The fairy lights still lingered in Silver's mind hours after she'd returned to her dorm, their golden glow somehow imprinted on her retinas like the afterimage of camera flashes.
She couldn't stop replaying the afternoon's events—the way the lights had transformed Woolsey Hall's Gothic stonework into something magical, laughter echoing off polished wooden floors that had witnessed decades of Yale ceremonies, Americus orchestrating the chaos with theatrical precision while Riley maintained order through sheer pragmatic willpower. Weston distributing gourmet coffees like diplomatic offerings, Eli working steadily on the ladder with the kind of focused competence that made complicated tasks look effortless.
And that moment—that one unguarded slip when her carefully constructed defenses had cracked just enough to let genuine pleasure show on her face.
Eli had been watching. Had seen the smile she hadn't meant to let escape.
