The CEO's Regret: You Made Mer Your Lie I Become Your Loss Novel - Chapter 354

"Can we be friends?" Nolan asked, and there was something in the way he said it, easy and a little crooked, eighteen years old and fully aware of exactly how much charm he had at his disposal, that made Justina feel, for one dizzy second, like the gymnasium floor had tilted slightly under her feet.

"Yeah," she said, trying to sound far more casual than she felt. "I’d like that."

They talked for the better part of an hour after that, tucked into a corner near the punch table while Kelvin’s set wound down behind them, and then they danced nothing dramatic, nothing that would have made the whispers start up again, just close enough that Justina could feel the warmth of him and count, without meaning to, every time his hand found the small of her back.

Somebody took a picture of the two of them laughing near the stage lights, and then another, and by the time the night ended, Justina had a small collection of them saved to her phone, tucked carefully into a folder she’d created and named something forgettable enough that nobody would think to open it.

Kelvin dropped Justina home a little after midnight, walked her to the door himself the way Julian had clearly expected him to, and gave her shoulder a friendly squeeze goodbye that felt, by that point in the night, almost anticlimactic compared to everything that had happened after his set ended.