Between Us

Chapter 19 — The Party

The end of semester party was Bello's idea.

It was always Bello's idea. The man had an extraordinary commitment to bringing people together in loud spaces and calling it community building. This one was bigger than the birthday gathering — proper party energy, two hostels worth of people, music that you felt in your chest before you even walked in.

I'd gone to exactly one party before this semester.

I'd been to three now. All because of Zane.

Denise spent an hour on us both which I protested for the first twenty minutes and then surrendered to because she had a vision and her visions were always right.

"You look incredible," she said, stepping back to assess.

"I look like myself."

"You look like yourself but elevated." She handed me my bag. "Serena is meeting us there. Don't disappear with Zane for the whole night."

"I don't disappear—"

"You disappeared for forty five minutes at the last gathering."

"We were talking—"

"I know what it's called." She steered me toward the door. "One hour minimum with other humans before you find your person. Those are the rules."

"You made those rules up just now."

"They're still rules."

Zane was waiting outside with Kofi and Bello, which meant the first thirty seconds involved Kofi being genuinely thrilled to see me in a way that was both endearing and slightly overwhelming and Bello doing that thing where he made you feel immediately like you'd been friends for years.

Zane stepped slightly away from them when I approached.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi."

He looked at me the way he'd looked at me on the Saturday date — that full picture look, quiet and unhurried.

"Denise did good," I said before he could say anything.

"Denise always does good." He offered his hand. "Come on."

The party was loud and warm and packed with energy that bounced off the walls and got into your blood whether you wanted it to or not.

We stayed with the group for the first hour — Denise's rules, which Zane had somehow also agreed to without being told, which made me like him more than I was going to admit.

Kofi was in exceptional form. Bello knew everyone. Serena and I found our way back to each other within twenty minutes and stood slightly off to the side observing the chaos with the comfortable solidarity of two people who appreciated events more from the edges.

"He watches you when you're not looking," Serena said conversationally, not taking her eyes off the room.

"I know," I said, also not looking.

"Does it bother you?"

I thought about it honestly. "No."

She nodded. "Good."

Around 11pm the music changed — slower, lower, the kind that shifts the energy of a room without announcing it.

Zane appeared beside me.

"Dance with me," he said.

"I don't dance."

"Everyone dances."

"I genuinely don't."

"Ava." He held out his hand. "It's just moving. You're good at moving."

"That's not — that doesn't even make sense—"

"Come on."

I will not describe in detail what it's like to dance with someone you're falling for at a party full of your peers because some things deserve privacy.

I will say that it was slow and close and he kept his hand warm against my back and at some point I stopped thinking about whether I was doing it right and just — was there. Present. In the moment in a way I was rarely in any moment.

He said something into my hair that I didn't fully catch over the music.

"What?" I tilted my head up.

He looked down at me.

We were very close.

The music moved around us.

"I said," he said quietly, "that I'm glad it was your classroom."

I looked at him.

"The wrong room," he said. "I'm glad it was yours."

Something in my chest cracked open softly.

"That's—" I started.

"Cheesy. I know." The corner of his mouth moved. "I'm allowing it just this once."

I laughed — quiet, just for him.

He smiled like that was everything.

We stayed until the party thinned out, which was later than I'd planned and earlier than Kofi wanted, and walked back in a group that slowly dispersed until it was just us, the campus quiet around us, the night cool and still.

At the hostel gate he stopped.

Looked at me.

"Ava."

"Mm."

"I need to tell you something."

Something in his tone made me still. Serious. Not bad serious — just weighted.

"My dad called again," he said. "He's — he's coming to campus next week. Wants to meet my friends, see where I'm living." A pause. "He's going to want to meet you."

I processed this.

"Me," I said.

"You." He held my gaze. "You don't have to. I know it's—"

"Zane." I waited until he was fully listening. "I'll be there."

Something moved across his face. Relief and something deeper than relief.

"It won't be easy," he said. "He's — complicated."

"I know complicated," I said. "I've been fake dating you for a month."

He stared at me.

Then he laughed — that real laugh, the warm surprised one that I'd stored somewhere I shouldn't have and had never moved.

"Okay," he said softly. "Okay."

He looked at me for one long moment.

Then he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my forehead — gentle, certain, unhurried.

"Goodnight Ava," he said against my hair.

I closed my eyes for just a second.

"Goodnight Zane," I said.

I went inside.

Stood in the corridor.

Put my hand briefly over the spot on my forehead.

Then I went upstairs where Denise was already awake and waiting with the expression of someone who had been watching from a window.

"I saw EVERYTHING," she whispered.

"Goodnight Denise," I said.

"THE FOREHEAD KISS AVA—"

"GOODNIGHT DENISE."