Chapter 1: A Birthday Secret Between Strangers
The door didn't click shut behind her. It never did. That was the first thing Hervi noticed as she shouldered her way into the narrow corridor—the deadbolt was busted, the latch worn smooth by years of slamming, and the only thing standing between her and the rest of the world was a rusted hinge and the hope that nobody else needed to pee badly enough to investigate the flickering lights.
She was already moving before the door swung back. Her backpack hit the cracked tile with a dull thud, and she was peeling her shirt over her head before she could second-guess the logistics of changing in a place that smelled like bleach and something vaguely metallic. The auditorium rehearsal hummed through the walls—muffled laughter, the sharp click of a microphone being tested, the distant thrum of a bass line that vibrated through the soles of her worn sneakers. Twenty minutes. Maybe less. She'd checked the time on her phone before she'd bolted out of the classroom, and the numbers had burned into her brain like a countdown. Seventeen minutes and forty-three seconds.
Her bra followed the shirt. The cool air hit her skin, and she shivered, but not from the temperature. This was the part she hated—the moment between who she was and who she needed to be. The strip-down. The rebuild. Her fingers found the zipper of her jeans and yanked. The denim pooled around her ankles, and she stepped out of them, kicking them aside with a practiced flick of her foot.
The costume was buried at the bottom of her bag. She'd packed it this morning, folded it with the kind of precision that bordered on obsessive, and now she pulled it out like it was made of glass. Black. Sleek. The kind of dress that made people look twice, not because it was flashy but because it fit like it had been sewn onto her body. She'd spent three weeks altering it by hand, hunched over her desk at two in the morning, stitching and re-stitching until the hem hit exactly where she wanted it. Just above the knee. Just tight enough to make her legs look longer than they were. She was four-foot-eight, and she'd learned a long time ago that the world didn't take short girls seriously unless they gave it a reason to.
The dress slid over her hips, and she reached behind her to pull up the zipper. It caught halfway. She twisted, craning her neck, fingers fumbling for the tab. Come on. Come on. The fabric was too tight. She'd lost weight since the last fitting—not on purpose, just stress and sleeplessness and the way her appetite disappeared whenever she got nervous—and now the dress hung loose in places it shouldn't. She'd have to fix it later. Pin it. Tape it. Whatever it took.
She was still wrestling with the zipper when she heard the door creak open behind her.
Her body went cold. Not the slow, creeping chill of embarrassment—this was instant. A full-body freeze, the kind that locked her muscles and stopped her breath mid-inhale. She didn't turn around. She couldn't. Her reflection stared back at her from the mirror mounted above the sink, and in it, she could see the door. The silhouette. The shape of someone standing in the threshold.
Trav.
Of course it was Trav.
He didn't move. Didn't speak. Just stood there, one hand still on the door, his eyes locked on her reflection. She watched him in the mirror, watched the way his expression shifted from surprise to something else—something she couldn't name. His jaw tightened. His gaze dropped. Lower. Past her bare shoulders, past the dress she was still struggling to zip, down to where her underwear was still tangled around her thighs. She'd forgotten about that. In the rush, in the panic, she'd pulled the dress on over her panties without thinking, and now they were caught halfway down her legs, a thin strip of black lace that might as well have been a neon sign.
Shit.
The word echoed in her skull, but she didn't say it. She didn't say anything. Neither did he.
The silence stretched. Thick. Suffocating. The fluorescent light above them flickered, buzzed, flickered again. Outside, someone laughed—a sharp, bright sound that cut through the walls like a blade. The rehearsal was still going. The world was still spinning. But in here, in this narrow corridor that smelled like bleach and bad decisions, time had stopped.
Hervi moved first.
She didn't turn around. She didn't cover herself. She just straightened, slowly, and met his eyes in the mirror.
"You gonna stand there all day?" Her voice came out steadier than she felt. Casual. Almost bored. She'd learned how to do that—how to sound like she didn't care when her heart was slamming against her ribs like it was trying to break out. "Or are you gonna close the door?"
Trav blinked. For a second, she thought he'd leave. Turn around, walk out, pretend he hadn't seen anything. That would be the smart thing. The safe thing. But Trav wasn't like other guys. She'd noticed that about him weeks ago—the way he moved through the halls like a ghost, quiet and unobtrusive, his eyes always watching but never lingering. He was built like someone who could break you in half, but he carried himself like he was trying to take up as little space as possible. It was a contradiction. It was interesting.
He closed the door.
The latch didn't catch. It never did. But he leaned against it anyway, his back pressed to the rusted metal, and crossed his arms over his chest. His shirt was dark—navy blue, maybe, or black—and it stretched across his shoulders in a way that made her throat feel tight. He was taller than her. Everyone was taller than her. But standing here, in this cramped little room with the flickering light and the muffled sound of music bleeding through the walls, he felt impossibly large.
"You're changing," he said. Not a question. Just a statement. His voice was low, even, like he was commenting on the weather.
"Astute observation." She turned back to the mirror, finally, and resumed her fight with the zipper. "You always walk into the girls' room unannounced?"
"This isn't the girls' room."
She paused. Her fingers stilled on the zipper. Fuck. She looked at the sign on the door—the one she'd ignored in her rush—and sure enough, it was a faded blue stick figure with a tie. Boys.
"Whatever." She yanked the zipper up the rest of the way, teeth gritted. "Gender's a construct."
Trav didn't laugh. He didn't even smile. He just watched her, his dark eyes tracking her every movement like he was cataloging her. It should have been unsettling. It was unsettling. But it was also something else—something that made her skin prickle and her pulse quicken and her brain short-circuit in a way she didn't have time to analyze.
She turned around.
The dress was on. The zipper was up. She looked like she belonged on a stage, not in a grimy comfort room with a guy she'd spoken to maybe three times in her entire life. But here she was. And here he was. And the clock was still ticking.
"Look," she said, and she took a step toward him. Then another. Her bare feet were cold against the tile, but she didn't care. She was four-foot-eight, and she'd spent her whole life looking up at people, but right now, she felt like she was the one in control. "I don't know what you think you saw. But I'm gonna be late for my performance if I don't finish getting ready, and I really, really need this to go well."
She stopped in front of him. Close enough to touch. Close enough to feel the heat radiating off his body, to smell the faint trace of soap on his skin. He didn't move. Didn't flinch. Just looked down at her with those dark, unreadable eyes.
"So here's the deal," she continued. Her voice was low now. Quiet. The kind of voice she used when she wanted something and knew she was going to get it. "You can leave. Walk out that door, pretend this never happened, and we go back to being strangers who sit three rows apart in homeroom."
She paused. Let the silence hang.
"Or you can stay."
His expression didn't change. But something in his posture shifted—a subtle tension in his shoulders, a slight tilt of his head. He was listening.
"I need to blow off steam," she said. "The performance. The nerves. All of it. And you..." She let her gaze drift down, then back up. Slow. Deliberate. "You look like you could use something too."
The words hung in the air between them. She could feel her heart pounding, could feel the flush creeping up her neck, but she didn't back down. She never backed down. That was the thing about her—the thing that made people underestimate her, and the thing that made them regret it. She was small, but she was sharp. And right now, she was desperate.
Trav's jaw tightened. "You don't know me."
"I know enough." She reached out, her fingers brushing the hem of his shirt. Just barely. A whisper of contact. "I know you're quiet. I know you watch people. I know you're not gonna tell anyone about this." She tilted her head, meeting his eyes. "And I know you want to."
He didn't deny it.
The fluorescent light flickered again. The hum of the rehearsal—laughter, clapping, the sharp click of the microphone—faded into white noise. She heard her own breathing, steady and controlled, and beneath it, the rapid thrum of her pulse.
"There's one condition," she said.
Trav raised an eyebrow. It was the first crack in his composure, the first flicker of something other than blank observation. She pressed her advantage.
"Finish in my mouth. Not inside me."
His expression didn't change. But his eyes—those dark, unreadable eyes—dipped to her lips, then back up. A slow, deliberate acknowledgment. He understood.
She didn't wait for him to answer.
She pressed her palm flat against his chest, feeling the solid heat of him beneath the fabric, and pushed him back against the door. The latch rattled. The rusted hinge groaned. But the door held, and she was already sinking to her knees.
The tile was cold. The dress rode up her thighs. She could hear the distant thump of bass from the auditorium, could feel the vibration in her teeth. Ten minutes. Maybe less. The clock was still ticking.
Her fingers found his belt. His hand caught her wrist.
She looked up. His face was shadowed, half-lit by the flickering fluorescent, and for a second, she couldn't read him at all. Then his grip loosened. Just slightly. Just enough.
"You sure?" His voice was rough. Quiet. The first real crack in his armor.
She didn't answer with words. She answered with her hands, with her mouth, with the kind of bold, reckless certainty that had gotten her into trouble more times than she could count. The dress was tight. The floor was cold. The door wasn't locked. But she didn't care. She never cared. That was the thing about her—she was always all in, even when she shouldn't be.
Trav's head fell back against the door. His breath came in short, sharp bursts. She heard him say something—a low, guttural sound that might have been her name—but she didn't stop. She couldn't. The clock was ticking. The world was spinning. And somewhere, in the back of her mind, a small voice whispered that this was a mistake.
She ignored it.
Because this wasn't about mistakes. This was about control. About power. About walking onto that stage in nine minutes and knowing that she'd already won something, even if nobody else would ever know.
Above her, Trav shuddered. His hand found the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair. She closed her eyes.
And somewhere, buried deep in the pocket of his jeans, pressed against the doorframe and forgotten in the heat of the moment, Trav's phone began to vibrate.
He didn't notice.
But he would.
Later.
When the recording light blinked off and the screen went dark and the weight of what he'd done settled onto his shoulders like a stone. He would notice. He would remember. He would carry it with him, this secret, this thing she didn't know, and he would never, ever tell her.
But that was later.
Right now, there was only this. The flickering light. The cold tile. The taste of salt and skin and the dull, distant ache of the clock counting down to zero.