Chapter 17 — Lena
Lena
Lena Brooks had made a mistake.
Not a catastrophic mistake.
Not a transfer-schools-change-her-name-fake-her-own-disappearance mistake.
But still.
A mistake.
She had told Paige about the snacks.
Which meant Paige had spent the last twenty-six minutes preparing for Carter Hayes’s eventual visit to their dorm room like she was hosting a diplomatic summit with hostile nations.
“He remembered sour candy,” Paige said, pacing between the beds. “That means something.”
“It means he listens.”
“Exactly. Suspicious.”
“Listening is suspicious now?”
“In men? Historically, yes.”
Lena sat at her desk, trying to read the same page of her textbook for the third time while Paige held a bag of laundry in one hand and a pack of sticky notes in the other.
“Are you cleaning?” Lena asked.
Paige looked offended. “I am creating a neutral environment.”
“You threw your hoodie over your laundry basket.”
“That is called visual containment.”
“It is called hiding laundry.”
Her phone sat beside her laptop, faceup, because apparently she was now that person. The person who kept checking for a text even though she had seen Carter less than two hours ago and had texted him goodnight after calling their kiss maybe life-altering.
Carter’s hands at her waist. His mouth careful until it wasn’t. The way he pulled back like restraint cost him but mattered. The way his face changed when she kissed him again because he remembered Paige’s snacks.
That was becoming an issue.
Paige stopped pacing and looked at her. “You’re smiling at your textbook.”
Lena blinked and looked down.
“You absolutely are.” Paige leaned over her shoulder. “Unless chapter seven on board governance is doing it for you.”
Lena closed the book. “I’m taking a break.”
“You’re thinking about him.”
Paige pressed a hand dramatically to her chest. “Growth.”
“Do not start.”
“I’m proud of this development.”
Lena groaned. “Everyone needs to stop saying that.”
“Everyone?” Paige’s eyes sharpened. “Oh, he says it too?”
“No.”
“Lena.”
“He repeated it back once.”
Paige collapsed onto her bed. “You two are disgustingly cute.”
“We are not cute.”
“We do not.”
“Trying. Proud of this development. Your okay or mine. Team Clipboard.”
“Team Clipboard is not ours.”
“It’s in the ecosystem.”
“I hate that sentence.”
Paige grinned. “You like him.”
Lena looked at her phone.
No new messages.
“Yes,” she said.
The teasing disappeared.
“Oh.”
Lena looked down at her hands.
She liked Carter Hayes when he was charming, obviously, because she had eyes and a pulse and a concerning weakness for dimples paired with emotional growth.
She liked him in ways that were starting to feel too big for the word like.
Which was exactly why she needed to stay calm.
“Wow,” Paige said softly.
Lena pointed at her. “Don’t make it weird.”
“I’m not. I’m being emotionally supportive.”
“You’re glowing.”
“I’ve been waiting for this character development.”
“I am not a character.”
“You just admitted you like the hockey boy out loud. Let me have this.”
Carter: Question.
Lena’s heart lifted before she could stop it.
Paige whispered, “Read it aloud.”
Carter: Fair. Is Paige serious about snack requirements, or was that a joke with consequences?
Lena laughed.
Paige shot upright. “Is he bringing snacks?”
Lena: Very serious. She accepts sour candy, salt and vinegar chips, and chocolate-peanut butter combinations.
Carter: Noted. Follow-up: if I bring all three, does that look thoughtful or like I’m trying too hard?
Lena smiled so helplessly Paige made a strangled noise.
Carter: Excellent. Follow-up two: would tonight be too soon to bribe your roommate and sit near you while you pretend to study?
Not a hospital waiting room. Not a coffee shop. Not a chapel garden. Her room. Her bed. Paige’s suspicious supervision. Posters on the wall. Laundry disguised as interior design.
It felt intimate in a way that had nothing to do with kissing.
Paige leaned over so fast she nearly fell. “He wants to come over?”
Lena angled the phone away. “Boundaries.”
“You have none. You’re smiling.”
Lena looked at Carter’s message again.
Lena: It’s not too soon. But Paige will interrogate you.
Carter: I have survived Coach, cardiology offices, and Mason’s creative process. I fear nothing.
Lena: You should fear Paige.
Carter: Respectfully terrified. What time?
Lena looked at Paige.
Paige was already shoving the laundry basket toward the closet with her foot.
“Apparently soon,” Lena said.
Paige clapped once. “I’ll prepare questions.”
“No questions.”
“Fine. Conversation traps.”
“No traps.”
“Light traps.”
“Paige.”
Carter: I want to see you. That’s the main reason. Snacks are diplomacy.
She set the phone down and stared at nothing.
Paige pointed at her. “That face is why I’m worried.”
“What face?”
“The ‘I want to write his name in the margins of my planner’ face.”
“That is not a face.”
“You’re right. It’s a diagnosis.”
Lena stood too quickly. “We need to clean.”
Paige grinned. “Neutral environment?”
“Visual containment.”
“Welcome to my methods.”
They spent the next twenty minutes turning the room from disaster into acceptable chaos.
Paige shoved laundry into the closet. Lena cleared her desk.
Paige arranged the throw pillows on Lena’s bed like Carter was visiting a furniture showroom.
Lena removed two mugs from the windowsill and found one had grown something she did not want to identify.
“College life is horrifying,” Carter texted from downstairs twenty-nine minutes later.
Lena looked out the window.
Lena’s breath caught.
“By one minute,” he called. “I’m growing, not perfect.”
Paige appeared beside Lena at the window. “Do you have the tribute?”
Carter looked from Lena to Paige.
Then lifted the grocery bag solemnly. “Sour candy. Salt and vinegar chips. Chocolate peanut butter cups. Also emergency cookies, because I panicked.”
Paige nodded once. “Acceptable.”
“Great,” Carter said. “Can I come in, or do I need to answer riddles first?”
“Depends,” Paige called. “What are your intentions?”
Lena yanked Paige away from the window. “Stop.”
Carter laughed from below.
Lena leaned back out, face warm. “I’ll come get you.”
“Take your time,” he said.
Then, softer, though she could barely hear it, “Worth waiting for.”
Paige made a choking sound behind her.
Lena closed the window.
“Do not,” she warned.
“I said nothing.”
“You breathed emotionally.”
“I learned from Carter’s mom.”
Lena grabbed her keys and fled before Paige could make it worse.
Carter was waiting in the lobby when she arrived, snacks in one hand, coffees in the other, looking too tall and too handsome and far too comfortable for someone about to face Paige with sugar-based offerings.
She stopped in front of him, suddenly aware that they were in the dorm lobby with people coming and going and a front desk attendant pretending not to watch.
Carter’s eyes flicked over her face.
“Can I?” he asked quietly.
Enough to make her forget the lobby had fluorescent lighting and someone’s DoorDash order smelled aggressively like garlic fries.
When he pulled back, his smile was gentle.
“Hi again,” he said.
Lena laughed under her breath. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I brought emergency cookies. We knew that.”
She took one of the coffees from the carrier. “Is this for me?”
“Correct order. The other is for Paige. I guessed iced coffee with caramel because that feels like a roommate who interrogates.”
Lena stared. “That is actually her order.”
Carter’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”
They walked upstairs together, and Lena felt every step like a countdown.
She was not nervous because she thought Carter would behave badly.
With her life.
With the soft, ordinary spaces that felt more intimate than any public kiss.
When she opened the door, Paige was sitting at her desk with one leg crossed over the other, holding a pen and notebook.
Carter stopped in the doorway.
“Oh,” he said. “This is formal.”
Paige looked up. “Carter Hayes.”
“Paige.”
“Yes.” He stepped inside and set the bag on the desk like an offering. “Sour candy, salt and vinegar chips, chocolate peanut butter cups, emergency cookies, and an iced caramel coffee that I chose based on vibes and fear.”
Her eyebrows rose.
Lena crossed her arms, trying not to smile.
Paige looked at Carter. “Lucky guess.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Sit.”
“Paige,” Lena said.
“What? He can sit.”
Carter looked at Lena. “Where am I safest?”
Lena pointed to the edge of her bed. “You can sit there.”
He sat carefully, like her bed might have rules.
Which, honestly, she appreciated.
Paige opened the notebook.
Carter leaned forward. “Before we begin, I’d like to state for the record that I respect Lena’s schedule, fear her planner, and have deleted all unauthorized merch operations from my sphere of influence.”
Paige stared at him.
Then slowly looked at Lena.
Lena covered her face.
Carter added, “Also, Mason is not allowed near iron-on letters.”
Failed.
A laugh broke out of her, and Carter’s shoulders relaxed.
“Fine,” Paige said. “That was good.”
Lena lowered her hands. “Can we please not make this a deposition?”
“No,” Paige and Carter said at the same time.
Then they looked at each other.
Paige narrowed her eyes. “Do not align with me too easily. It’s suspicious.”
Carter held up both hands. “Understood.”
For the next hour, Lena witnessed one of the strangest and most terrifying things of her life.
Carter expected it.
She asked what his major was, whether he actually studied, how his dad was doing, whether Mason was always like that, and what Carter considered an appropriate number of texts before someone became “clingy.”
Carter answered all of it with a mix of humor and sincerity that made Paige’s suspicion gradually become reluctant approval.
“Define trying,” Paige said at one point.
Carter, sitting on the edge of Lena’s bed with a salt and vinegar chip in one hand, looked over at Lena before answering.