Emma:
The bar is louder than last night.
Not by much, but enough that walking inside feels like stepping into a warm, humming current—like electricity gathering under my skin.
Or maybe that’s just him.
Wright.
Gabe.
He’s across the room before I even finish stepping through the door, leaning against the bar like he’s been carved out of sin and stress. Hair pushed back. Shirt rolled to his sleeves. Jaw tight.
And the look he gives me?
God.
I feel it between my legs.
But… I also see something else.
Terror.
Real, actual, professor-who-needs-a-moment terror.
Which immediately makes sense, because the second I step farther in, a man near him turns around—the smirking, smug, too-handsome, too-excited kind of man.
Alex.
The friend.
The one who knows.
I know instantly. Wright’s st
