy for me?”

“I think you’re making it harder than it has to be.”

Rowan shook her head. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I’m not asking,” Lila said. “I’m noticing.”

They stood there, the space between them charged with everything they weren’t saying. Rowan could hear her own breathing. Too fast, too loud.

“You can’t pull me into a room like this and act like it doesn’t mean anything,” Rowan said.

Lila took a step closer, not enough to touch, but enough that Rowan felt it everywhere. “I wouldn’t have done it if it didn’t.”

Rowan swallowed.

The air felt thinner.

For a moment, she thought Lila might reach for her again. Instead, Lila stopped, hands dropping to her sides, deliberately not closing the distance.

“I just needed to know if I was imagining it,” Lila said softly.

“And?” Rowan asked.

Lila met her eyes. “I’m not.”

Rowan laughed quietly, more breath than sound. “This is a bad idea.”

“Probably,” Lila agreed.

“People could walk in.”

“They won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you won’t let it happen,” Lila said.

That, that was the problem. 

Rowan looked at the door, then back at Lila. “I don’t do half-things.”

Lila nodded. “I know.”

“And I don’t do things I can’t stand behind.”

“I know that too.”

Rowan’s voice dropped. “Then why are you pushing me?”

Lila’s expression softened, just a little. “Because you’re already standing at the edge. I just wanted you to stop pretending you weren’t.”

The music outside surged suddenly, a cheer rippling through the house. The reminder of where they were crashed back in.

Rowan straightened. “We should go back.”

Lila hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah.”

She opened the door, pausing with her hand on the knob. “For what it’s worth, I don’t regret this.”

Rowan met her gaze. “Neither do I.”

They stepped back into the noise separately, distance reestablished, tension very much intact.

But something had shifted.

And Rowan knew there was no un-feeling it now.

The air between them crackled like live wire, thick with everything neither of them had said. Rowan’s fingers twitched at her sides, resisting the urge to reach out whether to push Lila away or pull her closer, she wasn’t sure. Lila stood just outside her personal space, close enough that Rowan could count the faint freckles dusting her nose, far enough that the absence of contact burned.

“People talk,” Rowan repeated, quieter now, like she was trying to convince herself.

“Let them,” Lila murmured back, eyes dark in the dim light. “I dare you to care less.”

Rowan exhaled sharply through her nose. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

Lila leaned in, just enough that her breath ghosted over Rowan’s jaw. “Then tell me.”

Rowan’s pulse spiked. Sudden, jagged. She could smell Lila’s perfume, something sharp and sweet like citrus peel pressed into warm skin. The scent tangled with the damp heat of the party still clinging to them both. Rowan’s hands curled into fists, nails biting her palms. She could feel the exact space between their bodies like a current, humming with unspent energy.

“Tell you what?” Rowan managed, voice rough despite herself.

Lila’s gaze dropped to Rowan’s mouth. “What’s stopping you.”

The question hung there, open and dangerous. Rowan could hear the distant echo of laughter from the party, the throb of bass beneath their feet. It all felt impossibly far away. She swallowed hard, throat dry, and watched the way Lila’s lips parted slightly waiting.

“Fuck,” Rowan breathed, and then she was closing the distance herself.

There was no hesitation, just the sharp press of Lila’s mouth against hers, hot and insistent. 

Rowan’s hands found purchase on Lila’s waist, fingers digging into the thin fabric of her shirt like she was afraid she might slip away. Lila made a small, bitten-off noise against Rowan’s lips, fingers tangling in her hair to pull her closer. The kiss tasted like cheap vodka and something tart cherry lip gloss, maybe and Rowan couldn’t get enough of it.

Lila broke away first, breathing uneven. “That wasn’t stopping you,” she murmured, thumb brushing the corner of Rowan’s swollen mouth.

Rowan exhaled a shaky laugh. “Shut up.”

Lila smiled. Really smiled, for the first time all night, slow and knowing. “Make me.”

The challenge hung between them, electric. Rowan watched the pulse jump in Lila’s throat, the way her chest rose with each quick breath. The air felt thick enough to choke on. She could still feel the ghost of Lila’s teeth on her bottom lip, the sting lingering like a promise.

Rowan slid her hand up Lila’s spine, fingers tracing the knobs of her vertebrae through the damp fabric. “You’re playing a dangerous game,” she murmured against Lila’s jaw, tasting salt and the faint metallic tang of sweat.

Lila arched into the touch, fingers tightening in Rowan’s hair. “Only if you let me win.”

The words curled hot down Rowan’s spine. For once, she didn’t think about who might be listening on the other side of the door, or what this would look like tomorrow. There was only this, the give of Lila’s hips under her hands, the hitch in her breath when Rowan’s thumb found the sharp ridge of her hipbone. The world beyond this room didn’t exist.

Lila laughed against her mouth, breathless and bright. “You’re thinking too much,” she murmured. Her teeth scraped Rowan’s lower lip, not quite a bite, but close enough to make Rowan’s pulse stutter.

Rowan tightened her grip, pulling until there was no space left between them. “Shut up,” she repeated, but it came out ragged, half-plea.

The music from the party swelled suddenly, muffled through the walls, and for a wild moment Rowan imagined the door bursting open, but Lila’s hands were already sliding under her shirt, cool fingers skimming the dip of her waist, and the thought dissolved like sugar in water. Nothing mattered except the way Lila gasped when Rowan kissed her again, hard enough to bruise.

Lila’s back hit the dresser with a thud, the wood rattling against the wall. Rowan caught the edge of the impact with her palm, cradling the space between Lila’s shoulder blades instinctively. The gesture was almost tender beneath the hunger, beneath the desperation and it made Lila pause, her breath hitching in a way that had nothing to do with roughness.

Rowan could feel the flutter of Lila’s pulse beneath her lips, pressed to the delicate skin of her throat. Like this, she could pretend it was just biology, adrenaline, anticipation but then Lila whispered her name, quiet and wrecked, and the illusion shattered.

Somewhere beyond the room, a glass broke, laughter rising in its wake. Neither of them flinched. The world outside was nothing but white noise now, drowned out by the hitch of Lila’s breath when Rowan’s teeth scraped her collarbone, the slick sound of fabric dragging against skin as hands mapped territories neither of them had dared explore before tonight.

Lila’s fingers curled into Rowan’s shirt like she was afraid she might wake up like none of this would be real if she let go. Rowan understood the impulse. There was something surreal about the way their bodies fit together, how the jagged edges of their usual bickering had melted into this: raw and unguarded, no sharp words left to hide behind.

When Lila’s thumb brushed the scar above Rowan’s ribs, old, from a bike accident at fourteen, Rowan froze. No one ever touched it. Not like this. Not with the pad of a thumb tracing the ridge slowly, deliberately, as if committing it to memory. The intimacy of it was worse than the kiss, worse than the way Lila’s knee pressed between her thighs. Rowan had to look away.

Lila caught her chin, forcing her gaze back. Her eyes were dark, pupils blown wide, but her voice was steady when she spoke. “Don’t,” she said, simple and firm, and Rowan realized with a jolt that she wasn’t just talking about the moment, she was talking about the aftermath, the excuses, the retreat. The warning was clear: whatever this was, they weren’t walking away from it pretending it didn’t happen.

Rowan exhaled, shaky, and let her forehead drop against Lila’s shoulder. The fabric smelled like detergent and something faintly floral, incongruously domestic against the heat of their bodies. She could feel Lila’s heartbeat where their chests pressed together fast, but not frantic. Like she wasn’t afraid. Like she’d already decided.

“You’re terrifying,” Rowan muttered, half into her skin.

Lila laughed softly, fingers trailing up Rowan’s spine. “So are you.”

The admission hung between them, fragile as a held breath. Rowan leaned back just enough to see Lila’s face, the way her lower lip was reddened from kissing, the way her lashes cast shadows in the dim light. She looked unraveled and certain all at once, and Rowan understood, abruptly, why she’d been watching her all night. Some part of her had known this would happen. Some part of her had been waiting for it.