Chapter 8

“Yes,” I said.

Julian fell into step beside me. The answer had come too quickly, before I’d decided whether I meant yes to him, the walk, or simply surviving the next five minutes without someone shoving a phone in my face.

Behind us, Elena called, “Text me if anything happens.”

“I will.”

Julian glanced back. “She’ll be fine.”

Elena’s eyebrows climbed. “That’s not your call.”

For once, he didn’t answer. I almost smiled. Almost.

We crossed the quad, and the whispers rose around us. A cluster of students near the fountain looked down at their phones, then up at me. One of them lifted hers before her friend nudged it back down.

The video had outrun the still photo. I could feel that in the way people watched: not wondering whether the kiss had happened, but deciding what it meant.

“Is it still at forty thousand?” I asked Elena.

“Forty thousand when I checked. More now, probably.” She lowered her voice. “And the Hales are still talking to the Dean. That’s all I know.”

“Do you know who their daughter is?”

“No.” Elena’s mouth tightened. “People are guessing. Someone posted Serena’s name, but that’s only a guess.”

I watched a pair of girls lean together, their conversation stopping as we passed.

“Then I’m not repeating it.”

“Good,” Elena said. “Rumors don’t get more true just because everyone repeats them.”

Julian’s hand hovered near my back. Not touching. Waiting, maybe. The awareness of it was irritatingly familiar already.

“I can get the video taken down,” he said.

“No.”

His jaw tightened. “Aria—”

“I mean it. Don’t call anyone. Don’t ask your teammates to lean on people. Don’t make this disappear for me.”

“I’m trying to help.”

“I know. That doesn’t make it your decision.”

A group of students parted in front of us. I kept my eyes forward, though the urge to duck my head was strong. At least the cameras couldn’t see that.

Julian’s voice dropped. “I don’t want them turning you into a spectacle.”

“Neither do I. But I can handle it.”

He studied me for a moment. “And if someone gets in your face?”

“Then I’ll decide what to do.”

His expression shifted, something like frustration and something like reluctant understanding. “You don’t make it easy to protect you.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

The words landed harder than I intended. His gaze went to my mouth, lingering for a beat before he looked away.

“No,” he said. “You didn’t.”

We reached the walkway between the library and the lecture halls. The campus had its own weather now: phones held low, faces turned just enough to pretend they weren’t watching. The same still image kept flashing across screens. Julian’s fist in my hair. My body leaned into his. A frozen second made to look like a promise.

I remembered the actual kiss in pieces. My hand in his collar. The heat of him. The way he’d kissed me back with an intensity that had made the rest of the parking lot disappear.

My choice. His choice too, once he answered it.

Not a contract.

“Were you going to tell me what you think it meant?” Julian asked.

I looked at him. “Do you need me to?”

“No.”

“Good.”

His mouth twitched, but there was no humor in it. “I know you meant to stop Luca.”

“I did.”

“And after that?”

The question nudged at something I hadn’t sorted yet. My pulse picked up, annoying and immediate.

“After that, I was kissing you,” I said. “I’m still figuring out what that means to me.”

He held my gaze. “You didn’t hate it.”

“That isn’t the same as giving you permission to define it.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” I stopped walking. He stopped with me. “Because last night you told me I couldn’t speak to Luca unless you were there. You said I was attached to you. You called me yours.”

His face went still.

“I’m saying this clearly, Julian. You don’t decide who I talk to, where I go, or what that kiss means. You don’t get to make rules for me because I live in your apartment. And you don’t get to kiss me again unless I choose it.”

“I heard you.”

“Then show me.”

The pause stretched. I could hear the faint thud of a ball from the athletic field and the voices of people passing behind us. Julian didn’t move closer.

“I can do that,” he said.

I wanted to believe him. I also remembered that he’d watched my schedule for years and called it protection. Both things could be true: he might want to keep me safe, and he might want me to belong to him. I couldn’t let the first excuse erase the second.

“Good.”

His gaze dropped to my lips again. “If I asked you to kiss me now?”

“I’d tell you to wait for my answer.”

“And if you said no?”

“Then it’s no.”

He nodded once. “Understood.”

The steadiness in his voice did something to me that his commands hadn’t. That was the problem with him. Even when I pushed him back, he could make the space between us feel charged.

“I have class,” I said.

“I know.”

“I’m going alone.”

His brows drew together. “You want me to leave?”

“I want you not to follow me.”

The words tasted sharper than they needed to. I hated that I had to say them at all. I hated more that some part of me was watching his face to see whether he’d obey.

He gave me a long, unreadable look. Then he stepped aside.

“I have film review,” he said. “Across campus.”

“That’s your choice.”

“I know.” He turned as if to leave, then stopped. “Aria.”

I waited.

“If anyone asks, you don’t owe them an answer.”

“I know that too.”

He let out a breath through his nose, almost a laugh, and walked toward the athletic buildings.

I watched him go for just long enough to be annoyed with myself. Then I headed for class.

The lecture hall was half full when I arrived. Conversation dipped as I entered, then restarted in softer voices. I chose a seat near the aisle and put my phone facedown on the desk.

A girl I recognized from the back row slid into the seat beside me. She offered an awkward smile.

“Are you and Julian—”

“No,” I said, then stopped. It was too easy to answer a question that wasn’t hers to ask. “I’m not discussing my private life.”

She flushed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“I know. But you don’t have to ask.”

She nodded and looked down at her notes.

My phone buzzed once. Elena.

**They’re making up a whole story in the comments. You don’t have to read them.**

I typed back:

**I’m not. I’m deciding what I want to say.**

The professor came in, and the room settled. For an hour, I forced my attention onto the lecture. I took notes. I answered a question. I did not check my mentions.

When class ended, the forum was still waiting. It would always be waiting. I could keep saying nothing and let strangers fill the silence with whatever version suited them, or I could say one thing I knew was true.

I found Elena on the steps outside the building. She was scrolling through the thread, her mouth set in a hard line.

“You look like you’re about to throw your phone into the fountain,” I said.

“I’m considering it.”

“Don’t. I want to use mine.”

She handed it over. “What are you going to do?”

“Write something. Not about Julian. About me.”

Elena’s face softened a little. “All right.”

I opened the forum and started a post. My first draft was angry. My second was too long. I deleted both.

The third read:

**The kiss in the parking lot was my choice. It doesn’t confirm a relationship, and it isn’t an invitation for strangers to approach me or invent motives for me. If the university has a concern about my conduct, it can contact me directly.**

I read it twice. It didn’t apologize for being seen. It didn’t claim the kiss meant nothing. It didn’t speak for Julian.

Elena leaned over my shoulder. “They’ll still twist it.”

“They were going to twist it anyway.”

She studied the screen. “You’re not saying you regret it.”

“I don’t know what I feel yet. I’m not going to lie because people want a neat answer.”

I hit Post.

My hands were shaking when I gave the phone back. The notification count began to climb almost immediately.

Elena glanced at it. “You okay?”

“No.”

“Fair.”

We walked toward the student center. “Did you hear anything else from the Hales?” I asked.

“No. Just that they’re angry and that her father is on the donor board. Everything else is people guessing.”

A new comment appeared beneath my post: **This is obviously a Vance move against the Morettis.**

I stared at it.

There it was. The feud threaded through a kiss I’d made because Luca had reached for me and the whole parking lot had been watching. People could turn anything into a move if the names were powerful enough.

“I’m not taking a side in their war,” I said.

Elena looked at the comment. “You don’t have to convince the forum.”

“I know. I’m reminding myself.”

We entered the student center. At a table near the windows, two students leaned over a laptop. The video played without sound. I saw the angle: the open car door, my hand on Julian’s collar, his hand at my waist. The clip cut away before either of us pulled back.

I looked away first.

“Do you want to go?” Elena asked.

“No. I have a shift later. I’m getting lunch.”

“You have two jobs and a Dean rumor hanging over you. You don’t have to prove you can do everything.”

“I’m not proving anything. I’m hungry.”

That earned a small smile. We got food, and I made myself eat. The room kept turning toward me in little increments, but no one came over. I was grateful for that, though gratitude didn’t make the attention feel less like a hand at my shoulder.

Julian texted while we were finishing.

**I saw your post.**

I stared at the screen, waiting for the rest. It didn’t come.

Elena glanced over. “What?”

“He saw it.”

“And?”

“And that’s all he said.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you wanted?”

“I don’t know what I want from him.”

“That’s allowed.”

I typed:

**It isn’t a statement about you.**

His reply came a few seconds later.

**I know.**

I put my phone down. It was a small thing, but I felt the effort behind it. He could have asked me to take the post down. He could have demanded that I explain the kiss. He hadn’t.

That didn’t erase yesterday’s rules. It didn’t make us anything. Still, when I glanced through the glass doors and saw him crossing the quad with his hockey bag over one shoulder, my attention followed him.

He didn’t look toward the student center.

I wondered if he was keeping his promise or just giving me space because I’d asked. Either way, it counted.

At three, I left campus for the coffee shop. I’d barely tied my apron when my phone buzzed in my bag. I waited until my break to check it.

The forum post had attracted hundreds of replies. Some agreed with me. Some called me dramatic. Several insisted I’d been trying to make Luca jealous. One said I was using Julian to climb into the Vance family.

I took screenshots of the comments naming me, then closed the app. It was the only part I could control: what I saved, what I answered, and when I stopped looking.

A new email sat at the top of my inbox.

**From: Office of the Dean** **Subject: Meeting Request**

My fingers went cold as I opened it.

The Dean’s office requested that I attend a meeting tomorrow morning “to discuss a concern raised regarding the video circulating on campus.” No decision had been made. No rule was cited. There was only a time, a room number, and a request that I confirm I would attend.

At the bottom, one line had been added:

**The Hales have asked to be heard.**