The sun was merciless.
It poured through the half-open blinds of Ronan's apartment, warm and accusing. Aria blinked against the light, her head pounding and her mouth dry. For a second, she didn't move—just stared at the cracked white ceiling above her.
Then she turned her head.
Ronan Wolfe was asleep beside her.
His arm lay across her waist like it belonged there, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. The sheets were tangled around them both, the scent of last night's rain, sweat, and regret lingering like smoke.
Aria sat up slowly, clutching the sheet to her chest, as the memories crashed over her like a tidal wave.
The fight with Liam. The party. The drive. The overlook.
The kiss.
His mouth on hers.
His hands on her skin.
The way it had all felt so desperate and real and raw.
She cursed under her breath.
This wasn't her.
Aria Monroe didn't do this.
She didn't sleep with strangers. Especially not cocky, bad-boy football captains with reputations and eyes that looked like storms. She had plans. Goals. An entire life that wasn't supposed to detour into someone like Ronan Wolfe.
She glanced at him again. His jaw was unshaven, his dark hair messy, lips slightly parted. Peaceful, like a boy who didn't have ghosts. But she knew better. There was pain in him too—she saw it last night when he looked at her like he knew how it felt to break.
Carefully, she slipped out from under his arm, gathered her clothes, and tiptoed into the bathroom.
Ronan stirred minutes later to the sound of the faucet running.
He knew before he even opened his eyes that she'd be gone soon.
That was how this worked. Always had.
But something about this morning felt… off. He didn't usually wake up beside them. Hell, he didn't usually sleep beside them. He always left before it got real. Before silence and morning-after glances and unspoken regret could ruin it.
Yet last night, he hadn't wanted to leave.
And worse, he hadn't wanted her to leave either.
When Aria stepped out of the bathroom, her hair damp from the sink and her red dress clutched awkwardly in her arms, their eyes met.
"Hey," Ronan said, his voice rough from sleep.
She gave him a tight smile. "Morning."
They stood like that—two people who barely knew each other, tied together by something impulsive and impossible.
"I should go," she said, pulling on her sweater. "I have a studio critique in an hour."
Ronan sat up, the sheet pooling at his waist. "Want me to drive you?"
She hesitated. That one pause said everything.
"No. I'll call a rideshare. Thanks though."
He nodded slowly, masking whatever passed through him. Disappointment? Embarrassment? He didn't do feelings. He didn't ask girls to stay. He didn't offer rides.
But somehow, this girl with paint under her nails and sadness in her eyes had cracked something open.
As she reached for the door, he said, "You okay?"
She froze for half a beat.
"No," she said quietly. "But I will be."
And then she was gone.
The campus buzzed with its usual rhythm. Students with earbuds, professors with coffee cups, couples tangled in the quad like careless poetry.
Aria walked through it all, her phone vibrating nonstop with texts from Liam.
"Where the f*** did you go?"
"I waited all night."
"You're gonna regret embarrassing me like that."
"You think I don't know what you did?"
"You'll come back. You always do."
Her hands shook as she shoved the phone into her bag.
She didn't regret last night—not really. What she regretted was the years she gave to someone who made her feel small.
In the studio, she pulled on her apron and stared at her canvas. The flower she'd painted yesterday looked weaker now. Pale. Shallow.
So she picked up her brush and painted over it.
Thick, angry strokes of midnight blue. A storm blooming. A chaos that felt like her.
She didn't hear her professor approach until she spoke behind her.
"Bold choice, Aria."
"I guess I'm done painting pretty things."
Elsewhere on campus, Ronan jogged up the steps to the Vipers' practice field, late and barely awake.
"Rough night, Wolfe?" his teammate Carter teased.
"You have no idea."
Coach Henderson barked instructions, but Ronan barely heard them. Every time he blinked, he saw her—standing in his bathroom doorway, wearing guilt like armor and heartbreak like perfume.
He couldn't stop thinking about the way she whispered "I should go" like it hurt to say.
And for the first time in a long time, Ronan felt like he wanted more than one night.
Maybe just with her.
Later that evening, as dusk spilled gold over the city, Aria sat alone in the campus café, sketching on a napkin absentmindedly. Her coffee had gone cold. Her fingers were stained with charcoal.
"Hey."
She looked up and almost dropped her pencil.
Ronan stood there in a grey hoodie and track pants, hair damp from a shower, and eyes fixed on her like he'd been looking for her all day.
She swallowed. "How did you know I was here?"
He shrugged. "Didn't. Just hoped I'd get lucky."
A beat passed. She didn't tell him to sit, but he pulled the chair out anyway.
They sat in silence for a moment.
Then he said, "I don't usually… do the next day."
"Yeah. I figured."
"I'm not good at this," he added. "I don't date. I don't… talk. I mess things up."
She gave him a small, tired smile. "And I don't sleep with guys like you. I don't run from my problems or kiss strangers on cliffs."
He tilted his head. "But we did."
"Yeah. We did."
And there it was again—that strange tether, the one that felt like fate or danger or both.
"Can we maybe… not pretend it didn't happen?" he asked.
She looked at him, really looked.
"Maybe," she said. "But that doesn't mean I know what it was."
"Neither do I," he admitted. "But I think I want to find out."
Aria stared at him, unsure whether to trust the flutter in her chest or the warning in her mind.
Maybe he was a bad idea.
Maybe she was just runn
ing from one mistake into another.
But when she looked at him, she didn't feel broken. She felt seen.
And maybe, just maybe, that was worth the risk.