Chapter 7.

JASON

The sun over Theta Lambda’s courtyard is brutal, a white‑hot spotlight that turns the turquoise pool into liquid neon. Sweat beads under the collar of my t-shirt as I lug the awkward weight of the lighting reflector past a gauntlet of inflatable flamingos and half‑filled Solo cups. Great. First campus Saturday and I’m already unpaid stage crew.

Parker bounces toward me in a candy‑striped beach wrap, flip‑flops snapping against the hot concrete. The loose cotton can’t possibly hide the undulating swell of her ass or the hypnotic motion as those amazing breasts sway beneath – the completely improbable curves she still treats like cosmic coincidence rather than certified jaw‑droppers. Her promise ring glints on her finger – same silver as mine, same engraving inside. Thank God. For a second, seeing it there, I relax.

“Cate wants us by the deep end,” she says, breathless, her voice bright with an excitement that already feels a world away from mine. “She’s setting up a group photo for rush Instagram.”

I follow her gaze. Cate stands on a chaise lounge like a runway judge – tall, feline, lean muscle rippling under a black high‑cut bikini that leaves her sculpted chest almost austere. Sunglasses perch on a hawk‑sharp nose studded with a tiny diamond, her midnight ponytail flicking like a whip as she tilts her phone, orchestrating angles. Every pledge candidate clusters beneath her, a vibrant, chattering rainbow of bikinis bordering indecent.

When she catches my eye, her crimson lips curve into a slow, satisfied half‑smile that doesn’t quite reach her shaded eyes.

Parker thumbs her phone, her brow furrowing for a second, then wiggles her ring. “She says chlorine tarnishes it. Do you mind if I- uh… just for the photo?”

Her eyes search mine, a quick flicker of the old Parker.

It’s thirty seconds, Jay. Don’t be a medieval guardian. Don’t make this weird.

I clear my throat, the sound too loud in my own ears. “Yeah, makes sense. We’ll keep it safe.”

I reach my hand out, expecting Parker to hand it to me. She isn’t looking my direction, distracted by motion.

Cate hops down from the chaise, panther-graceful, offering the woven beach tote slung over her shoulder. Parker slides the ring inside with exaggerated care, like it’s a sacred artifact. Mine suddenly feels heavier on my own hand, hotter against my skin. I awkwardly lower my hand.

Stay cool.

Cate claps, a sharp, commanding sound. “Positions! Boys behind the camera, ladies by the splash zone.” She nudges me forward with an impersonal shove, thrusting her sleek phone into my hands. “Portrait mode, Jason. Make them pop.” Her tone implies it’s an order, not a request.

Click.

Parker unwinds the wrap, letting it fall to the concrete in a soft heap. She’s revealed in the pastel‑yellow bikini, a criminally delicate wisp of fabric against her sun‑kissed skin. The triangular cups barely manage to corral her full breasts; freckles dust her upper cleavage like cinnamon. side-tie bottoms hug her narrow waist before flaring into that impossible bubble‑butt, drawing an audible gulp from someone behind the lens – me. The top, already damp from stray drops of pool water, hugs her breasts so nearly sheer that the darker bloom of her nipples ghosts through the fabric.

Jesus.

My finger hesitates on the shutter button. Cate leans close, her breath unexpectedly minty, her voice low against my ear. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m fine,” I attempt, my voice cracking.

“Focus, lover boy.” She physically aims my hands, the lens.

“The camera likes honesty.”

She has to know, doesn’t she? God, she has to know exactly what she’s doing to both of us. This isn’t accidental.

PARKER

Parker’s heartbeat thrums in her ears, a frantic, exciting rhythm as sunlight paints her skin gold. Without the ring she feels strangely weightless, almost illicitly free, like she’s slipped into a bolder role written just for her. A thimble-size glow anneals low in her belly; each bead of water on her chest becomes a micro‑spotlight tracing adoring paths across her skin.

Cate’s palms settle on her hips, firm and directorial, steering her toward the lens, and the reaction from the unseen figures on the lounge chairs swells. An audience leaning forward, their attention a palpable touch. A distant whistle, sharp and appreciative, lands on her nipples like a cue from the lighting booth; they tighten instantly, tingling.

I should be embarrassed. Instead, it feels like opening night.

They probably can’t even see through the fabric, she lies to herself, lifting her chin in what she hopes looks like confident “good posture.”

Instinct, or maybe something new and daring uncurling inside her, tilts her pelvis a hair – a barely measurable shift – and the murmurs deepen, a double wave of heat – embarrassment fusing with excitement – washing over her. Parker mentally files the movement under “blocking adjustment” for drama class even as a hidden throb between her thighs begs for an encore.

It’s all for the role. Courage is currency, remember?

JASON

The viewfinder captures Parker mid‑laugh, water crystals flaring off her collarbone like tiny, personal fireworks. For a breath, a single, stolen second, I forget we’re in public. Mine.

Splash! Someone cannonballs into the pool behind them, a shockwave of chlorinated water slapping Parker’s chest. The thin, damp cloth suctions instantly to her skin, hardening the hazy outline of her nipples into undeniable, three-dimensional focus.

Gasps, whistles, a smattering of applause from the onlookers. Cate’s voice slices through the clamor, sharp and ecstatic: “Hold that! – Jason, shoot. Now!”

Reflex. My finger obeys. Click click click.

Each shutter pop feels like I’m pulling a trigger on my own sanity, documenting my own demise.

Parker’s eyes dart to me – cheeks flushed tomato‑red – and she lifts her arm to brush wet hair back from her face, an unconsciously provocative movement that frames her breasts tighter in the shot. My swim trunks tighten painfully, shamefully.

My eyes follow Parker’s arm as she brushes back her hair. Her hand is bare, promise ring missing, the pale band of untanned skin where it used to rest a stark white reminder in the sun.

My phone buzzes in my pocket.

Cate’s link pops up on my phone. A text message.

My pulse spikes, a sick lurch in my gut.

I know it’s for the role, for the “performance,” but a part of me still reacts, physically, viscerally.

She calls it “commitment,” but all I see is what’s been left behind, what’s being erased.

The photo session dissolves into laughter and splashing as the pledges dive in. Parker pads over to me, droplets of water rolling down her stomach, leaving glistening trails.

“Did you get good ones?” she asks, her voice still a little breathless.

Words tangle in my throat.

I show her the preview on Cate’s phone – the nipple‑halo shot front and center, undeniable.

She bites her lip, her own flush deepening. “Maybe… crop it higher?”

Cate appears behind us as if summoned, arms draping our shoulders with an air of breezy ownership. “Not a chance. Authenticity sells. I have editorial control for good reason.”

She taps the phone, already sharing it to some unseen feed. I manage a weak nod.

She’s your girlfriend. She’s not going anywhere. This is fine. Totally fine.

My internal chant feels increasingly hollow. But as Parker wrings water from her braid, oblivious or deliberately ignoring my turmoil, I notice the empty finger again – silver ring absent, that pale band of untouched skin gleaming brighter, more accusingly, than any jewel. And Cate’s tote, the temporary vault for our promise, is slung securely over her body, not left carelessly on a table.

My stomach flips with a potent cocktail of jealousy, guilt, and – worse, so much worse – a dark, coiling heat. Parker’s ring, our promise, is nestled in Cate’s bag, hanging on her shoulder. It feels symbolic, like a piece of Parker herself is being casually claimed, and I’m just standing by, camera in hand, while it happens.

Before I could even formulate a thought about getting it back, Cate is already steering Parker towards the chattering group by the hot tub, her voice a cheerful, possessive current pulling Parker away. Parker, flushed and exhilarated, glances back with a quick, dazzling smile before disappearing into the throng of senior pledges and a couple of guys from the drama department.

Cate pauses by the gate, turning back to me. “Those photos need to be perfect for the rush feed, Jason,” she says, her voice a purr that barely masked the steel beneath. “Think of it as your contribution to her success. And don’t forget Dr. Laird needs those donor graph mock-ups by morning. You’ll be busy.” She gives a knowing little smile, then follows Parker.

Cornered, and yes, strangely complicit, I nod, as the weight of the tasks settles over me. I have a long night ahead, tethered to my laptop while Parker… Parker is networking.

Chapter 8.

JASON

The only light in the dorm lounge comes from the relentless blue glow of my laptop screen, slide 26 of the donation‑tracker deck, stubbornly blank. Dr. Laird says we need interactive graphs by Monday; Cate, with her usual casual tyranny, wants them by dawn.

Every keystroke piercing in the oppressive silence, another link in the chain, a countdown to something I don’t want to name. My phone buzzes against the cheap laminate of the desk, a jarring intrusion.

A five‑second loop stutters to life: steam curling around sickly-sweet rainbow fairy lights, the lens speckled with mist. Parker reclines, wedged between two bodies. On one side, Noah Bennett – the NFL-bound wide receiver partnered with her at the mixer – his arm tracing a possessive curve along the back of the tub. On the other, Chase, all tattoos and restless motion, his hip pressed tight against hers. The masculine energy cinching tighter on her, almost like the water itself might seal around her and never let her go.

She’s half‑submerged, honey‑blonde waves plastered in damp ribbons over her freckled shoulders, her pastel bikini glowing almost neon beneath the churning, rippling surface. Noah’s walnut‑carved biceps and Chase’s sinewy forearm seem to bracket her subtly swaying breasts, squeezing closer each time the jets surge.

Parker tips her head back, lips parted in a breathless laugh as the loop recycles. A gasp, a tiny, private-sounding moan that lands in my ear through my tinny earbuds like a brand.

My throat locks.

My breath catches.

Another ping. A photo this time.

Parker caught mid‑splash, still laughing, but the force of the water has plastered her side-tie bottoms to her skin, rendering the thin pastel fabric almost transparent over the curve of her ass and the hint of her mound. My gut clenches. It’s one thing to see her in a bikini; it’s another to see it made so revealing, shared so casually.

Then, a third ping. This one is a selfie. Cate. She’s smirking at her own camera, one perfectly sculpted eyebrow arched, the hot tub chaos a colorful blur behind her. And there, stark against the black of her bikini top, nestled in the hollow of her throat on a delicate silver chain, is Parker’s promise ring. Our promise ring. It glints under the fairy lights like a newly claimed prize. A cold wave washes through me.

Why is it out of her bag?

When did it get on a chain?

She asked Cate to hold it so it wouldn’t get tarnished, she doesn’t want to lose it, I try to tell myself, the rationalization feeling flimsy, pathetic when I picture it against Cate’s skin. True safety would be on Parker’s finger, or in my hand. Not displayed on the chest of the woman orchestrating this entire spectacle. It feels less like safekeeping and more like… a statement. Like Cate is wearing a piece of us. And I’m supposed to just keep coding?

PARKER

Bubbles tickle Parker’s thighs, each pop a little electric kiss against her skin. The honey‑lemon lozenge Cate slipped her earlier – “For your nerves, sweetie, helps you sparkle” – melts on her tongue, its faint metallic tang mingling with the sweetness, a subtle shimmer in her bloodstream. Warmth spreads outward from her core, softening the world’s hard edges, making the laughter around her feel like music.

Noah’s thigh presses against hers under the water – firm like brick, an undeniable presence. Chase’s fingers rest on the curved seat behind her butt, so close that each time the jets pulse, she feels the displaced water lap at sensitive skin right above the string of her bikini bottom.

A sudden swirl – the jet? – or is that Chase’s hand brushing higher, a feather-light touch crossing her ass? She stiffens for a microsecond, a flicker of surprise, waiting. For a heartbeat, his pinky seems to pause along the crease where her thigh meets her hip, just under the turbulent water.

She doesn’t move.

She doesn’t stop him.

Her breath flutters in her throat.

Then the boisterous laughter resumes around them, and his arm retreats.

It was nothing. Just the bubbles, the movement of the water.

The jet throbs against her, right where Chase’s finger had been, shockingly direct.

She dismisses the spreading, insistent pulse between her legs as simple stage adrenaline – a performer’s high. And maybe the sugary cocktails, too, she tells herself, letting the excuse surface with a welcome wash of carelessness.

Cate – perched poolside like a queen on her throne, a glass of something dark held aloft – raises her glass slightly, a director signaling action.

Parker straightens, an instinctual performer, her laughter ringing brighter, clearer than the string lights overhead. Her nipples pearl under the water; the gentle current, agitated by the jets, keeps brushing against them like unseen fingertips.

She tells herself it’s just chemistry – the chlorine, the heat, the nerves, the faint, pleasant buzz from the lozenge. It’s just the bubbles. It has to be.

The memory of unseen applause from the photo shoot blooms again, deeper, lower, a warm, addictive thrum.

JASON

Another snap arrives. A video this time.

Cate’s voice, syrupy and saccharine, a confection of false sweetness: “Say hiiii to your hard‑working boyfriend, babe.”

Parker’s hazel‑green eyes, pupils wide as dimes in the low light, cheeks glazed a feverish rose, find the lens. “Miss you, Jason!” She gives a little jazz‑hand wave, a performer’s flourish.

Noah chuckles, his arm tightening almost imperceptibly along the tub’s edge behind her shoulders – territorial, casual, a silent claim.

The video loops, a five-second slice of my own personal hell.

In frame, the surface of the water in Parker’s lap bulges, rhythmic, in time with the jets… or something else. Chase’s hand isn’t visible, but his elbow, right at the edge of the frame, betrays tiny, suggestive movements. My groin tightens against denim, a painful ache as jealousy jackknifes into a forbidden, shaming heat.

Are they really touching her? Or am I losing my fucking mind?

Another ping. Already?

Still shot now:

Parker’s lips parted, head lolling against Noah’s shoulder. Above the waterline, only innocent smiles, a picture of harmless fun. Below? A pale arm – Chase’s, unmistakably – disappears beneath the churning bubbles, angled directly between her thighs.

My hands clench.

I should call. I should walk over there. Rip her out of that tub.

The urge is a raw, physical thing.

My laptop screen flashes: presentation autosave error.

Fuck.

Dr. Laird’s deadline.

My internship lifeline.

My future versus my girlfriend’s… what? Morality? Innocence?

It’s a sick tug‑o‑war, and I’m fraying.

I fire off a weak, desperate text to Parker’s number:

I stare at my phone, waiting. Seconds stretch, thick with the whir of my laptop fan. No reply.

Of course, she doesn’t have her phone in the hot tub. She wouldn’t. But where is it? Left in her sundress somewhere? The thought of it lying there, ignored, while this is happening…

The silence from her end screams louder than any of the snaps. My thumb hovers over the call button. Just go there, man. Just go.

Then, my phone pings. A reply. Relief flickers, so brief it’s almost painful, before I read the message from Parker’s account:

Cate. Not Parker.

Cate, replying for her, from her phone. The digital pat on the head is a cold slap.

My jaw tightens. Builds her confidence?

I remember Parker talking about Cate at the coffee shop, about how crucial presence is, how vulnerability is currency. I remember Parker’s excitement after that, how she’d glowed.

I know how hard she’s working to learn, to get a role. How badly she needs Cate to like her.

Part of me, the part that wants to be a good boyfriend, has to believe this is all part of some sorority-approved, if unconventional, method of helping her. But the images on my phone scream otherwise.

Still, what am I supposed to do? Accuse her? Forbid her? Become the controlling asshole Cate probably expects me to be?

On the next snap, Parker’s mouth forms a small, surprised ‘o’. The bubbles churn harder around her. Noah’s grin widens, teeth a wolfish flash in the dim light.

My cock throbs, a thick, painful pulse, guilt and shame and unwanted arousal spiking higher than my heartbeat graph line ever could.

Is this what she wants? Is this what I want? Is it even what I think it is?

I minimize the snaps, the images burning behind my eyelids, reopen slide 26, and start plotting chart axes with shaky, sweating fingers. Each line I draw, each data point I enter, maps with sickening precision onto the tempo I imagine under that water: upstroke, downstroke, surge, pulse.

I hate how perfectly they match. I hate that my hands can build this system while I’m falling apart.

---

Slide 40 exports without error, the notification a small, meaningless victory. I slump back in my cheap desk chair, wrists aching, the back of my neck stiff, when the phone rattles again on the desk – one last snap.

Video. Five seconds.

Parker now standing in the hot tub, water lapping mid‑thigh, her bikini bottoms plastered to her. She bends forward at the waist to fish out a floating Solo cup, her rounded cheeks rising from the water, a perfect, heart-stopping peach beneath the almost transparent pastel cellophane of the wet yellow fabric.

The side-ties flare; the translucent material clings, spotlighting the faint, dark groove where her cheeks meet her upper thighs.

Noah’s broad palm settles on her lower back, steadying her with an intimacy that makes my breath catch.

My brain scrambles for an innocent explanation – any excuse – but none stick.

Certainty, cold and sharp, slides through my veins like the chlorinated water around hers.

Chase lifts the cup from her fingertips, his knuckles brushing hers, and toasts the lens with a smirk.

Caption from Cate, dripping with false innocence:

My stomach knots. It’s too tame to condemn, yet far too intimate to swallow. A dozen half‑formed confrontations, angry accusations, desperate pleas, collide on my tongue, but none make it past my teeth.

I exhale, a ragged, shaky breath, unzip my jeans, and work myself with a cold, desperate efficiency that feels more like self‑harm than pleasure. When the release hits – a muted, joyless spurt into a coffee‑stained napkin – revulsion floods in behind it, hot and stinging as chlorine.

She’s not even here, and she’s the only thing that can do this to me now, reduce me to this.

The slimy evidence goes into the trash can under the desk; the snap, the deck, the browser history all vanish with a series of frantic, guilty clicks.

The shame?

That one backs up to the cloud, a permanent, indelible record.

At 3 AM, a time when the only things moving are regrets and shadows, Parker’s last location ping from Cate’s shared app shows her at Cate’s apartment. I picture her curled on crisp, expensive sheets, our promise ring still glinting against Cate’s sternum, a spoil of war.

Chapter 9.

JASON

Slightly after 11 Sunday morning, I find myself climbing the narrow stairwell at Cate’s building, the air still thick with the ghosts of last night’s party – stale beer, cheap gin, and something faintly, unnervingly sweet, like that terrible pheromone cologne. Balancing a cardboard tray – cold‑brew for me, iced lavender latte for Parker – and a white paper bag still warm and slick with buttery heat from the bakery, I tell myself, Just brunch. Not an interrogation.

At the landing, painted a surprisingly cheerful yellow, I knock with my elbow. The door cracks and Parker peers out, hair a tumbled, sleep-soft halo around her face, cheeks rosy. She’s wrapped in one of Cate’s long T‑shirts – faded concert graphic I don’t recognize, its hem brushing her bare mid‑thigh – and definitely nothing underneath.

When she shifts her weight the soft cotton clings, outlining the smooth curve where the deepening of her ass meets bare thigh. The innocent domesticity of her bare legs against the polished hardwood floor slams into me harder than the missing promise ring, which should be glinting on her hand but isn’t.

Both absences ring alarms in my head – one chaste, one explicitly not.

“Jay,” she breathes, a soft, slightly surprised smile blooming. “You didn’t have to.”

“I did.” My voice skids, rougher than I intend. “Hungry?”

Inside, Cate’s loft is all skylight glare and artfully arranged bohemian pillows, a stark contrast to the slightly more chaotic Theta house. It smells different too – sandalwood incense and expensive coffee, a dagger of Cate’s bitter citrus and saffron perfume through its heart. No Cate in sight, though.

I set the pastries on a cool marble island and try not to stare at Parker’s legs as she pads around collecting plates, humming something – maybe a show‑tune – the sound fuzzy and intimate with morning rasp.

I clear my throat. “How’s the head?”

“Dry,” she laughs, accepting her latte, the ice clinking. “Hot tubs dehydrate you.”

The hem of the shirt lifts almost teasingly as she reaches for a plate, baring the smooth, pale underside of her buttcheeks for a split second – incontrovertible proof she’s wearing nothing beneath. My own laugh comes out brittle.

“Did, uh… your swimsuit bottoms not survive the night either?” She freezes for half a heartbeat, then turns, sheepish charm softening her features.

“Oh, those? They’re uh… hanging in… Cate’s bathroom? To air-dry?” Her eyes flick to the door and back at me as she plucks absently at a loose thread hanging from the hem of the tee, twirling it around her finger.

“The chlorine… you know how it gives me a rash… My skin’s so sensitive.”

She nudges my hip with hers, a playful, disarming gesture.

“Figured you’d rather have me comfy than squirming.”

Comfy. Right.

The mental image of Noah’s submerged hand, the way Parker’s mouth had formed that surprised ‘o’ in the snap, flickers like bad film. For a second I wonder if ‘air‑drying’ is a polite euphemism for something wetter, something shared.

That thought pricks me, sharp and unwelcome.

I thumb my phone awake, heart thumping a nervous drumbeat against my ribs.

One saved snap stares back: Parker bending in the bubbly water, Noah’s steadying palm far too intimate on her lower back.

Before courage dissolves into the morning light, I hold the screen out.

“This… bothered me.”

Her eyes widen for a heartbeat – then narrow, not with guilt, but with a carefully constructed look of regret. “Oh, Jason… it looks worse than it was. I guess maybe I’d had a little too much to drink, and I just lost my balance on the jets.”

Parker looks down then, her lashes sweeping her cheeks, and swallows, a visible effort. She lifts her free hand, palm-up, her voice small, almost childlike. “I swear… nothing really happened. I mean, not anything important. You know I’m saving everything for us.”

If she’s lying, she’s better at it than I ever imagined. Or maybe she’s lying to herself, too, rewriting the script as she goes. I want to believe her. God, I want to. But my cock is still half-hard just from remembering the way his hand looked on her, the possessive curve of his arm. And I think she knows it; there’s a flicker in her eyes, quickly veiled.

The sincerity in her voice slices through me. Because despite everything, a stupid, hopeful part of me does believe her, or maybe it has to. I can’t tell. “It’s just… his- you know, his hand- uh- and that other clip… the one I deleted… I saw fingers moving under the water. It looked-”

“Suggestive?” She finishes softly, her head tilted with an air of gentle patience, like she’s explaining something obvious to a slow child. “Jason, the bubbles distort everything. Chase was fishing for that stupid floating cup, remember? I even teased him about being the hot‑tub janitor.” Her eyes meet mine, wide and earnest. “If you thought it was more, why delete it?”

Because jerking off to it felt like a betrayal of my own outrage, like giving the prosecution ammunition.

“I panicked,” I manage, the word tasting like ash.

She smiles, a rueful tenderness that makes my gut twist. “Then trust what you know about me, not glitchy pixels and too much champagne.”

She steps closer, into my space, the huge shirt gliding over her curves, gentle vanilla beneath the scent of her skin – warm, sleepy, and Parker – clouding my judgment. “Any contact was accidental and over the bikini, Jay. I’d never let anyone cross that line. You know that.”

Heat and shame wrestle in my gut. I was the one who deleted the other videos. Well, except this one, Exhibit A of my own damn paranoia.

She plucks the phone gently from my suddenly numb fingers and deletes the image herself, her thumb held steady for the confirmation countdown.

Poof. Trust her. You have to. Otherwise, what do you have left? Just this aching suspicion?

“See, nothing to worry about,” she declares, returning the device and caressing my hand. “Can you look at me now, Jason? Not a screen?”

I nod, but my gaze drops, inevitably, to her bare ring finger. Parker registers it a beat later, following my line of sight.

A blush crawls up her throat, a tide of fetching color. “Oh- the ring.” Her voice is a little breathless now. “Cate had it after the pool, so it wouldn’t get lost. I freaked out a little when I realized it was missing, but she promised it was safe. I’ll get it back, I swear.”

Almost on cue, the bedroom door swings wide. Cate strides in, stretching languidly, lean muscles rippling under a cropped sports bra. And there it is. Parker’s ring. Our ring. Dangling from a delicate silver chain against Cate’s sternum like a newly claimed hunting trophy.

“Morning, lovebirds.” Cate plucks a croissant from the bag I brought, taking a bite before offering it to Parker. “Jason, that dashboard mock‑up you sent at three a.m.? Gorgeous. Donors are already fangirling.”

I manage a tight smile. “Thanks.”

Parker touches Cate’s chain, her fingers brushing the silver. “My ring… can I have it?” Cate lifts the chain, letting the band twirl, catching the light. “This little heirloom tried to vanish down a floor‑drain while she changed.”

Her brow quirks, a perfectly sculpted arc of amusement. “I locked it on my necklace so it couldn’t pull a Houdini. Chlorine’s drying. Let it rest for a bit. I’ll slip it back on you after brunch, promise.”

She reaches into a small, colorful bowl on the counter and lifts out a tiny, tarnished gold key on a simple leather cord. “In the meantime, a placeholder. Let’s try and open some doors for you.”

The charm itself looks old, even a little cheap, but Cate presents it like a treasure. Parker laughs, a bright, slightly forced sound, slipping the cord over her head. The twisty key, surprisingly heavy-looking for its size, rests in the hollow between her full breasts, hidden by the oversized shirt.

She turns to me, a hopeful, almost desperate light in her eyes. “Symbolism over metallurgy, right, Jay?”

I should insist.

I should demand the ring, make a scene. But Parker’s smile, that pleading look, disarms me.

Looking into her eyes, I let it go, despite the terrifying grip on my heart when I imagine Cate refusing to return it.

Parker leads me to the sofa, settles herself carefully onto my lap so the soft T-shirt pools around us like a tent. Her bare thighs are warm against my denim-clad legs. She guides my hands – strictly waist‑high – and kisses me, slow and deep, her mouth tasting of lavender and Parker.

“I missed you last night,” she murmurs against my lips, her hips giving one subtle, almost involuntary roll against mine. My cock twitches, a traitorous, eager throb.

“Later,” she breathes, “we’ll have an us night.”

Above her shoulder, Cate lounges on a beanbag, scrolling her tablet, pointedly pretending not to watch – but I feel her eyes on us, a cool, assessing weight.

She taps a key, then glances up, her voice casual. “By the way, Jason, the treasurer approved an additional hundred for your freelance hours. Check coming tomorrow.”

Money, praise, Parker’s mouth: the trifecta.

It numbs my doubt, blurs the edges of my anger.

Parker grinds with increasing force, as if driven by the attention. It’s impossible to tell whether by mine or from Cate’s gaze.

I kiss her back harder, needing the contact, until she breaks away, breath fluttering. “Not too far,” she cautions, cheeks hot, her eyes flicking towards Cate for a split second, almost as if for approval. “Saving the best for the honeymoon, remember?”

I nod, ashamed of my insistent need, the heat still coiling in my gut. She climbs off my lap, smoothing the shirt down over her thighs with a self-conscious tug.

“Pastries?”

We eat, the conversation light, mostly about midterms. Cate regales Parker with outrageous, performance-based fundraiser theme ideas, and Parker actually seems to be considering them. I sip my now-lukewarm cold-brew, half listening, feeling like a spectator at my own life.

When the plates are empty, a comfortable silence settles, and I stand. “I should finish polishing that code.”

Parker hugs me at the door, her body soft against mine, the scent of grapefruit shampoo still faintly damp in her sleep-tousled hair. If I close my eyes, it’s almost like last night didn’t happen.

“Text me when you’re home safe,” she says, her eyes earnest. I squeeze her back, hoping my sincerity outweighs the confusion churning inside me.

Down the narrow stairwell, the cold‑brew churns with regret. Behind me, as the door clicks shut, I catch a fragment of Cate’s voice, cool and amused: “See? Trust is only scary if you break it.”

Parker’s reply is too soft to hear, lost in the sudden thump of my own heart.

Outside, the Sunday morning sunlight feels harsher than yesterday; as if someone turned up the contrast on the world, making all the shadows deeper. I thumb my own ring, its familiar weight suddenly feeling lighter, incomplete without its twin.

Later we’ll have an us night.

The words echo, hopeful-

And hollow.

Chapter 10.

JASON

The air inside the lounge is thick with the sharp chemical tang of acrylic nails and hairspray, a miasma that colors your lungs long after you leave. Pledges lounge on saggy beanbags like bright, discarded confetti, phones held aloft, chasing angles under the Edison bulbs looping haphazardly overhead. Off to one side, Cate prowls behind an open laptop, a jungle cat in her element; every few seconds the follower‑count graph on her screen jerks upward in a neon staccato, as if the internet itself were gasping for more skin.

Parker sits cross‑legged on the shag rug, her pastel hoodie unzipped just enough to show the yellow bikini top we bought- Cate bought during that surreal “sisters‑only” shopping trip. She keeps her gaze low, fingers fiddling with the cheap plastic zipper, but there’s a hectic flush rising along her neck that’s not just the room’s oppressive heat.

Cate had pressed a lozenge into my hand earlier with that patient, almost pitying sorority‑president smile. “Keeps you focused when the metrics start to spike,” she’d said, her voice a silken threat. The damn thing still buzzes on my tongue – enough beta‑alanine to make my scalp tingle and the skin over my cheekbones feel tight, but not enough to actually drown the jackhammering nerves in my chest.

A ping rolls through the StageLights chat feed displayed on the big screen, the notification sound sharp enough to make a few girls jump:

The words hang in the suddenly silent room like a live wire. A hush sweeps through the pledges, broken only by the low, laboring hum of the ancient mini‑fridge in the corner.

Cate’s voice, cool and amused, slices through the tension. “Ooh, looks like the donors are getting impatient. That’s a lot of points on the line, not to mention vocal coaching, which might make the difference between a speaking role and scenery. Who’s brave enough to claim this? Confidence reads, ladies. Make it count.”

Parker’s hazel eyes flick to me – a split-second glance, half a desperate question, half a reckless dare. Beside me, I feel my roommate Evan shift uncomfortably on the lumpy beanbag, his black and white maze-print socks flashing as he leans in.

“Bro,” he mutters, his voice a low hiss close to my ear. “This is borderline OnlyFans.”

I start to answer, to say something, but Cate’s voice cuts sharper, laced with triumph. “Jason’s dashboard proves the correlation: bolder content, bigger ticket presales for the play.”

She flicks a perfectly manicured finger over her trackpad; my analytics dashboard – my creation – explodes across the TV screen. My code. My numbers. My unwitting contribution fueling this entire spectacle.

“It’s just for sixty seconds,” Parker says quietly, her voice barely audible above the thumping in my own ears. It sounds like she’s trying to convince herself as much as me.

She looks at me. Really looks at me. Her eyes wide, pupils dilated in the dim light, lips parted like she’s not sure if she wants permission or absolution. For a split second, the girl I know, the Parker I love, wavers there in the amber glow of the Edison bulbs.

I open my mouth. My tongue feels thick, useless. Stop her. Say something. Anything.

Nothing comes out.

A choked, pathetic silence.

Her eyes search mine, a desperate, fleeting hope in their depths.

When I fail her – fail to stop her, fail to even speak – her gaze hardens, the vulnerability shuttered away, replaced by something that looks like raw resolve… or utter surrender.

She nods, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement, more to herself than anyone. Then louder, her voice surprisingly steady: “Okay. I’ll do it.”

Cate nods, all brisk business, a conductor cueing her orchestra. “Atta girl. Just like rehearsal.” She looks at the room, admonishing the rest who didn’t volunteer. “Persephone knows stage presence doesn’t stop at the neckline, ladies.”

Parker rises, and her hoodie spills from her shoulders, revealing a constellation of freckles across skin still kissed by poolside sun. Her breathing is shallow, audible now in the tense quiet, but there’s a new tension in her thighs, her calves: a flex like she’s about to step into a single, searing spotlight. Maybe this is her spotlight.

Cate raises her smartwatch, its face glowing. “Three. Two. One.”

Time slows, stretching taut.

Each second an eternity.

My pulse spikes so fast it blurs my vision, the faces around me swimming.

My hands clench on my knees, fingertips burning, nails digging into my palms.

My chest feels too tight, constricted, like I’m watching a car accident I helped stage and now can’t tear my fucking eyes away from.

Parker’s fingers move to the knot at her neck, hesitating for a breath.

Her gaze darts to Cate’s ever-climbing graph – then to me, one last unreadable look – then she takes a breath so deep her chest lifts, her small frame expanding as if she’s about to sing an aria.

Then she pulls.

Her arms rise, wrists crossing above her collarbones in a strange, almost ritualistic gesture.

Her ribcage expands, flaring subtly.

There’s a tremble in her shoulders – deliberate or nervous, I can’t tell – but for a beat, she looks like a marble sculpture: elegant, symmetrical, on the verge of some ancient invocation.

The bikini top flutters loose, a whisper of yellow fabric against the sudden, shocking nakedness of her skin.

The light catches her skin first: smooth and sun-warmed, flushed a delicate rose down the center of her chest, like she’s just come off stage from a triumphant performance.

Her breasts fall free, a slow, breathtaking unfurling.

They’re perfect. Their exquisite teardrop shape so intimately familiar to me through fabric and fantasy it feels like a physical blow, an obscene violation, to see them now, so starkly, vulnerably real. Full and soft and unfathomably high, framed by that delicate constellation of freckles across their upper slopes.

Her nipples, a pale, innocent pink, pucker and stiffen instantly in the air‑conditioned chill of the room, shockingly prominent.

The hoodie sleeves drape loose at her elbows, a pathetic remnant of modesty, making her nakedness seem even more profound.

She’s bare.

She’s topless.

In front of strangers.

In front of me.

My temples pound with a sick, rhythmic throb. I can feel my heartbeat in my throat, a frantic bird trapped in my ears, a shameful, insistent pulse in my dick. Panic and raw, unwanted arousal twist together, a toxic cocktail in my gut.

My cock aches, swelling hard and urgent inside my jeans, nagging me about something I won’t admit, something I despise.

She lifts her phone slowly, deliberately, her thumb dragging a ridiculously cheerful peach emoji over each taut nipple. The emojis pulse like a joke, a flimsy, digital pastie. Like lingerie made of stickers.

My breath comes shallow, ragged.

Every muscle in my thighs locks as if trying to anchor me to the spot, to reality.

Don’t get hard. Don’t you fucking get hard.

But I already am.

Aching.

Throbbing.

She’s doing this for them.

For the graph.

For Cate.

For the numbers that will prove my dashboard is a success.

It’s a goddamn success, all right.

I want to scream.

I want to kiss her until she forgets anyone else exists.

I want to crawl out of my own skin.

A barrage of notification chimes erupts like celebratory gunfire. The big screen explodes with color: my prototype interface. A line graph tracking ‘Audience Sentiment’ spikes violently into the green. A separate module shows ‘Donor Pledges Per Minute’ ticking up like a slot machine. It’s hypnotic. It’s my code. And Parker – my Parker, or the girl who used to be – keeps her gaze steady on her phone screen, breathing slow and even, her bare chest rising and falling with a composure that seems almost inhuman, like she’s center stage, lit from every angle, impervious.

Frozen in my chair, I realize I’ve stopped breathing, my lungs burning.

Halfway through the minute, a new dare scrolls across the chat feed: drop the emojis.

Evan curses under his breath, a choked sound, and shoves away from the wall, turning his back.

He can’t watch.

I can’t look away.

Parker’s cheeks flame brighter, a hectic, almost feverish color, but she doesn’t look away from her phone.

Her shoulders square, and for the barest second, a tiny, almost imperceptible smile touches her lips. Not at the camera, not at me, but at the invisible, adoring audience she must feel on the other side of the screen. Like she can feel their eyes on her, devouring her. Like she needs them to. Like applause is oxygen and she just now learned how to breathe it in its purest, most intoxicating form.

My jeans tighten to the point of pain.

My throat closes.

Shame, hot and acrid, hits me like static electricity, making my skin crawl.

What kind of man lets this happen? What kind of man watches?

I don’t know how to stop it.

I don’t know if I want to.

The conflict tears at me, a visceral, sickening rip.

The emojis jitter on her screen. One slips, just for a fraction of a second, just long enough to flash a dusky edge of areola, a hint of darker pigment, before the digital overlay snaps back into place.

The air in the room shifts – cool, charged. A ripple of gooseflesh, almost invisible, rises along the soft swell of her breast, and I can’t unsee it.

I’m the only one who saw that slip, that tremble.

It feels like a private sin, a secret intimacy in this grotesquely public moment.

I’m the only one paying this much attention. Surely that means she’s still mine, in some way. This exposure, this vulnerability… it’s only for me. Isn’t it?

Sixty seconds. An eternity ends. Parker yanks the hoodie closed with a gasp, her movements jerky, her cheeks aflame.

Cate applauds, a slow, deliberate, almost regal clap. “Two‑hundred points to Persephone,” she announces, her voice dripping with satisfaction, “and-” she taps her phone with a flourish “-scholarship match confirmed.”

A shiny poker chip embossed with twin theatre masks arcs through the air; Parker catches it against her chest, her fingers visibly trembling.

The StageLights notifications are out of control.

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, a shuddering exhalation that leaves me feeling weak. The tension in my thighs releases all at once, like a dam finally giving way. My hands slide off my knees, slick with sweat. My pulse thunders a few more desperate beats, then starts to ebb, leaving behind a strange, gnawing emptiness. A chilling aftershock beneath a wash of fear and shame that felt like a twisted sort of climax in my brain.

That vacuum leaves me hollow.

Flushed.

Caught somewhere between an agonizing pride in her audacity and a soul-crushing devastation.

Cate smiles wolfishly, her eyes gleaming. “You see? You give a little glow, and the world gives back. Don’t blush, Persephone, it’s called charisma.”

Evan pushes past me toward the hallway, his shoulder bumping mine hard. “Talk to her, man,” he hisses, his voice urgent, contemptuous. “Slippery slope doesn’t even fucking cover it.”

I hate how right he sounds. I hate him for saying it.

But she’s still smiling. That strange, luminous, post-performance smile.

At me.

I want to speak, to protest, to drag her out of here, but Parker’s face – flushed, lit, half‑wild with a terrifying new energy – makes my throat seize.

She looks like someone who just now realized the crowd really is clapping for her, and that the applause is a drug she can’t live without.

I mumble something incoherent, a sound lost in the noise of my own collapsing world.

She beams wider, misinterpreting it as praise.

My eyes flash to her finger.

Still no ring.

Not even the placeholder key.

Just bare, untanned skin.

I told myself I’d ask her again, but she looked so happy, so radiant in her sixty seconds of fame.

And I didn’t want to ruin the moment.

Her moment.

Later, alone on the cold concrete of the back stairwell, where the Wi‑Fi lags just enough for a desperate, furtive secrecy, I replay the saved snap on my phone.

The peach emoji shifts, stutters, slips – that half a second of unfiltered, forbidden skin – and that fleeting image brands itself behind my eyelids, a permanent, searing imprint.

She didn’t even see it drop. Did she? Or did she mean for me to see it?

Shaking, I tap save, then delete, then save again, my thumb trembling over the screen.

I should delete it.

I do.

But it’s too late.

You already came, didn’t you? To the thought of it, to the memory, to the shame of it all.

You’re the reason she smiled like that. Your silence. Your complicity.

My phone buzzes with Evan’s text.

My fingers feel like lead as I type back a lie.

The phone feels heavy in my hand, the lie sitting like a stone in my gut.

Upstairs, Parker is… celebrating? Justifying?

I don’t know. But the image of her smile, that terrifyingly radiant, public smile, burns behind my eyelids, a brand of my own making.

The buzz in my jeans is a phantom limb of shame, is a gnawing hunger, is- God, I don’t even know what it is anymore.

And the worst part?

Deep down, some broken piece of me is already waiting for the next dare, the next image, the next excruciating turn of the screw.