Meanwhile, Sophie moved and stopped directly in front of Stan and said, without preamble:

"Stan. I’m sorry."

Two words. Delivered clearly, sincerely, loud enough that every rubbernecker within twenty meters heard them perfectly.

Quinn Carter looked as if someone had just told him the earth was flat and provided convincing evidence.

’Sophie Youngs. Apologizing. To Stan Harrison. In public.’

’What possible universe was this?’

Zack had gone very still beside Stan. His eyes were wide. He leaned sideways and whispered urgently into Stan’s ear:

"Stan, did you conquer Sophie Youngs?"

Stan gave a small, almost imperceptible nod.

Zack’s brain visibly short-circuited.

Meanwhile, Sophie continued before Stan could ask what she was apologizing for, because honestly, he had no idea. She’d already apologized once, at the mall. He’d thought the matter was settled.

"I’m sorry I didn’t walk you out before you left this morning." Her voice was warm, but her eyes carried a flicker of genuine remorse. "That was rude of me. I should have at least seen you to the door."

The quad went dead silent.

The implications of that sentence, before you left this morning, detonated across the listening crowd like a depth charge. Every single person within earshot was now performing the exact same mental calculation, arriving at the exact same conclusion, and reacting with the exact same expression of slack-jawed disbelief.

’Before he left this morning.’

’He was at her place.’

’Last night.’

’Sophie Youngs and Stan Harrison spent the night together.’

Quinn Carter’s face cycled through approximately seven different colors before settling on a shade of green that suggested his internal organs were rearranging themselves.

Zack slowly raised one fist, thumb extended, his expression somewhere between awe and religious reverence.

"Stan," he breathed. "You absolute legend."

Stan, for his part, genuinely didn’t understand why Sophie was apologizing for not seeing him off. It hadn’t even registered as a slight. He’d slipped out quietly because she was half-asleep, and it had seemed like the considerate thing to do.

"It’s fine, Sophie. Really. You don’t need to apologize for that."

Sophie reached forward and took his hand, deliberately, publicly, in front of every pair of eyes in the quad, and gave him the kind of smile that made several nearby boys contemplate dropping out of university and moving to a different city.

"I knew you wouldn’t be angry with me."

Stan’s heart did something inconvenient in his chest. Sophie’s talent for casual, devastating flirtation had apparently survived the transition from private to public without losing any of its potency.

"I’ll head home now," she said, squeezing his hand lightly. "We’ll chat on Snapchat tonight, okay?"

What she meant was: ’Come over again tonight.’

What she couldn’t say in front of a hundred eavesdropping students was: ’I want you back in that apartment, in that bed, and I’m not done with you yet.’

So she said it with her eyes instead. And Stan received the message clearly.

"Sure," he said.

Sophie released his hand, gave him one last lingering look, and turned to leave, her stride lighter, her chin higher, her entire bearing radiating the quiet, glowing satisfaction of a woman who had gotten exactly what she came for.

Stan watched her go and allowed himself a small, private moment of reflection. Last night had been, well. It had been something. The kind of night that left a man feeling physically lighter the next morning, as if someone had quietly removed a few kilograms of tension from his shoulders while he slept.

’Conquering Sophie Youngs,’ he thought. ’Not a bad addition to the résumé.’

Quinn Carter, meanwhile, looked as though he’d been struck by lightning and was only now beginning to process the voltage.

"What, what did you do?" His voice cracked. "What did you do to Sophie Youngs? Why is she, why is she being like that with you?"

The school beauty. The untouchable goddess. The girl who had publicly rejected every suitor on campus for three consecutive years. She had just walked across the quad, apologized to Stan Harrison for not walking him to the door that morning, held his hand in public, and left with the dreamy expression of a woman thoroughly, catastrophically smitten.

Quinn’s entire worldview was in free fall.

"Get lost," Stan said, without looking at him.

Quinn opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. His grand campaign to destroy Stan Harrison’s reputation was currently burning down around him in real time, and the flames were being fanned by the very campus belle he’d been trying to "protect."

He retreated, physically, emotionally, spiritually, already reaching for his phone, already composing the next furious forum post in his head.

If he couldn’t beat Stan Harrison in person, he’d bury him online. He’d double down. He’d triple down. He’d make the whole campus hate this man if it was the last thing he did.

After Quinn had skulked away, Zack turned to Stan with the expression of a man who needed answers the way a drowning man needs air. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

"Seriously, though. How? What did you do? How are you this close to Sophie Youngs, I knew I helped, but I didn’t expect it to be this easy for you?" He gestured helplessly in the direction Sophie had gone. "Thousands of guys have tried to talk to her. Tens of thousands. She shut down every single one. What method did you use?"

Stan considered the question for a moment.

"It only cost a little money," he said honestly.

It was the truth. The building. The necklace. The system’s rebates funding everything behind the scenes. At the end of the day, money had opened every door that mattered.

Zack stared at him.

"Money? You think Sophie Youngs is the kind of girl you can win over with money?"

"It really did cost some money."

"Stan." Zack put a hand on his shoulder, his expression deadly serious. "Sophie Youngs has rejected heirs worth hundreds of millions. She turned down a guy who offered her a Porsche last semester. She’s not a girl you buy. Whatever you did, it wasn’t about just money."

Stan shrugged.

"Alright. I know you don’t want to tell me," Zack sighed, dropping his hand. "Fine. Keep your secrets. But just know, whatever you did, it’s the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen a human being accomplish at this university. And I’m including the guy who solved that unsolvable math problem last year."

Stan smiled, said nothing, and started walking toward the dormitory.

Behind him, the quad was still buzzing, a hundred whispered conversations, a hundred phones lighting up with messages, a hundred minds trying and failing to reconcile the campus pariah with the man Sophie Youngs had just publicly claimed.

The narrative was shifting. Slowly, grudgingly, but unmistakably.

And Quinn Carter’s forum post was starting to look less like an exposé and more like the desperate fiction it had always been.