By the time Emily stepped back onto campus, she was sure no one had seen them leave.
She was wrong.
The moment she walked into the dorm lobby, three girls sitting on the couch stopped talking. Their eyes flicked to her, then to the phone one of them was holding.
Emily kept walking.
Halfway up the stairs, she heard it.
"That's her."
She froze.
"What do you mean 'that's her'?" another voice whispered loudly enough to carry.
"The girl Ethan Monaco took to lunch."
Emily swallowed and kept moving, but the whispers chased her like persistent shadows.
In her room, her three roommates were already in mid-gossip, the air buzzing with excitement.
"Where were you?" Mia, the smallest of the three, asked, barely able to sit still.
Emily hesitated. "Class."
"Liar," said Joy, grinning like she'd just caught a celebrity scandal. "You were on a rooftop café with Ethan Monaco. Someone posted it on campus group chat. He was looking at you like…" She wiggled her eyebrows. "Like you were dessert."
Emily's stomach sank. "It's not what you think—"
"You have no idea what this means," Joy cut in. "He doesn't do this. Like… ever. He doesn't talk to girls. He doesn't look at girls. And he definitely doesn't feed them tiramisu in public."
"I fed myself," Emily muttered, but they ignored her.
Mia gasped dramatically. "Do you know what people are saying? Some think you're his girlfriend. Some think you're in trouble. And one girl swears if he's interested in you, it means—" She lowered her voice for effect. "—you won't last the semester."
Emily rolled her eyes, but her pulse was unsteady.
"I told you she doesn't get it," Joy said, shaking her head at the others. "He's dangerous. No one knows exactly how, but… people don't mess with him."
Emily tried to laugh. "Well, I'm not messing with him."
They stared at her like she'd just said she could wrestle a lion and win.
Then Mia leaned forward, eyes wide and almost pitying. "You don't have to mess with Ethan Monaco, Emily. Once he decides you're his…"
The pause was long enough to make Emily's skin prickle.
"…it's already too late."
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