The leather seat was cool against her thighs through the ripped denim, and through the windshield her porch light glowed warm yellow through the humid night. Tyler's hands were still on the steering wheel, even though the engine had ticked itself quiet minutes ago.

He was staring at her house.

Tina followed his gaze up the brick facade, the columns flanking the front door, the wide windows dark behind their curtains. She'd never thought about it before—it was just where she lived—but sitting next to him in his worn Civic with the duct tape on the passenger seat, she saw it the way he must be seeing it. Too big. Too clean. Too much.

"It's—" He stopped. Swallowed. His throat moved. "It's really big."

She felt heat climb her neck, spreading across her cheeks. She never blushed. She didn't blush. But here, in the dark with the dashboard lights casting shadows across his face, she couldn't stop it. "Yeah. I guess."

"No, I mean—" He gestured with one hand, the other still gripping the wheel. "It's. It's beautiful."

The word landed somewhere soft in her chest. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, suddenly aware of how she must look—his hoodie swallowed her, the hem brushing her thighs, her crop top hidden underneath. She'd been warm in it the whole ride. Safe.

"Thank you," she said, and her voice came out smaller than she meant. "For the ride."

"Yeah." He nodded, still not looking at her. "Of course."

She waited. He didn't say anything else. The silence stretched between them, full of something neither of them knew how to name.

"Well." She reached for the door handle. "Goodnight, Tyler."

"G-Goodnight."

She got out, and the humid air hit her skin, and she heard him say her name just as she was about to close the door.

"Tina?"

She leaned back down, her heart doing something stupid in her chest. "Yeah?"

He was looking at her now. Really looking. His eyes caught the porch light, and she could see the scar through his eyebrow, the way his jaw worked before he spoke. "I had. A good time. Tonight."

She smiled, and it was real, and she didn't care that he could probably see it. "Me too."

The door closed. She heard his engine catch as she walked up the path, the gravel crunching under her sneakers. She didn't turn around. If she turned around, she might do something stupid like get back in the car.

Inside, the house was dark. Her parents were away—they were always away—and the foyer echoed when she closed the door behind her. She leaned against it for a moment, letting the air conditioning hit her face, letting her heart slow down.

Then she pulled out her phone.

Goodnight, Tyler. She stared at the message. Added a moon emoji. Deleted it. Sent it as is.

His reply came a minute later: Goodnight, Tina.

She held the phone to her chest and smiled at nothing.

---

The next morning, she stood in front of her closet and pulled out the lace crop top. Sheer. White. The kind of thing she wore to clubs, to parties, to anywhere she wanted to be seen. She slipped it over her head, and the lace settled against her skin like a second layer of nothing. Her nipples were dark through the fabric, visible, intentional.

She paired it with jeans. Tight. Ripped all the way down the thighs, the knees, the ass. She stepped into her thong—white with tiny embroidered flowers along the waistband—and made sure it rode high enough to show. The jeans sat low on her hips, the thong visible above the waistband, the ripped fabric leaving her ass hanging out through the gaps.

She looked at herself in the mirror. She looked good. She knew she looked good.

And yet, standing there, she felt her stomach twist. This was the outfit that made people look. That made people want. And she was wearing it for him.

---

The cafeteria was loud when she walked in. The usual chaos—trays clattering, voices layering over each other, the smell of french fries and pizza. She spotted Tyler at the same table as before, his friends flanking him, their heads bent over something on his phone.

She took a breath. Let it out. Then she walked over.

"Hey."

They all looked up. Tyler's friend—Marcus, she thought—did a double take, his eyes going wide before he caught himself. The other one, Kevin, just stared at her chest and then looked away fast.

But Tyler. Tyler looked at her face. That was the thing. He always looked at her face.

"Hi." She pulled out the chair across from him, the same one as before, and sat down. The denim creaked as she crossed her legs under the table. "Mind if I sit here?"

"Uh—" Marcus glanced at Tyler, then back at her. "No. Yeah. Sure."

"Thanks." She smiled at them, friendly, easy. Then she turned to Tyler. "What are you guys looking at?"

"It's. Uh." He held up his phone, and she saw a diagram of something—circuits, maybe, or some kind of engineering thing. "It's for my. For my project."

"That's cool." She leaned forward slightly, resting her elbows on the table. The lace stretched. She knew it did. "What kind of project?"

He started explaining, and she listened. Really listened. She asked questions, and he answered, and the stutter came and went—worse when he was excited, smoother when he found his rhythm. His friends chimed in sometimes, and she laughed at their jokes, and for a few minutes it felt almost normal. Like she belonged here.

She didn't touch him. She wanted to. Her hand kept drifting toward his side of the table, and she had to physically pull it back, curl it around her own soda. She remembered what he'd said, what she'd seen—how he tensed when people got too close. So she kept her distance. Let him come to her, if he ever did.

She tried not to stare. She failed.

Every time he looked down at his phone, she let her eyes trace his face. The sharp line of his jaw. The way his brow furrowed when he was thinking. The scar cutting through his eyebrow, a pale line against his skin. She wanted to know how he got it. She wanted to know everything.

"—hey. Earth to the princess."

She blinked. Marcus was grinning at her. "What?"

"I asked if you wanted a fry." He pushed a basket toward her. "You were kinda zoning out."

"Oh." She took one, just to have something to do with her hands. "Thanks."

She felt Tyler's eyes on her. When she looked up, he was studying her, and there was something in his expression she couldn't read. She smiled, small and uncertain, and he looked away.

Her heart hammered. Once. She let it.

And then the jocks showed up.

She heard them before she saw them—the heavy footsteps, the loud laughter, the voice that cut through the cafeteria noise like a blade. "Well, well. If it isn't the stutter king and his little nerds."

Tina's spine went stiff. She turned in her seat.

Three of them. Football jerseys. The one in front had a jaw that looked like it had been broken once and healed wrong. He was grinning, his eyes already sweeping the table, already landing on Tyler.

"What are you losers looking at? Porn?" He laughed, and his friends laughed with him. "Oh wait, you probably don't even know what a real girl looks like—"

He stopped.

His eyes had found her.

She saw the moment it happened—the way his grin faltered, the way his gaze dropped to her chest, traveled down her body, came back up. He blinked. "Whoa."

His friends followed his gaze. All three of them were staring at her now, openly, the way guys did when they thought they had a right to.

"Damn." The one in front stepped closer. "I don't remember seeing you before. You with these guys?"

She didn't answer. She just looked at him, and she felt the old confidence slide back into place like a familiar coat. This she knew how to do.

"I asked you a question, sweetheart."

"I heard you." Her voice was cool. Flat. "I just didn't feel like answering."

His grin turned wolfish. "Feisty. I like that." He moved closer, and one of his friends snickered. "You know, if you're slumming it with these losers, you could do way better. We're having a party tonight. You should come."

She saw Tyler's hands curl into fists under the table. She saw Marcus and Kevin exchange a look, the kind of look that said they were used to this, that they'd learned to endure it.

And something in her chest caught fire.

"No," she said.

The jock blinked. "What?"

"No. I'm not interested." She stood up, and the chair scraped against the floor. She was shorter than him, but she didn't feel small. "And they're not losers. They're my friends. So you're going to leave us alone."

He stared at her. Like he couldn't quite process what was happening. "You're seriously choosing them over—"

"Yes." She stepped closer, and her voice dropped, low and sharp. "I am. So you can take your party invitation and shove it. And if I hear you talking to them again, I'll make sure every girl in this school knows what you said to me just now. How do you think your coach would feel about that?"

His face went through a series of changes—confusion, anger, then something like grudging respect. He held up his hands. "Alright, alright. Damn. No need to get hostile."

He looked at Tyler, and his mouth twisted. "You got lucky, stutter boy. Real lucky."

Then he turned and walked away, his friends trailing behind him.

The silence at the table was heavy.

Tina let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. She sat back down, her hands trembling slightly, and she pressed them flat against the table to make them stop.

"Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to—I just—they had no right."

Marcus was staring at her like she'd grown a second head. Kevin looked like he wanted to applaud. But Tyler—Tyler was looking at her the way he'd looked at her house last night. Like he was seeing something he didn't know how to measure.

"You didn't," he said, and his voice was quiet, steady, the stutter barely there. "You didn't have to do that."

"Yes, I did." She met his eyes. "Nobody talks to you like that. Not while I'm here."

Something moved in his face. A crack. A shift. She watched it happen—the wall he kept up, the one that made him look away and stutter and shrink—and she saw it waver, just for a second.

"Thank you," he said.

She smiled, and it was soft, and it was real, and she didn't care who saw.

"Anytime."

The silence settled around them like dust after a storm. Tina's hands were still pressed flat against the table, and she watched the tremor in her fingers slowly fade.

"Damn, Tina." Kevin leaned forward, his eyes wide. "That was—I mean, I've never seen anyone talk to them like that. Ever."

"They're assholes," she said, and her voice was steadier now. "Someone should've done it a long time ago."

Marcus let out a low whistle. "You're officially my favorite person. Just so you know."

She almost laughed. Almost. But then her eyes found Tyler again, and the laugh died in her throat. He was still looking at her with that same expression—like she was a language he didn't know how to read yet.

"Seriously though." Kevin was still talking, his voice picking up speed the way it did when he got excited. "That was incredible. You should totally come to our study group tonight. We meet in the library at seven. Marcus brings snacks, I bring the terrible jokes, and Tyler—"

"Kevin." Tyler's voice cut through, quiet but sharp.

"What? I'm just saying—"

"She doesn't—" Tyler stopped. His jaw worked. "She doesn't want to—"

"I'd love to."

The words came out before she could stop them. Tina felt her face warm, and she looked down at the table, suddenly very interested in a scratch on the laminate surface. "I mean. If that's okay. I don't want to intrude."

"You wouldn't be intruding." Marcus said it quickly, smoothly, and she caught the look he shot at Tyler—a look that said something she couldn't quite decipher. "We'd love to have you."

She risked a glance at Tyler. His hands were wrapped around his water bottle, his knuckles white. He wasn't looking at her. He was staring at some fixed point on the wall behind her, his jaw tight.

Her stomach dropped.

"I don't have to," she said, and her voice came out smaller than she meant. "If it's weird. I just thought—"

"It's not weird." Tyler's voice was rough. He still wasn't looking at her. "It's fine."

"Tyler—" Kevin started.

"I said it's fine." Tyler stood up, his chair scraping against the floor. His hands were shaking slightly, and she watched him press them against his thighs to still them. "I have to—I need to get to class."

He grabbed his backpack and walked away. Didn't look back. Didn't say goodbye.

The table was quiet.

Tina felt something crack open in her chest. She kept her face still—she'd learned how, years ago, in front of mirrors and photographers and boys who only wanted one thing—but the crack was there, and it ached.

"He's not—" Kevin ran a hand through his hair. "He's not mad. He just—"

"I know." She managed a smile. It felt plastic on her face. "It's fine."

"It's really not," Marcus said, and his voice was gentle. "But it's not about you. He's got a lot of—" He gestured vaguely. "Stuff."

"I know." She stood up, smoothing her crop top down. "I should go too. But tell me where the study group is. I'll be there."

Kevin's face lit up. "Really?"

"Really." She let the smile soften. "Seven, right? Library?"

"Yeah. We grab the table in the back corner, by the windows. You can't miss us."

"I'll be there."

She walked away, and she felt their eyes on her back—felt the weight of what she'd just done, the way she'd inserted herself into something she wasn't sure she belonged in. Her hands were shaking again. She shoved them into her pockets.

The hallway was crowded, students pushing past her, and she let herself get swept up in the current. Didn't fight it. Let it carry her toward her next class, even though she couldn't remember what it was or where it was supposed to be.

She found a bathroom instead.

The stall door clicked shut behind her, and she leaned against it, pressing her palms against the cold metal. Her reflection in the small mirror above the sink was flushed, her hair a mess, her eyes too bright.

She looked desperate.

She hated it.

But she couldn't stop.

At seven, she was standing outside the library doors, her hands shoved into the pockets of her jeans, her heart hammering against her ribs. She'd changed clothes twice before leaving her dorm. Settled on a sheer white lace crop top that showed everything—the dark circles of her nipples, the curve of her breasts, the soft plane of her stomach. A black thong that sat high on her hips, visible above the waistband of her ripped jeans. The same ripped jeans, because they were the ones that made her ass look good, and she needed every advantage she could get.

She felt naked. She felt ridiculous. She felt like she was wearing armor.

The library was quiet, the way libraries always were at this hour. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everything in a pale yellow glow. She found the table in the back corner easily—Kevin's voice carried, even when he was trying to be quiet.

They were already there. All three of them. Kevin was gesturing wildly about something, Marcus was nodding along, and Tyler—Tyler was at the end of the table, his laptop open, his head down, his shoulders hunched.

She took a breath. Walked over.

"Hey."

Kevin looked up, and his face split into a grin. "You came!"

"I said I would." She slid into the chair next to him, across from Marcus, two seats away from Tyler. She could see him from here. Could see the way his hands had stilled on the keyboard. The way he hadn't looked up.

"This is Tina," Kevin said to the table at large, like they didn't already know. "She's the one I told you about. The one who told off Chad and his goons today."

"We were there, Kevin." Marcus shook his head. "We saw it."

"Right. Right. I just—I wanted to make sure everyone knew." Kevin pulled a bag of chips from his backpack. "Snacks. As promised."

Tina laughed, and it came out easier than she expected. "You weren't kidding."

"I never kid about snacks."

The conversation flowed around her—Kevin chattering about a professor who'd given them too much reading, Marcus weighing in with dry comments that made her snort, the easy rhythm of people who'd known each other for years. She let herself settle into it, let herself forget, for a moment, that she was here for a reason.

But she couldn't forget completely.

Every few minutes, her eyes would drift to Tyler. He hadn't looked at her once. His head was bent over his laptop, and he was typing something, his movements quick and precise. The scar through his eyebrow caught the light when he shifted, and she followed the line of it without meaning to.

"Tina?"

She blinked. Kevin was looking at her expectantly.

"Sorry, what?"

"I asked if you wanted to see the chem notes. Marcus says I write them like a serial killer, but they're actually really good."

"Oh. Yeah. Sure."

Kevin slid a notebook across the table, and she flipped it open. The handwriting was messy but organized, color-coded in a way that made her think of obsessive care. She traced a finger along the margin.

"This is really good, Kevin."

"See?" Kevin pointed at Marcus. "She gets it."

"She's being polite."

"I'm not." She smiled. "I'm actually impressed."

There was a sharp sound from the end of the table—Tyler's laptop closing, too fast, too loud. He stood up, and his chair scraped against the floor, and the conversation died.

"I have to go," he said. His voice was tight. He didn't look at any of them.

"Dude, we just got here—" Kevin started.

"I know. I just—I forgot something. I'll be back."

He was already walking away, his backpack slung over one shoulder, his stride too fast for someone who'd just forgotten something. He was running.

Tina watched him go.

The crack in her chest widened.

Tina sat frozen, her hands resting on Kevin's notebook, the words blurring in front of her. She could feel Kevin and Marcus exchanging a look, could feel the weight of their silence pressing against her ribs.

"I should go," she said, and her voice sounded far away. "My mom's waiting."

"Yeah," Kevin said softly. "Yeah, of course. I'll walk you out."

She shook her head. "I'm fine. Really. I'll see you guys tomorrow."

She gathered her things without looking at either of them, her fingers clumsy on the strap of her bag, and she walked out of the library with her head down and her jaw tight and the crack in her chest spreading like a fault line.

Her mom's car was idling at the curb, the windows rolled down, some old R&B song drifting through the evening air. Tina slid into the passenger seat and clipped her seatbelt and didn't say a word.

"You okay, baby?" Her mom's voice was soft, careful.

"Just tired."

Her mom didn't push. She pulled away from the curb, and the streetlights slid across the dashboard in long yellow streaks, and Tina pressed her forehead against the cool glass of the window and let the city blur past.

Her house loomed at the end of the cul-de-sac, all soft white columns and warm windows and the kind of quiet that only money could buy. Her mom pulled into the driveway and killed the engine, and Tina was out of the car before the headlights died.

"Tina—"

"I'm fine, Mom. Goodnight."

She took the stairs two at a time, her boots loud on the hardwood, and she closed her bedroom door behind her and leaned against it and finally, finally let herself breathe.

It came out wrong. A shudder. A sob. Her chest hitched, and her eyes burned, and she pressed the heels of her palms against her sockets and tried to push it back down where it belonged.

She failed.

The tears came hot and fast, and she slid down the door until she was sitting on the floor, her knees pulled up to her chest, her thin crop top soaked through in seconds. She cried for the way he'd looked at her in the library—like she was something he needed to escape. She cried for the way his chair had scraped against the floor, sharp and final. She cried for the crack in her chest that kept widening, widening, until she felt hollowed out.

She didn't know how long she sat there. Long enough for the light outside her window to deepen from blue to black. Long enough for her phone to buzz twice in her back pocket—Kevin, probably, checking in. She ignored it.

She pulled out her phone. Her hands were shaking.

She opened Tyler's contact. The screen glowed white, and the cursor blinked in the message field, and she typed the words before she could talk herself out of it.

Is everything OK?

She sent it before she could second-guess. And then another, her thumb moving faster than her brain.

I'm sorry if I made you upset.

The three dots appeared almost immediately, and her heart stopped, and then they disappeared, and she felt the floor fall out from under her, and then they appeared again, and she held her breath.

Everything is fine. I just had to go.

She read it three times. Four. Her eyes traced the shape of the words, looking for something hidden, something unspoken.

Another message came through before she could reply.

Good night, Tina.

She stared at her name in his message. Three letters. The way his thumbs had pressed them into the screen. The way they looked back at her now, blue in the dark of her room.

The weight in her chest didn't disappear. But it shifted. Lightened, just enough for her to breathe.

She typed back: Good night, Tyler.

She set her phone on the nightstand, face-up, in case he wrote again. He didn't. But the silence felt different now. Softer. Like a door left open instead of one slammed shut.

She changed into an oversized t-shirt and crawled into bed, and she lay on her side with her knees pulled up and her phone just within reach, and she thought about the way his voice had sounded when he'd said her name. The way it had stumbled over the first syllable, soft and uncertain, like he wasn't sure it belonged in his mouth.

She fell asleep with that sound in her ears, and the crack in her chest was still there when she woke, but it didn't ache the same way.

The next morning, she stood in front of her closet with the doors thrown open, and she let her fingers drift across the fabric of her clothes until they landed on something that made her pulse jump.

A white lace crop top. Sheer. See-through. The kind of thing her mother had raised an eyebrow at when she'd brought it home. The kind of thing that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.

She pulled it on. No bra. The lace caught the morning light, and her nipples were dark and visible through the delicate pattern, and she watched herself in the mirror for a long moment before she turned away.

She chose a thong with tiny embroidered flowers along the waistband—coral and cream, delicate against her golden-brown skin. She pulled on her tightest jeans next, the ones with the rips that ran from hip to knee, the ones that left the curve of her ass visible through the shredded denim. The thong rode high above the waistband, the tiny flowers peeking out like a secret.

She looked at herself in the mirror. She looked good. She knew she looked good. But her hands were trembling anyway.

She grabbed her keys and her phone and she walked out the door before she could lose her nerve.

The cafeteria was loud when she walked in, the way it always was at this hour—the clatter of trays, the overlapping voices, the smell of cheap pizza and burnt coffee. She spotted him before she spotted the table. Tyler. Same spot as yesterday. Laptop open. His friends clustered around him, Kevin gesturing wildly about something while Marcus rolled his eyes.

She walked over. Her boots clicked against the tile. Her hips moved the way they always did, confident and slow, but her heart was hammering behind her ribs and she couldn't quite catch her breath.

"Hi," she said, and her voice came out steadier than she felt.

Kevin looked up first, and his face broke into a grin. "Tina! You made it."

"I said I would." She shifted her weight, and she felt the thong ride higher against her hip, and she saw Kevin's eyes flick down for half a second before he yanked them back up to her face.

She didn't look at Tyler. Not yet. She was afraid of what she'd find.

"Pull up a chair," Marcus said, gesturing to the empty seat across from him. "We were just debating whether Kevin's conspiracy theory about the chem final has any merit."

"It's not a conspiracy theory," Kevin protested. "Professor Hartley literally reused the same exam three years in a row. That's a pattern."

"That's laziness, not a conspiracy."

Tina laughed, and it felt almost natural. She pulled out the chair and sat down, and the ripped denim tightened across her thighs as she crossed her legs, and she finally let herself look at Tyler.

He was looking at her.

Not at her eyes. At the lace of her crop top, the outline of her body beneath it, the way her nipples pressed against the fabric like they were trying to reach him. His mouth was slightly open, and his hand was frozen midway to his keyboard, and there was something in his eyes that she couldn't quite name.

She felt heat crawl up her neck.

"Hey," she said, soft, just for him.

His jaw worked. His eyes snapped up to hers, and he looked—caught. Embarrassed. He cleared his throat, and his hand dropped to his keyboard, and he looked back at his screen like it held the secrets of the universe.

"H-hey."

His stutter was worse than usual. She noticed. She filed it away in the part of her chest that was starting to feel warm again.

The conversation flowed around her—Kevin's theory about the chem final, Marcus's dry rebuttals, the occasional interruption from the other friend whose name she was still learning. She let herself settle into it, let herself laugh at Kevin's jokes and ask Marcus about his grading rubrics and pretend she wasn't hyperaware of every movement Tyler made.

But she noticed the way Kevin's voice trailed off when she leaned forward. She noticed the way Marcus's eyes kept sliding to the lace of her top and then away, like he was forcing himself not to look. She noticed the way Tyler's typing had slowed, the way his fingers hovered over the keys without pressing down.

She didn't touch him. She wanted to. God, she wanted to. Her hand ached with the need to reach across the table and brush her fingers against his, to feel his skin under hers, to see if he would flinch or lean in.

But she remembered the way he tensed when people touched him. The way his shoulders had gone rigid in the hallway when the jocks had shoved him. The way he'd closed his laptop and walked away yesterday, like she was something he needed to escape.

She kept her hands in her lap.

"So," Kevin said, leaning back in his chair, "did you hear about the party this weekend?"

Tina blinked. "What party?"

"Pool party at Chad's place." Kevin's voice dropped, conspiratorial. "Whole campus is talking about it."

Before she could respond, a shadow fell across the table.

"Well, well, well."

Tina looked up. Chad stood at the edge of the table, two of his friends flanking him, their mouths curved into smirks that made her skin crawl. Chad's eyes raked over her body—slow, deliberate, like he was cataloging every inch of exposed skin. The lace of her crop top. The dark outline of her nipples. The thin strap of her thong peeking above her jeans.

"Looking good today, Tina." His voice was honey and oil. Slick. Coating. "Really good."

She felt Kevin go still beside her. Felt Marcus's jaw tighten. Felt every muscle in Tyler's body lock up across the table.

She didn't look away from Chad. "What do you want?"

"Just saying hi." His smile widened. "Is that a crime?"

"It is when you're interrupting."

Chad laughed, but there was no humor in it. His eyes slid to Kevin, then to Marcus, then to Tyler—lingering there, sharpening, the way a predator's eyes sharpen when they spot something weak.

"Didn't know you were slumming it with these guys," Chad said, jerking his chin at Tyler. "You could do better."

Tina's blood went hot. "I'm doing exactly what I want."

"Sure you are." Chad's smile didn't waver. He reached out, and his fingers brushed the hem of her crop top—just a graze, featherlight, but she felt it like a brand. "Pool party tomorrow. My place. You should come. It'll be fun."

She wanted to say no. Wanted to tell him to take his hand off her table and his smile off his face and his entire presence out of her life.

But Kevin leaned forward, his eyes bright.

"A pool party? That sounds awesome."

Chad's expression flickered—surprise, then contempt. He looked at Kevin like he'd just discovered a cockroach in his kitchen. "It's invite only."

"Then we'll get an invite," Tina said. Her voice was sharp. Final. "Right?"

Chad's jaw tightened. He looked at her, and she could see him calculating—weighing the cost of saying no against the chance to have her there, in a bikini, surrounded by people who'd see exactly what he was seeing now.

"Fine," he said, and the word tasted like poison. "You can all come. But don't get in the way."

He walked away, his friends trailing behind him, and Tina let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

"Dude," Kevin whispered, his voice awed. "You just got us into Chad's party."

"I know."

"That was—that was incredible."

Tina allowed herself a small smile. She looked across the table, and Tyler was watching her, his eyes unreadable, a line between his brows that she wanted to smooth away with her thumb.

Saturday arrived in a blur of heat and humidity, the sun hanging low and heavy in the sky. Tina stood in front of her closet again, her pulse skittering as she pulled out a bikini top the color of coral—just two tiny triangles connected by a thin string, barely enough to cover her nipples. She tied it on, adjusted the fit, and looked at herself in the mirror. The fabric cupped her breasts, leaving the curve of them exposed, the dark peaks of her nipples pressing against the material like they were trying to escape.

She paired it with a micro swim thong underneath denim cut-offs so short that the curve of her ass cheeks was visible with every step. No shirt. The bikini was the shirt. The cut-offs were the coverage.

She looked good. She knew she looked good.

But her hands were shaking anyway.

Tyler's car pulled up to her curb at two, an old sedan with a dented bumper and a sun-faded roof. She could see the shapes of his friends in the back seat—Kevin's head bobbing to music she couldn't hear, Marcus's silhouette pressed against the window, the third friend whose name she kept forgetting wedged between them.

She walked out the front door, and she felt the heat of the afternoon sun on her bare stomach, on her shoulders, on the exposed curve of her breasts. She reached for the passenger door handle, and she looked up, and she saw Tyler's face.

He was frozen. His hands were on the steering wheel, but they'd gone white-knuckled, and his mouth was slightly open, and his eyes were moving over her like he was trying to process something he couldn't quite comprehend.

She felt her confidence flicker. Felt the familiar crack in her chest widen, just a fraction.

"Is everything okay?" Her voice was smaller than she wanted. "With my outfit, I mean. Is it—is it too much?"

He blinked. Once. Twice. His throat moved, and he swallowed hard, and when he spoke, his voice came out rough and broken and stuttering over itself like he couldn't get the words out fast enough.

"N-no. I mean—yes. I mean—" He swallowed again, and his hands tightened on the wheel, and he looked at her face instead of her body, and something in his eyes softened. "You l-look nice, Tina."

Nice.

The word hit her in the chest, warm and unexpected, and she felt heat flood her cheeks and her pulse skip and her hands stop shaking.

He called her nice.

"Thanks," she said, and she climbed into the passenger seat before he could see how much that one word had undone her.

The back seat was loud—Kevin chattering about the party, Marcus interjecting with dry commentary, the third friend laughing at something on his phone. Tina sat in the passenger seat with her hands in her lap and her thighs pressed together and the ghost of Tyler's word still warm in her chest.

Nice. He thought she looked nice.

Chad's house was a sprawling modern thing with a pool that glittered turquoise under the afternoon sun and a deck crowded with bodies and music that thumped through the air like a second heartbeat. Tina stepped out of the car, and she felt eyes on her immediately—the guys at the gate, the group by the grill, the cluster of girls in bikinis who went silent and then started whispering.

Chad approached, his grin wide and wolfish, his gaze dragging down her body like he wanted to eat her alive.

"Glad you made it," he said, and his voice was honey-thick with meaning.

Tina didn't answer. She turned to look at Tyler, who was getting out of the car, his baggy clothes hanging off his frame, his eyes fixed on the ground like he was trying to disappear.

"Come on," she said, and she waited until he reached her side before she moved.

They walked into the party together, and she felt the weight of a hundred stares, and she ignored every single one of them, because Tyler was walking beside her, and he hadn't flinched, and that was enough.

That was everything.