She wanted to invite him back to one of the apartments in Four Seasons Garden, his apartments, technically, though they were hers now, and thank him properly. Privately. In a way that didn’t require words.

The thought brought a faint warmth to her cheeks that she was careful not to let show.

Quinn Carter, meanwhile, was watching this exchange with the mounting horror of a man watching a building collapse in slow motion.

His mind snagged on a detail and held it up like evidence at a trial.

’Wait.’

Sarah had invited Stan to dinner less than twenty minutes ago. Stan had refused. Flatly. Without a second thought.

And now, now, Stan was the one doing the inviting. Asking Sophie to go shopping. Tomorrow. And Sophie had said yes immediately, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

’He turned Sarah down so he could pursue Sophie instead.’

The logic assembled itself in Quinn’s head with the satisfying click of a puzzle piece falling into place, never mind that the piece was from an entirely different puzzle.

’He’s playing them against each other. Rejecting one to chase the other. This guy isn’t just a manipulator, he’s a predator.’

Quinn stepped forward, unable to contain himself any longer.

"Sophie, you can’t agree to this."

His voice was loud enough to carry across the surrounding tables, pitched with the urgent sincerity of a man who genuinely believed he was performing a public service.

"This guy has bad intentions. I’m serious. He was just exploiting Sarah, holding her debt over her head, manipulating her, and now he’s turning his attention to you. He’s plotting something. Don’t fall for it."

Sophie’s eyes moved to Quinn. Her gaze was utterly cold. The temperature around the table seemed to drop by several degrees.

"Do I need you to teach me how to make my own decisions?"

Her voice was quiet. Controlled. And absolutely lethal.

It wasn’t a question. It was a warning dressed in seven words, delivered with the precise, cutting authority of a woman who had spent her entire university career fending off men who thought they knew what was best for her.

Quinn’s face drained of color. His mouth opened, found nothing useful to say, and closed again. The righteous momentum he’d been riding for the past ten minutes evaporated in a single instant, like steam hitting cold air.

He shut up.

Sophie turned back to Stan, and just like that, the warmth returned to her expression, as if Quinn Carter had been nothing more than a brief change in weather. She smiled lovingly at him

"See you tomorrow, then."

She held his gaze for a beat longer than necessary. Then, just before turning to leave, she did something that sent a visible shockwave through every onlooker in the immediate vicinity.

She winked at him.

It was quick, a single, deliberate flutter of one eyelid, accompanied by the ghost of a smile, but in a room full of people who had never seen Sophie Youngs direct anything warmer than polite indifference at another human being, it landed like a grenade.

Then she was gone, weaving gracefully through the crowd with Claire at her side, leaving behind a cafeteria full of people who looked as though they’d just collectively witnessed a solar eclipse.

Quinn Carter stood motionless for a long moment after Sophie disappeared.

His fists were trembling at his sides. His jaw was clenched so tight his molars ached. The humiliation of being publicly dismissed by Sophie Youngs, in front of the same crowd he’d been trying to impress with his moral crusade, was burning through his chest like acid.

But beneath the humiliation, something harder was taking shape. Something colder.

He turned slowly toward Stan Harrison, who was calmly finishing the last of his food as if the past fifteen minutes hadn’t happened at all.

"I will expose you," Quinn said, his voice low and shaking with barely contained fury. He jabbed a finger at Stan’s chest. "I will make sure every single person on this campus knows exactly what kind of person you are."

Stan glanced up at him with the mild interest of a man watching a dog bark at a passing car.

"Sarah owes you money," Quinn continued, the words tumbling out faster now, gaining conviction as they went. "And you’re using that. You’re exploiting her. Manipulating her. And I am going to make that public. I’m going to make sure everyone sees your true colors."

He said it like a man making a sacred vow, like a knight swearing an oath before battle. In his mind, he was the hero of this story. The lone voice of reason in a campus full of people too dazzled by Stan Harrison’s act to see the monster underneath.

Stan looked at him for a long, quiet moment.

Then he picked up his tray, stood, and walked past Quinn without a word, close enough that his shoulder nearly brushed Quinn’s on the way by.

He didn’t look back.

Quinn watched him go, teeth grinding, fists white at his sides.

’Tomorrow,’ Quinn thought, already reaching for his phone. ’Tomorrow, everyone will know.’

Stan and Zack finished their lunch, dropped their trays at the collection point, and wandered back to the dorm at an unhurried pace, talking about nothing in particular, a basketball game Zack had watched the night before, a professor whose lectures were legendarily incomprehensible, whether the cafeteria’s chicken and fries had gotten better or whether they’d just gotten used to it.

The ordinary, comfortable conversation of two roommates with nowhere urgent to be.

By the time they got back, the afternoon had settled into its usual rhythm. Stan kicked off his shoes, climbed onto his bunk, and closed his eyes.

Zack sprawled across his own bed with his phone propped against a pillow, scrolling idly through campus forums the way most people scrolled through social media, half-reading, half-dozing, killing time.

The peace lasted about forty minutes.

***

A/N:

Surprise Mass Release 5/10 please support if you’re liking the story so far...