Chapter 4 Fine

Scarlett pov

She made it to lunch without speaking to him.

She considered that a victory.

Maya had appointed herself unofficial guide for the day, steering Scarlett through the hallways with the confidence of someone who knew exactly where every social landmine was buried and had memorised the safe path around all of them. She was funny and easy to be around, and Scarlett had almost, almost relaxed into the morning.

Except for the awareness.

It hadn't left. That low steady pull, like a current running just beneath her skin, and she always. Always knew exactly where Caden Wolfe was in any given room. Third desk from the window in English. Two people ahead in the hallway between second and third period. Across the gym in PE, which had been a particular kind of torment because apparently the universe had decided that wasn't cruel enough and had given him arms like that on top of everything else.

She was not looking.

She was barely looking.

"You're doing it again," Maya said, dropping her lunch tray across from Scarlett with a comfortable clatter.

"I'm not doing anything."

"You're doing the thing where you're very aggressively not looking at someone." Maya unwrapped her straw with the calm efficiency of someone delivering a verdict. "It's actually more obvious than looking."

Scarlett stabbed a piece of pasta. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Caden," Maya said simply.

"I don't know Caden."

"He's been trying to catch your eye since homeroom."

"Good for him."

Maya laughed, a real one, bright and unguarded. "Okay I like you. Most new girls either fall at his feet immediately or pretend they don't know who he is while falling at his feet. You're genuinely unbothered and it's refreshing."

Scarlett opened her mouth to say she was genuinely unbothered, actually, and felt the pull intensify like a dial being turned up and knew without looking that he was close.

She looked down at her pasta.

"Scarlett."

The voice came from just behind her left shoulder. Low, unhurried, warm in a way that did something irritating to the base of her spine. She took a breath and turned.

Up close he was worse. That was her first coherent thought. From across a room she could process him academically, tall, dark hair, unreasonably structured face, moving through the world like it had been organised specifically for his convenience. Up close all of that was still true and also his eyes were doing something devastating in the light from the cafeteria windows and he was looking at her like she was the only still point in a moving room.

She hated it. She hated how much she didn't hate it.

"You know my name," she said. Not a question. Flat enough to communicate that she found this mildly suspicious.

Something shifted in his expression. Amusement, maybe, but careful. Like he was choosing how much to show. "Maya talks."

"I talk," Maya confirmed, eating her lunch serenely.

Scarlett looked back at Caden. He hadn't moved, hadn't looked away, and there was something about the steadiness of him that her body responded to before her brain could intervene, a loosening, like a knot she'd been holding for a long time had just gone slightly slack.

She pulled it back tight. She was good at that.

"Did you need something?" she asked.

"Just to introduce myself." He held out a hand. "Caden Wolfe."

She looked at his hand for a beat longer than was polite. Then she shook it.

The contact lasted maybe three seconds. His hand was warm, his grip easy rather than performative, and the pull she'd been managing all morning flared into something so sudden and bright she almost pulled back.

She let go at a normal pace. She was proud of that.

"Scarlett Voss," she said.

"I know." And then, before she could decide how she felt about that. "How are you finding Ashveil?"

"Strange," she said honestly.

He smiled. It transformed his face in a way that was frankly unfair. "Strange how?"

She considered him. There was something genuine in the question, he wasn't making small talk, he actually wanted to know. She wasn't used to that. She was used to people asking questions they'd already lost interest in before she answered.

"Everyone looks at me like they recognise me," she said carefully. "And I've never been here before."

Something moved in his eyes. Quick, controlled. Gone before she could name it.

"Small town," he said. "New faces stand out."

"It's more than that."

A pause. Measured. "You're perceptive."

"You're deflecting."

Maya made a quiet sound into her drink that might have been a laugh.

Caden looked at Scarlett for a long moment with those honey-dark eyes and she had the uncomfortable sensation of being seen — not looked at, actually seen, in a way she hadn't been in a very long time. Maybe ever.

"Can I walk you to your next class?" he asked.

"I know where it is."

"I know you do."

She should say no. Every sensible, self-preserving instinct she had said no. She had a rule, had always had a rule, about boys who made her feel unsteady. The rule was simple: don't. She couldn't afford unsteady. Unsteady meant distracted and distracted meant missing things and missing things in her life had always carried a cost.

"Fine," she said.

Maya's smile behind him was enormous.