Chapter Eighteen #3
Dalton pointed the pretzel bowl at me like it was evidence. “I am not flirting with Malibu. I value my life too much.”
The Oreo hit him square in the forehead.
“Do not call me that,” I snapped.
Diego wheezed from the couch. Mac sipped his coffee, and reached for the Oreos like he was going to take those next.
I snatched them before he could and glared at him.
Maria groaned, scooping up the next flashcard like she was reconsidering all her life choices.
“Ay Dios mío…you two are never going to survive this test.”
We worked in fits and starts. Someone would shout an answer, someone else would argue the logic, and someone else would eat everything in sight while pretending they were only “refueling for academic excellence.” That last someone may or may not have been me.
Maria ran the whole thing like she was refereeing a prize fight, clapping her hands when we got too loud, passing snacks when we got too quiet.
At one point I got hung up on a stupid arithmetic problem, the kind of thing my hands could’ve done on autopilot if my brain wasn’t busy tripping me up.
Numbers blurred, my chest tightened, and frustration crawled under my skin.
I was strongly considering dropping out entirely and finding a new career to invest in.
Or, at the very least, setting the entire notebook on fire and calling it a day.
“Slide it over,” Dalton said, voice even, not mocking.
He pulled the napkin toward him, sketched out a quick diagram that actually made sense, and started explaining.
Not in a teacher voice. Not in a condescending one.
Just steady, clear, matter-of-fact—like he’d done this before. Which he probably had.
“You’re making it harder than it is,” he said, pen moving fast. “Look—split it like this. Simplify first, don’t let the numbers bully you. One step at a time.”
“You’re not stupid, Holly,” Mac said finally, voice flat but sure. “You just think too fast and trip yourself up. Slow down. That’s all.”
Somehow that landed harder than Dalton’s whole napkin diagram. I snorted, trying to cover how much it calmed me. “You would both rather be elbows-deep in an engine.”
Mac gave a one-shouldered shrug, eyes flicking up to mine. “Problem’s a problem. Doesn’t matter if it’s fractions or carburetors—you figure it out piece by piece.”
Dalton brandished his pen at his brother, “What he said. Now watch.”
Between Dalton’s diagrams and Mac’s steady logic, the numbers finally lined up in my head, neat instead of snarled. When I blurted out the answer, triumphant and a little too loud, the room erupted like I’d just solved world peace.
Maria banged her hand on the table. “Yes! That’s what I’m talking about!”
Dalton smirked, but there was pride under it, sharp and real. “Told you it wasn’t that hard.”
Mac’s mouth twitched in the closest thing he ever gave to a grin. And Diego slid the Oreos closer to me, mouthing, “For victory.”
And me? I laughed, shaky and breathless, but real. For once, the knot in my chest eased. It was ridiculous and small and perfect—the kind of night that made me feel like maybe I wasn’t drowning. Or, if I were, that someone nearby gave a damn to throw me a buoy.
By the time the last flashcard had been conquered and the snack table raided down to crumbs, everyone was winding down.
Diego started packing up the textbooks with military precision, Maria stretched on the couch like she was storing up one more hour of kid-free peace, and Mac disappeared into the kitchen, probably to see if he could wrangle one last cup of coffee from the pot before driving home.
I was ready to call it a night too, until my eyes landed on the library book poking out of my bag. My stomach dropped. “Shit. I gotta run to campus. This is due at midnight, and the librarian already hates me.”
Dalton raised an eyebrow. “So, pay the late fee. Pretty sure you’re not gonna starve over a couple bucks.”
Heat rushed up my neck, fast and sharp but before I could say anything, Maria smacked Dalton on the shoulder with the kind of casual mom-whack that carried more sting than a punch. “Don’t be an ass.”
He blinked, rubbing his shoulder with a put-on wince. “What? I’m just saying—”
“Don’t.” Her glare shut him up faster than anything I could’ve said.
I ducked my head, grateful and mortified at the same time, shoving the book into my bag. “It’ll take twenty minutes, tops. I’ll be back.”
Dalton sighed, already grabbing his jacket. “Yeah, well, no way you’re walking across campus alone this late. Let’s go.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” I shot back, but he ignored me, holding the door open like it was his apartment.
By the time I stepped past him, he was already humming —some loud, obnoxiously cheerful tune designed to crawl under my skin.
It didn’t work like it used to. We cut across campus under a sky that had started to lose its day-heat, students folding into the campus stream.
The air had a crisp edge even in the sticky weeks, the way spring tried to bargain with why it existed in Georgia.
My head was buzzing from equations and flashcards, but Dalton walked like the night belonged to him, hands shoved in his jacket, unbothered as ever.
“You kept up tonight,” he said finally, voice even. Not smug, not mocking. Just fact.
I side-eyed him. “Kept up? Pretty sure you were two steps ahead of me the whole damn time.”
His mouth twitched, the closest thing to a grin. “Only ’cause you psych yourself out. You’re not slow, Blondie. You just fight the problem like it’s out to get you. You’re like that with most things.”
My throat went tight, so I masked it with a shrug. “Wow. You do flashcards, and suddenly you’re Freud. Thanks for the diagnosis, doc, but no thanks.”
“Hilarious,” he said, tone dry but steady. Then, after a beat, softer: “We’ll keep at it. You’ll get there. You’re better than you used to be.”
The words hit harder than I wanted them to, settling right in the spot I usually guarded with claws and sarcasm. I knew he wasn’t talking about just math. I stared ahead, jaw tight, because if I looked at him, he’d see too much.
And of course, he didn’t let me off that easy. His elbow nudged into mine, firm enough to jolt me a step sideways. “Don’t get all misty on me, blondie. I’ll revoke the compliment.”
My head snapped his way as I glared at him. “You’re insufferable.”
“Yeah, but I’m right.” The smirk was back, lazy and infuriating, like he’d planned the whole exchange just to watch me squirm.
We walked in silence for a few blocks. My phone vibrated, but I didn’t look. My head was too full and too quiet in a different way. The silence stretched, comforting for the first time in a long while.
And then the laughing started out of nowhere, a group of guys from somewhere behind us, loud with too many beers and the kind of confidence that comes from never being told no. Someone whistled. A voice called, “Damn, Barbie is out past curfew!”
I didn’t break stride. “Original,” I called back over my shoulder. “Did you workshop that in the group chat or does it just come naturally?”
One of them laughed. The wrong kind of laugh. The kind that thinks it’s winning.
“Wanna hang out?”
I stopped then—not because they told me to. Because I wanted to. I turned slowly, dragging my gaze over them like I was pricing clearance items at a thrift store. “Hang out?” I tilted my head. “With that haircut? Please. I have standards.”
One of them puffed up, swaggering a step closer. “You got a mouth on you.”
“Yeah,” I said flatly. “It’s attached to a brain. Try it sometime.”
Dalton casually took one huge step between me and them, one shoulder forward like a shield, and smiled at the guys.
It wasn’t his usual grin—the easy, “let’s fuck with the world” grin.
This was shorter, colder: a small curl at one corner of his mouth, the set of his jaw that said he could, if necessary, make you regret being alive.
The way his smile cut through the crowd made them stop laughing mid-word like someone had turned off a radio.
“You boys lost?” he asked, voice calm as a lake. The tone didn’t invite banter.
The closest one tried to swagger up to him, all bluster. He took one step, maybe two— then he faltered. He looked at Dalton like the math just went wrong and he wasn’t sure why. They all glanced at each other before slinking back off into the night with their tails between their legs.
I didn’t realize I’d started shaking until Dalton’s hand found my waist, pressing, not tight but solid.
I stiffened from the contact, but distantly my brain recognized it as safety and I didn’t pull away.
Slowly but surely, the night folded back into ordinary noise, and we found ourselves in front of the library.
We stood there for a beat, the sidewalk suddenly enormous and ordinary. My cheeks were hot with a shame I couldn’t quite place—ashamed that I’d needed someone to stand up with me, ashamed that I felt the relief like a physical thing.
Dalton’s shoulders relaxed. The grin returned, the old one, but softer, like he’d closed a book. “You good?”
I swallowed, feigning nonchalance as best I could. “I was about to eviscerate their egos before you interrupted.”
He watched me for one second, then rolled his shoulders and muttered something about hazard pay. When he returned his attention to me, he bumped his shoulder into mine. “I think you already did that. Besides, you’re not allowed to get picked on. Not on my watch.”
The gratitude hit like a thing heavy and warm in my throat. I wanted to say something real, like thank you, but instead I said, “I’ll add bodyguard to your job description.”
“Perfect,” he said, and his voice carried that ridiculous half-smirk that made me want to punch him for being infuriatingly kind.
I dropped off my book and wasn’t the least bit surprised when Dalton walked me back to my apartment.
This time, I didn’t protest, and he joked about how thrilled his coach would be at the extra exercise.
That night, when I crawled into my apartment and turned the key, my chest felt different, not lighter exactly, but like someone had tied a rope from me to the earth.
I could breathe in a way I hadn’t in years.
Jackson texted before I fell asleep.
Jackson: Good luck on Monday, Malibu.
I stared at the message, blinking at the glow. How the hell did he even know I had a test? Oh, right. His pet spy. Dalton. I typed a reply. Deleted it. Typed another.
Me: Copy that.
It wasn’t much, but it felt like something. I hit send and dropped the phone on my nightstand. For the first time since the semester started, I believed I might actually be able to do this—not alone, not perfectly, but…enough.