[Maddie’s POV]
Getting ready for a floor party shouldn't require forty minutes of contouring. But Maddie has standards to maintain.
I blend the highlighter along my cheekbone, building the illusion of effortless beauty one brush stroke at a time. The outfit took longer—a silk blouse I found at Goodwill and altered myself, paired with jeans that cost more than my weekly meal budget.
Nobody will know the blouse was three dollars.
That's the entire point.
In the mirror, Maddie Reyes looks back at me. Untouchable. Perfect. Exactly who I built myself to be after middle school tore the original version apart.
I don't think about that girl anymore. She was weak, and weakness gets you destroyed.
I definitely don't think about Emily getting ready on the other side of the room.
I don't notice how she pulls on a simple gray top that somehow looks better than anything I spent hours curating. I don't watch her reflection in my mirror, cataloging the way fabric skims her shoulders.
And I for sure don’t look at how her always sleeked back hair caresses her collarbones. The unconscious grace in her every move. The complete absence of pretense.
It's infuriating how badly I want to—
"You're staring," Emily says without turning around.
Her voice carries that dry edge that cuts through my carefully constructed composure.
"I'm checking my makeup." The lie slides out smooth as lip gloss. "Some of us actually put in effort for these things."
She snorts softly but doesn't engage further. Smart girl. We leave separately, because arriving together would suggest a connection neither of us wants to acknowledge. Fifteen minutes apart. Plausible deniability preserved.
The common room thrums with bodies and bass when I arrive. I find Derek immediately—he's hard to miss, sprawled across the couch like he owns the building and everyone in it. His arm settles heavy around my shoulders as I sit.
Familiar weight. Useful weight.
He's already scanning the room for other girls. I watch his eyes track a sophomore in a crop top, and I feel nothing. That's not what he's for.
Derek is a shield, a statement. Proof that Maddie Reyes is exactly who everyone believes her to be.
The cheating doesn't matter. The performance matters.
I learned that lesson a long time ago, carved it into my bones until it became the truth.
Jenna and the other girls cluster nearby, drinks in hand, laughter pitched just loud enough to be noticed. I let their chatter wash over me, contributing expected comments at expected intervals.
This is my court. These are my people. Everything is completely under control.
Then Emily walks in with Ava, and Jenna's eyes sharpen immediately like a predator spotting wounded prey across the savanna.
"Oh, look," Jenna says, voice carrying deliberately across the room. "The scholarship kids made it. Emily, sweetie, is that top from the Goodwill clearance rack? I think my grandmother donated that exact one last spring."
The other girls laugh on cue and I watch Emily's face, waiting for the flinch, the retreat, the proof that she doesn't belong in my world.
She'll shrink. They always shrink. That's how this works.
But then Emily turns and faces Jenna directly, expression is calm and almost bored.
"At least I earned my spot on the team instead of buying it," she says, pleasant as poison. "Maybe if you spent as much time on your axel as you do on your highlights, Coach would actually remember your name."
The common room goes dead silent as Jenna's face flushes crimson, mouth opening and closing like a fish drowning in air. She looks to me for rescue.
Something hot and unwanted sparks in my chest like… Admiration?
Emily didn't flinch, didn't retreat. She demolished Jenna with two sentences of controlled devastation. Yet I'm furious at being impressed.
She's not supposed to fight back, not supposed to hold her own so effortlessly.
"Feisty," I say, letting my voice drip with condescension. "For someone who's never made it past regionals. It's cute that you think one good comeback makes you belong here."
Emily's jaw tightens visibly. Her eyes meet mine, and something passes between us—a current, a challenge, a recognition I refuse to name.
She holds my gaze for one long, loaded moment before walking away toward the drinks table. Spine straight. Head high. Utterly unbothered.
I hate how badly I want to follow her.
I hate even more that I notice the absence when she turns away.
The party continues without a pause around us. Derek's hand moves to my thigh, proprietary and warm. I perform the role of girlfriend—laughing at his jokes, leaning into his touch, pretending I don't notice him texting someone under the table.
Jenna recovers eventually, redirecting her venom toward safer targets. Order restored at last.
Later, I watch Chris approach Emily near the window over my shoulder from the couch.
He's flirting with her obviously. Leaning close, touching her arm with transparent intent, and she’s smiling at him warmly. That genuine smile I remember from when we were kids. Before everything got complicated and ruined.
I tell myself this is strategic awareness. Nothing more than tactical observation.
Emily glances my direction, and I smirk before I can stop myself. A challenge. An echo of our last confrontation in our dorm room still itching under my skin.
Her eyes burn into mine from across the room as she leans in close to Chris, her hand sliding up his chest to grip his collar. My breath catches in my throat, pulse pounding in my ears louder than the music.
She wouldn't.
Not while looking directly at me like that.
Except she absolutely would, because Emily Harper doesn't bluff. She pulls Chris to her and kisses him, eyes wide open and locked on mine. It's filthy, the kind of kiss that's all tongue and intention.
His hands settle on her hips, fingers digging in as he kisses her back eagerly. Like she's his to touch, to taste, to take.
Before I can process what I'm doing, I'm straddling Derek's lap, my mouth hot and demanding on his. I grind down against the growing bulge in his jeans, swiveling my hips in the way I know makes him crazy.
He groans into my mouth, large hands gripping my ass to pull me closer. But my eyes never leave Emily.
I watch as Chris' hand slides into her hair, angling her head to deepen the kiss. Watch as her fingers curl in the fabric of his shirt, pulling him impossibly closer.
It's obscene, the slick slide of their mouths, the breathy little sounds that could be from either of them.
It's the most intimate "fuck you" I've ever received.
And it's all for me.
Everything else fades away until there's only Emily's gaze searing into mine. I nip at Derek's bottom lip just to watch her eyes narrow, sucking it into my mouth as I roll my body against his.
He's panting now, hips stuttering up to meet mine, but he might as well not exist.
This isn't about him. This is about the wild, electric thing unfurling between me and Emily. It's the most intense eye-fucking of my life and we're not even touching.
When Emily finally pulls away from Chris, her lips red and wet, chest heaving. Her eyes are pure midnight when they meet mine, pupils blown and hungry. Then she blinks and it's gone, replaced by something almost like regret.
She touches his arm, an apology without words, and turns away.
Derek is still panting against my neck, hands growing bolder on my body, but all I can focus on is the empty space where Emily used to be.
I know, bone deep, that this is only the beginning. That the static charge between us will keep building with every heated look, every almost-touch, until it ignites and consumes us both.
I should run. I should nip this in the bud, redirect, shut it down before it can become something I can't control.
Maddie Reyes doesn't do messy, or complicated, or real.
But when Derek whispers in my ear about finding an empty room upstairs, all I can think about is Emily's dark eyes daring me to blink first. Emily's hands in another man's hair. Emily's filthy perfect mouth.
I follow Derek to the promised privacy on autopilot. And if I take him apart with lips and teeth and a single-minded intensity bordering on cruel, it has nothing to do with the jealousy still churning in my gut.
Nothing at all.
