It’s after midnight when I sneak away from the house, my shoes swinging from one hand and my phone gripped too tightly in the other.

The party hasn’t slowed — if anything, it’s devolved. There’s a girl using a blowtorch to toast marshmallows and a guy crowd-surfing over an air mattress that definitely wasn’t built for buoyancy. Someone lost their swim trunks. Someone else found them and was now wearing them as a hat.

I just needed air.

Or quiet.

Or five minutes where no one looked at me like a plot twist.

I wrapped my hoodie tighter around myself, still his, of course, and stepped carefully down the hill behind the house, toward the dock. The sand felt cold under my feet, the night sticky with that lake-air thickness that clings to your skin like regret.

I sat at the edge of the dock, legs drawn up, chin resting on my knees. Everything was noise behind me — music, shouting, beer pong echoing off the water, but out here? Just frogs. Water. The wind slipping through trees like it knew a secret.

Then I saw the headlights. They cut across the lake’s edge, sliding through branches, slicing through the dark. A car pulled into the gravel lot just beyond the tree line.

I knew the shape of it before I saw him.

Of course it was Jaxon.

He stepped out in that same black hoodie, hair a little too tousled, smile just this side of feral — the kind of grin that made you want to both slap him and make out with him at the same time.

My heart punched my ribcage like it wanted a better look.

“You actually came,” I said, the words half-breathed, too soft for how hard my pulse was racing.

“You texted,” he said, like that explained everything.

And maybe it did.

I was off the dock in two steps. He didn’t wait for me to finish the third. Our arms found each other at the same time — tight, fast, desperate.

Our kiss wasn’t graceful, and it wasn’t rehearsed. It was me, clinging to him like he was the only real thing in a house full of fake smiles and people who wanted to believe the best version of me was the one who got cheated on and kept smiling anyway.

He kissed like he knew it.

Like he wanted to pull me out of it.

And then—

A beam of light hit us, harsh and sudden, slicing the moment apart like scissors through a string. Jamie’s voice cracked through the dark.

“Zoe?!”

I froze. Jaxon was still beside me.

Footsteps pounded down the hill. A flashlight swept across the dock again. Jamie appeared seconds later, barefoot, hoodie half-zipped, holding a Red Bull like it was a weapon and he knew how to use it.

He looked at me first. Then Jaxon.

Back again.

“You have got to be kidding me,” he said, voice sharp, eyes burning. “What are you doing here?”

My mouth opened. Nothing came out. My brain screamed, Say something smart, and all I could manage was—

“I—uh—ran into him,” I blurted. “He was sneaking in. Said Maddie texted him. I was just… coming down here and saw him.”

It felt like swallowing glass.

Jaxon turned to me, blinking once. No anger. Just blank.

I didn’t meet his eyes.

Jamie squinted at me, then back at Jaxon. “So you’re not with him?”

“No!” I said — too fast, too loud. “God, no.”

Jamie looked back at Jaxon, jaw clenched. “You want Maddie that bad? Fine. Join the fun. She’s still upstairs. Drunk and bored.”

The words hit like a slap, even though they weren’t mine.

Jaxon didn’t move. But his jaw ticked hard enough to make me wince.

Jamie stepped back, the flashlight beam now aimed at the trees like he was too disgusted to hold it on us.

“Don’t trash my parents’ dock,” he snapped. “And don’t think this means you’re welcome.”

He turned on his heel and stormed back up the hill, muttering something about “reckless idiots” and “bad decisions” that I didn’t want to decode.

And then he was gone.

The silence left behind was loud in all the worst ways.

Jaxon didn’t say anything at first.

He just stood there, the light from the cabin catching the side of his face, shadows clinging to his cheekbones.

“You didn’t have to lie,” he said finally. His voice was quiet. Tired. Not sharp.

I wrapped my arms around myself, hoodie sleeves pulled over my hands.

“I did,” I said. “Because you crashed this party? That’s not the version of us I’m ready to explain yet.”

There was a beat of silence.

Jaxon did nothing at all: there was no smile, no usual sarcastic quip.

He just nodded.

Once.

And the worst part?

I didn’t know if it was understanding… or disappointment