The campus was electric with celebration. After Hyke's final goal sealed the win, students poured into the night, music, food, and laughter flooding the streets.
Luiz let himself get swept up, though his heart wasn't truly in it.
That's when he saw her again—the girl from the stands. Her eyes lingered on him with the kind of boldness that made his pulse stutter.
"You don't talk much, do you?" she teased.
"Not really," Luiz admitted.
"Good. I like quiet boys."
The words were playful, but the look in her eyes wasn't.
Later, under the dim glow of street lamps, the crowd thinning around them, their steps slowed. She leaned closer, her perfume warm, sweet, intoxicating.
"Still quiet?" she whispered.
Before he could answer, her lips brushed his. Soft at first, then hungry. Luiz's back pressed against the wall of a shuttered vendor stall, her hands tugging at his shirt. His breath caught as instinct—need, even—took over.
He turned her gently, pinning her against the wall now, his palms braced beside her shoulders. The closeness was dizzying—the heat of her breath, the racing of her pulse under his touch, the way she gasped when his lips found hers again, harder this time.
For a moment, the world shrank to just this: the heat between them, the reckless urgency, the feeling of being wanted.
By the time they stumbled into her dorm, laughter tangled with kisses, Luiz knew this wasn't love. It wasn't even romance.
It was escape.
Escape from the shadows of his family. Escape from the mysterious voice that haunted him. Escape from being Luiz Vallentine, the mistake of a dynasty.
But as he lay awake hours later, staring at the ceiling while she slept beside him, he realized escape never lasted.
Because emptiness always returned