Stan and Zack were still eating when a figure in a dark coat and metal braces approached the table with the purposeful stride of someone who had been waiting for this moment.

Quinn Carter.

Stan saw him coming and his expression flattened into something between resignation and mild irritation, the look a man gets when he sees a mosquito he thought he’d already swatted.

Quinn Carter was, in every measurable sense, a problem that refused to go away. The history between them was simple and ugly: both of them had once pursued Lily Xavier. Quinn had lost, not because Stan had been particularly impressive, but because Quinn was, to put it charitably, below average in the looks department, and Lily had preferred Stan’s face to his. What neither of them had realized at the time was that Lily had been using them both as placeholders. She’d chosen Stan over Quinn, then promptly dumped Stan for Leo the moment a better option presented itself.

The whole thing had been humiliating for everyone involved. But Quinn had decided, with the particular stubbornness of a man who needed someone to blame, that it was Stan’s fault. And he’d been nursing that grudge ever since like a small, ugly pet he refused to stop feeding.

"Well, well." Quinn stopped at the edge of their table with a thin, satisfied smile. "Stan Harrison. I heard you got rejected by Sophie Youngs’s brother yesterday. In public. In front of a crowd."

He was practically vibrating with delight.

"Got dumped by Lily Xavier, and now you’re trying your luck with Sophie Youngs?" He clicked his tongue in theatrical pity. "Don’t you know who you are?"

Stan picked up a piece of braised pork and said nothing.

Quinn, interpreting silence as weakness, leaned in.

"Trying to seduce Sophie Youngs? You’re not worthy. She’s the number one beauty at Peak University. Did Elon Musk give you the courage? What possessed you to think you could walk up to a girl like that and ask for her contact?"

He was on a roll now, his voice rising, attracting scattered attention from the surrounding tables. He had clearly been rehearsing this speech, or something like it, for days.

"Don’t even think about Sophie Youngs. Or Maya Zimmerman. Or Sarah. Or any of the campus belles. You’re not in their league. You never were. You never will be. Understand?"

Stan almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

The irony was so thick it was practically a physical substance. Quinn Carter was standing there, publicly declaring that Stan Harrison couldn’t get close to any of Peak University’s most beautiful women, while, in actual reality, Sarah had Stan’s phone number saved with a heart emoji, Maya had spent an entire afternoon buying him designer clothes, and Sophie Youngs was currently sitting in her apartment holding fifty-plus property deeds with his name on them.

If Quinn ever found out the truth, the shock might genuinely hospitalize him.

"You’re wrong," Stan said mildly, not looking up from his tray. "I’m exactly good enough for them."

Quinn let out a bark of laughter so loud that several nearby tables turned to look.

"You? Are you trying to make me laugh? These campus beauties wouldn’t give you a second glance. What could you possibly have to attract them with?" He leaned closer, voice dropping into a sneer. "Your stinky feet?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of money," Stan said, taking a sip of his soup. "I smell like money. Can’t you tell?"

Quinn’s lip curled. "Have some shame. You think you’re rich? Would you dare talk like that if you actually had a few thousand dollars to your name?"

"I’ve seen shameless people," he continued, warming to his theme, "but I have never in my life encountered anyone as shameless as you."

Stan set down his spoon, looked at Quinn for a long, quiet moment, and decided that continuing this conversation was a waste of calories he could be spending on the fries...

He smiled, shook his head, and went back to eating.

Quinn opened his mouth to continue, he clearly had more material prepared, but the words died on his tongue as a sudden murmur rippled through the cafeteria.

"Sarah..."

"Oh my god, Sarah is here for lunch..."

A woman had just entered through the main doors.

She was wearing a fitted top, a simple skirt, and black stockings that caught the fluorescent cafeteria light in a way that made the entire room briefly forget how to chew. Her hair was down, her posture was relaxed, and she moved through the crowded space with the effortless, head-turning grace of a woman who had long since stopped noticing the effect she had on rooms.

Sarah. Campus belle. System-rated 8.7. The girl Stan had dropped thirty million dollars on without blinking.

Quinn Carter’s brain short-circuited.

His prepared insults evaporated. His sneer dissolved. His eyes went wide and glassy, fixed on Sarah with the helpless, slack-jawed focus of a man watching a sunset he knew he’d never touch.

"She’s beautiful," he breathed, entirely without meaning to.

Then something shifted. Sarah’s trajectory through the cafeteria wasn’t random. She was walking with purpose, a specific table in mind, a specific person in her sights. And that trajectory was carrying her directly toward where Quinn was standing.

Quinn’s heart rate spiked.

’Wait. Is she, is she coming toward me?’

He glanced left. Glanced right. Nobody else was standing in her path. Just him.

’She’s going to say hello to me.’

His palms went damp. His posture straightened involuntarily. He could feel the blood rushing to his face. In approximately three seconds, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in person was going to stop in front of him and...

Sarah walked right past him.

She didn’t slow down. She didn’t glance his way. She didn’t register his existence by even the smallest fraction of a degree.

She stopped in front of Stan, smiled warmly, and said:

"Mind if I sit with you?"

"Sure." Stan casually shifted his tray to make room.