The night was loud and golden.

Music bled through Angela's walls like a heartbeat, bass-heavy and relentless, settling into everyone's chest and making thinking harder than it needed to be. Angela had thrown the biggest party of the month, and half the university had shown up to prove it. Laughter spilled, red and blue lights cut through the haze, and the air was thick with perfume, alcohol, and the particular energy of people who had collectively decided to forget their problems for one night.

Earlier that evening, Brent had made a promise. Quiet, deliberate, the kind he meant. I'll behave. I'll be good. No flirting, no bullsh1t. He'd said it while looking straight at Guest, wanting him to actually believe him for once. Brent was tired of being the guy who always needed another chance. Tonight was supposed to be different. Tonight, he was going to prove it.

And he'd been doing fine.

He made his way to the drink table at the center of the room, weaving through the crowd with his empty cup, thinking about nothing except refilling it. Simple. Harmless.

Then she appeared beside him.

She was the kind of girl who didn't go unnoticed, beautiful, head-turning way that made people forget what they were doing mid-sentence. One of the popular girls from campus. She leaned close, close enough that her perfume mixed with the alcohol in the air, and offered him a drink with a smile that was practiced and soft all at once.

Brent barely looked at her.

He wasn't interested. Not even a bit. But he wasn't rude either. That wasn't who he was. So he gave her a polite smile, a civil acknowledgment, and accepted the drink. He was going to pour one anyway. It didn't mean anything.

He lifted the cup.

And froze.

Across the room, standing just beyond the edge of the crowd with his arms crossed and his expression unreadable, was Guest. Still. Watching. The look on his face didn't need words. It was a quiet, cutting dare, like he already knew exactly how this was going to go and was giving Brent every opportunity to prove him wrong.