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Summer

“ S o, that’s four cheeseburgers, four hamburgers, three triples, eight doubles, and sixteen fries?” the server recites back to me.

I confirm I got everything on the list Connor texted me when I told him I’d bring in dinner. “Oh, and five chocolate shakes.”

The server nods and hurries away with the order.

Alice snorts beside me. “Fuck, how does their mother manage?”

“Farrah is a saint, I swear. She cooked all of their favorites when they were home and made a selection of Rafe’s favorites for Connor to bring back to him.”

Alice whistles, half distracted by texting. I pull out my phone while we wait and scroll through the Nexus app. I click through my stories, checking to see if they’ve been viewed by 1015. Of course, they have, and I click on his profile. It’s the same bare bones of a profile, with no posts and no information. Just that username that I have been dreading seeing.

My phone vibrates.

I look around, trying to find him, but everyone is on their fucking phone in this place.

I glare at my phone. He has a point. The stories are out there for public consumption, but surely, that point is negated by the fact that he refuses to stay blocked. Somehow.

They call my name, and I shove my phone into my pocket, nudging Alice to pull her from the social media hole.

“Come on, let’s go feed our men.”

The Morningstar’s ability to eat is borderline impressive, and an hour later, the only things left from dinner are the cartons. Connor nuzzles into my neck, and I smile, curling into him.

“Stay with me tonight?”

I run my fingers through his hair. “I can’t. Alice is here too, remember?”

I feel Connor pout against my neck.

“And I somehow don’t think she’ll want to top and tail with Zane.”

Connor laughs, pulling back. “She’d kill him.”

Alice saunters in from the kitchen, where she’d been playing cards with the guys. “If you want to sleep over, I can stay in Zach’s room. He snuck out an hour ago.”

“He did?” I ask, sitting up.

Connor pulls out his phone. “Oh, Ashley seems to be on a date.”

I grab his phone, and Alice moves so quickly she seems to just appear beside me. She presses against my side as I enlarge the photo on Nexus .

“That’s the sorcerer from earlier. They looked really flirty,” I say, tipping the phone so she can see it better.

I look at Connor. “You know him?”

Con nods. “He’s in one of my classes. He’s a senior. One of Emrys’s apprentices. He’s constantly trying to get the doom master to notice him.”

“Huh.” I ponder, looking through his posts.

“I mean, he’s hot in that arrogant, I’m better than you kind of way,” Alice says, looking over my shoulder. “He and Ashley would look good together.”

I close out of the app, and my heart squeezes when I see Connor set his phone background as a photo of us. Not only because it’s a really cheesy photo where I’m kissing him, but also because it’s blurry. It was obviously taken by someone who’d had a little too much to drink. Connor blushes a little, and I hand him his phone, brushing my lips over his.

“Oh! Ashley just posted!” Alice shows me her phone and a photo of Ashley with the sorcerer is on the screen. “Gods, she is so transparent. That photo looks fake as fuck.”

“You think Zach’s not wanting to commit, or do you think it’s her?” I look at Connor. “Is Zach a commitment-phobe?”

Connor frowns. “I don’t think so, but now that you mention it, he is kind of a serial dater.”

“I have an idea!” Alice exclaims, crawling over me and wiggling in between Connor and me. She laughs maniacally and then shows us her phone after she’s posted. It is a photo of her and Zach, obviously very edited, with the caption,

No sooner has she posted it than she receives a DM from Ashley.

I shift closer to Alice, and Connor pouts at the distance Alice put between us.

“Is she joking? The photo looks so fake!”

Alice laughs. “She’s unraveling.”

I chuckle and nudge her. “She’s got it bad. Look at all of those exclamation marks.”

Alice gets another DM. This one is from Zach.

I grab Alice’s phone and type out a message for her.

“We’ll see how happy he is when he gets home.” Connor laughs, pulling me back against his side.

“He’ll be staying at Ashley’s. Now that we have sorted the sleeping arrangements, I think it’s time for bed, big guy. What do you think?”

Connor’s eyes darken and he springs up, grabbing my hand and pulling me up the stairs.

“Night then,” Alice calls after us, laughter in her voice.

I lay awake in Connor’s bed, staring up at the ceiling. He fell asleep a little over an hour ago, and he is snoring softly. I grab my phone and open Nexus . Doom scrolling through socials isn’t quite as relaxing as it used to be before my stalker. A wave of anger washes over me when I notice I have an unread message from 1015.

I narrow my eyes at the message, at the suggestion in it. He’s crossing boundaries, and I’m going to nip it in the bud.

The reply comes almost instantly. He was obviously watching for my message.

I stare at my phone, reading the message over and over.

Tame? Something about the word sparks a heat low in my stomach, and I block him again before I reply with something stupid. There is no doubt he is powerful and dangerous. I don’t need to truly anger him.

Moments later, another message comes through.

I throw my phone aside, my breathing shallow. The fear is paralyzing me, but there is something else, too. Something deep and that I don’t dare name.

Could that be… something I want? Something I crave? Is that what’s missing? Is that why I’m… wrong?