It wasn't my fault. He was standing exactly where I needed to walk, the way he always was, like the universe had personally arranged for our paths to collide outside the locker rooms every single day. Sleeves pushed up to his elbows. That lazy half-smile already waiting for me before I'd said a word.

"Move," I said.

He didn't. "Hayes. You're welcome to walk around me."

"There's no room to walk around you. You're built like a door."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Don't."

He laughed, low and easy, the kind of laugh that made freshman girls forget how to use their own feet. I'd watched it happen. Twice. I was not going to be the third.

"You're in a mood," he said.

"I'm always in a mood around you."

"I know." His smile widened. "It's my favorite thing about you."

I rolled my eyes and pushed past him, close enough to catch the smell of him, laundry detergent and cold rink air, like the whole hockey team had it stitched into their skin. I hated that I noticed. I hated that I noticed anything about Dylan Kingston at all.

I had one rule when it came to Dylan Kingston. Don't look twice. I broke it before eight in the morning, and I hadn't even had coffee yet.

By the time I got to the gym, my brother was already lacing up his skates by the bench, jaw tight in the way that meant something had gone wrong before the day even started.

"What happened?" I said, dropping my bag beside his.

"Kingston happened," Ryan said. "Coach posted line changes. Guess who's captain again."

I didn't have to guess. It was always Dylan. It had been Dylan since freshman year, and it had been Dylan every year since, no matter how many extra hours Ryan put in, no matter how many mornings he dragged himself out of bed before sunrise to run drills alone.

"I'm sorry," I said, because there wasn't anything else that wouldn't sound hollow.

"It's fine." His voice said it wasn't. "It's always fine. Kingston gets everything he wants. Captaincy, the girls, whatever's left over after that." He looked at me sideways, something sharper creeping into his face. "Speaking of which. Stay away from him, Gin."

"I'm not anywhere near him."

"You were talking to him in the hallway. Maddy told me."

"Maddy needs to mind her business."

"I mean it," Ryan said. "Guys like him don't want anything real. Don't be an exception."

I didn't answer, because agreeing felt like admitting I needed the warning, and I did not need the warning. I'd known exactly what Dylan Kingston was since ninth grade, when I watched him make out with a girl behind the gym and then hold hands with someone else at the same lunch table two days later. I didn't need my brother telling me not to fall for a guy who treated girls like a scoreboard. I already knew the score.

I found Maddy by the vending machines before first period, deep into a bag of pretzels she had zero intention of sharing.

"Your brother is annoying," she said without looking up. "He texted me at seven a.m. to tell me to stop talking to you about Dylan Kingston like I'm the problem here."

"You kind of are the problem. You told him I was talking to Dylan."

"I told him you were standing near Dylan. There's a difference. Also, I wasn't going to lie to Ryan. He always knows."

"There's nothing to lie about. Dylan blocks hallways. It's basically a hobby of his."

Maddy raised an eyebrow, unconvinced, and held out the pretzel bag like a peace offering. "Cheer tryouts are Thursday," she said, mouth full. "Still doing it?"

The question landed heavier than she probably meant it to. I'd wanted a spot on the Cedarfield squad since middle school, had spent every home game imagining myself down on the floor instead of stuck in the stands, pom poms in hand, part of something instead of just watching it happen to other people. The problem was who ran that floor.

"Stephanie's the captain," I said. "She's not letting me anywhere near those tryouts."

"Stephanie doesn't own tryouts."

"Stephanie owns everything at this school. In case you hadn't noticed."

Maddy didn't argue, because it was mostly true. Stephanie Colton walked through Cedarfield like she'd been issued a crown at birth, Amber and Vanessa trailing a step behind her, laughing on cue, glaring at anyone who looked at her sideways. And Stephanie had a very long memory for anyone she considered competition. Real or imagined.

I hadn't done anything to earn a place on that list. Not yet.

I didn't know it was about to change before the day was over.

I didn't think about it again until after homeroom, when I turned the corner by the trophy case and walked straight into him. Not near him. Into him, my shoulder colliding with his chest hard enough that my books scattered across the floor.

"Careful," Dylan said, crouching to grab my notebook before I could.

"You're the one who doesn't move."

"I moved plenty this time. You weren't looking where you were going." He held the notebook out, but he didn't let go when I grabbed it. He just looked at me, that same beat-too-long stare from this morning, except there was nothing lazy about it now. Nothing performed.

"What," I said.

"Nothing." He finally let go. "I just figured something out."

"Figured what out?

He smiled, and it wasn't the smile he gave everyone else in the hallway, the one built for an audience. This one was smaller. Sharper. Like it belonged to a secret he hadn't decided whether to keep.

"You'll find out," he said, and walked away before I could ask what that meant, leaving me standing there with my books against my chest and my pulse doing something traitorous, because whatever Dylan Kingston had just figured out, I had the sinking feeling it involved me.

And knowing him, it was already too late to stop it.

By lunch, I'd almost convinced myself I'd imagined the whole thing.

Almost. Except every time I closed my eyes I saw it again, that smaller, sharper smile, the one that didn't belong to the Dylan Kingston everyone else got. I hated that I'd catalogued the difference. I hated more that some small, traitorous part of me wanted to see it again.

"You're doing the thing," Maddy said, sliding her tray across from mine, dropping into her seat like she'd been chasing me down half the cafeteria.

"What thing?"

"The staring-into-space, replaying-something thing. You did it in second period too. Mr. Alvarez called your name twice."

"I was thinking about the history test."

"You were thinking about Dylan Kingston."

I stabbed my fork into my salad like it had personally wronged me. "I was not."

"Gin. Your ears go red when you lie. They're doing it right now."

I covered them out of pure reflex, which was, admittedly, not helping my case. Maddy grinned like she'd won something, and across the cafeteria, as if summoned by his own name, Dylan walked in with two of his teammates, laughing at something, completely at ease in the way people are when the whole room has already decided to like them before they've done anything to earn it.

He didn't look at me. Not once. Which shouldn't have bothered me, but did.

"Okay, weird theory," Maddy said, watching him too now. "What if he actually likes you?"

"He does not like me," I said it too fast, and I knew it the second it left my mouth.

"He stares at you in the hallway. He gave you that face this morning, the one you described to me in way too much detail for someone who claims not to care."

"He stares at everyone. It's a personality disorder."

"Uh huh." Maddy popped a grape into her mouth. "And if I told you Amber said Dylan told the guys he was going to, and I quote, finally crack the ice queen, would that change your theory?"

Everything in me went still.

"Where did you hear that?"

"Amber. Who heard it from Vanessa. Who heard it from someone on the team, so, you know, filtered through Stephanie's personal news network, take it with a grain of salt. But apparently there's a bet. Something about him getting you to go out with him before winter formal."

I put my fork down slowly, because my hands had started doing something I didn't like, this small, humiliating tremor I couldn't seem to shut off.

"A bet," I said.

"That's what she said."

I looked across the cafeteria at him again, and this time, like he could feel it, he looked back. Held it a beat too long, same as this morning, and something in my chest that had been embarrassingly warm all day turned instantly, mercifully cold.

Of course. Of course it was a bet. Dylan Kingston didn't look at girls like they were people, he looked at them like scoreboards, exactly like I'd told Ryan a hundred times, exactly like every single girl before me had learned the hard way. I'd almost been stupid enough to forget that for one hallway, one look, one stolen half smile that meant nothing at all except that I was apparently his next target.

I stood up so fast my chair scraped against the floor.

"Where are you going?" Maddy said.

"To fix my ears."

I didn't fix my ears. I walked straight across the cafeteria, ignoring the way conversations quieted as I passed, because everyone at Cedarfield had an instinct for drama the way sharks had one for blood, and stopped directly in front of Dylan's table.

"Hayes," he said, and had the audacity to smile like this was a pleasant surprise.

"I heard about the bet."

Something flickered across his face, fast, there and gone, but I saw it. Guilt. Actual guilt, which almost made it worse, because it meant it was true.

"It's not what it sounds like," he said.

"It sounds like you told your friends you're going to, what was it, crack the ice queen. Did I get that right?"

His jaw tightened. Behind him, his teammates had become very interested in their food. "Ginny…"

"Don't." My voice came out steadier than I felt, which I counted as a small victory. "You don't get to call me that. You don't get to call me anything. I'm not a bet, and I'm definitely not a game, and you can go tell whoever you made that bet with that it's officially off, because I wouldn't go out with you if you were the last…"

"It's not a bet with them," he said, standing up now, low enough that only I could hear it. "It's a bet with myself."

I stopped.

"What?"

"There's no bet, Ginny. I made that up to shut them up because they wouldn't stop asking why I keep ending up wherever you are." He ran a hand through his hair, and for the first time since I'd known him, Dylan Kingston looked like he didn't know what to do with his own mouth. "I told them it was a bet because it sounded better than the truth."

"And what's the truth?"

He looked at me the way he had that morning by the trophy case, except there was nowhere to hide from it now, no crowded hallway, no easy exit, just his eyes on mine and the whole cafeteria pretending not to watch, forks paused halfway to mouths, conversations gone strangely thin.

"The truth," he said quietly, "is that I don't know what I'm doing yet. But it's not a bet."

Behind him, weaving through the tables with Amber and Vanessa flanking her like bodyguards, Stephanie Colton was already walking straight toward us, chin up, smile sharpening with every step, and the look on her face told me whatever this was between Dylan and me, she'd just decided it was about to become her problem too.

Stephanie Colton smiled at people the way most girls smiled at spiders. Like she was deciding whether to scream or squash it.

She stopped a foot away from us, close enough that I caught her perfume, something expensive and sharp, and let her eyes travel from Dylan to me and back again, cataloguing the distance between us like she was doing math.

"Am I interrupting something?" she asked, in a voice so sweet it had to be a weapon.

"Nope," Dylan said, stepping back from me like I was suddenly contagious.

I hated how much that stung, and I hated more that I noticed it happening in real time, my whole chest doing something complicated and stupid over a boy stepping half a foot away from me in a cafeteria.

"Good." Stephanie's smile widened, landing on me now, and up close I understood exactly why people got out of her way in the hallways without being told to. There was something in her eyes that dared you to be interesting enough to bother with. "Virginia, right? Ryan's sister?"

"Ginny," I said.

"Cute." She said it like it wasn't. "I don't think we've actually talked before."

"We haven't."

"Well." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and Amber and Vanessa arranged themselves on either side of her like furniture. "I heard you're trying out for cheer Thursday."

I hadn't told anyone that except Maddy. Which meant either Maddy had told someone, unlikely, or Stephanie Colton had a surveillance network more sophisticated than the actual school administration, entirely likely.

"Word travels," I said.

"It does when it's interesting." She tilted her head, studying me the way you'd study something you'd stepped in. "You know it's a competitive squad. We don't just take anyone who shows up wanting to be popular."

"I'm not trying out to be popular."

"No?" Her eyebrows went up, delighted, like I'd said something genuinely funny. "Then why?"

Because I've wanted it since I was eleven years old and stood in these same bleachers watching girls fly through the air like nothing scared them, and because it was the one thing I'd ever wanted that had nothing to do with being someone's sister or someone's rival's little problem. But I wasn't about to hand her that much of myself, not standing here in a cafeteria with an audience, so instead I said, "Because I'm good at it."

"We'll see." She turned back to Dylan before I could say anything else, her whole posture shifting, softer now, angled toward him in a way that made my stomach twist even though I had absolutely no claim to feel anything about it. "Dylan. You're still coming to Chelsea's thing Friday, right?"

"Probably."

"Good." She let her hand rest on his arm for just a second too long, and I watched him not pull away, and told myself very firmly that I did not care. "We should catch up. It's been a while."

"Steph…"

"I'll text you." She was already walking away, Amber and Vanessa trailing behind like she'd tugged them on strings, but she paused after a few steps and looked back at me, and whatever performance she'd been doing for Dylan's benefit dropped clean off her face. What was underneath was colder. Sharper. Real.

"Good luck Thursday," she said. "You're going to need it."

Then she was gone, swallowed into the crowd, and the cafeteria exhaled like it had been holding its breath the whole time.

"That was pleasant," I said, watching her disappear around the corner with her entourage still perfectly in formation.

Dylan winced. "She's not usually like that."

"She seemed exactly like that. Practiced, even. Like she's done this before."

"We used to date. Freshman year." He said it carefully, like he was handling something breakable. "It ended a long time ago. She just hasn't fully caught up, and she doesn't love being reminded of that in public."

"Clearly."

"Ginny." He said my name differently than he had all day, quieter, without the performance. "About earlier…"

"I have to go." I didn't, not really, but I'd used up every ounce of composure I had for one lunch period, and I could feel my ears doing the thing Maddy had called me out on, the thing that apparently gave away every lie I'd ever told, and I was not about to let him watch that happen too.

I found Maddy by our lockers after the bell, and she took one look at my face and didn't say a word, just fell into step beside me toward class, letting the silence stretch until she couldn't hold it anymore.

"So," she finally said, halfway down the hall, unable to hold out any longer. "No bet."

"No bet."

"But something."

"I don't know what it is." Which was true, and also the most unsettling sentence I'd said all day, because I'd built my entire life around knowing exactly what Dylan Kingston was. A flirt. A collector. A boy who made a hobby out of hallways and half smiles and never meaning any of it. And now, apparently, I didn't know anything at all.

I turned the corner toward chemistry, still turning it all over, Stephanie's cold little threat looping in my head on repeat, and walked straight into a wall of navy blue fabric that smelled like laundry detergent and cold rink air.

"We need to talk," Dylan said, and for the first time all day, there was nothing lazy or easy about his voice at all.

Behind him, taped to the wall outside the chemistry lab where the entire junior class would see it in exactly four minutes when the bell rang, was a printed flyer with my school photo on it, my actual school ID photo, the one from freshman year I'd spent two years trying to forget existed, blown up and centered like some kind of wanted poster.

Across the bottom, in bold red letters, someone had written: ASK HER ABOUT THE BET.