Chapter 5: Somebody's Future Girlfriend

Chloe's POV

The Dare Four countdown had been running since last night. I did the math again on the walk over: Douglas Bennett's lecture hall, two hundred students, Dad scanning the room every forty seconds on the dot, five minutes of fingers interlaced under a third-row desk. Too many moving pieces to manage solo. I needed Carter locked in before the bell, not after.

I put on the black plaid cropped top and the black pleated skirt, Peter Pan collar buttoned all the way up, grabbed my bag, and left. Mia looked up from the couch.

"Where are you going?"

"Business."

"You're going to him."

"I said business." I pulled the door shut behind me. I could basically hear her smiling through the wood.

The Sterling AI Lab is the entire second floor of Kessler Hall — glass walls, workstations white enough to make you squint, AC set to January. I stopped just outside and looked in.

Three people. Garrett Lindqvist on the far left, slate-blue shirt, cuffs buttoned to the wrist, every hair in place — the kind of twenty-minute effort staged to look effortless. Miles Donovan in the middle, gray team tee, feet propped up on the desk edge, already grinning at something nobody else was in on yet. And Carter at the back: mint green shirt, sleeves shoved to his forearms, three screens lit, one hand on the mouse, chin resting on the other. Fully locked in. The season outside the window was completely irrelevant to him.

"One more benchmark before the merge," Garrett said, pulling up a terminal. "I adjusted the parameters — run insert and retrieval first."

Carter didn't answer. The keyboard started up, that rhythm you can't fake — not fast, just completely unbroken. Miles pulled his feet off the desk. Under three minutes in, Carter leaned back and pushed the keyboard away.

Miles gave an immediate thumbs-up. "Faster than expected."

Garrett watched the screen. His thumb went still on the scroll wheel for a beat too long, then he nodded once. "Clean run." Perfectly polite. But the thing that moved through his eyes didn't lie. Talent has a way of leaking out of the people who'd really rather not acknowledge it.

The glass door swung open. All three heads came up at once.

Miles tipped his chair back and elbowed Carter in the ribs. "Bro. Your future girlfriend just walked in."

"Shut up." Carter didn't even turn his head — voice flat as a swatted mosquito. But I had a clear angle from the doorway. The corner of his mouth went up, just barely, and was gone in under two seconds.

Garrett was already on his feet, one step toward me, tone easy and familiar in the way of someone who'd been fine-tuning it for a while.

"Chloe. What brings you all the way up here?"

My feet caught for half a beat.

In high school, Garrett was a year above us — his GPA locked against Carter's, neither of them ever quite able to shake the other. Freshman orientation, he ended up leading my group and spent the whole week making Carter do a hundred burpees "per protocol." A hundred, on a lawn full of people watching. Carter went flat on the grass after the last one, and I crouched next to him laughing until I was actually crying.

The other thing is from my last life. Sophomore year, an off-campus house party. He had me cornered between the counter and the fridge, eyes red, voice not quite steady. "I don't want to be your senior anymore. I want to be your boyfriend. Can you give me a chance?" I grabbed a jacket and ran. That night he sent a message long enough to split into three parts — said it had started in tenth grade. I read it once, deleted the contact, blocked the number. He flew to Europe on an exchange application and never made a sound.

None of that had happened yet. Right now he was just a senior who was nice to me. And I had one rule I'd made for myself this time around: get him to let it go before he ever opens his mouth. The top line of my dorm whiteboard, carried over from my last life — wise people don't fall in love. I had genuinely lived up to it. On my own merits, I'd shipped the two most in-demand guys at Briarwood out of the country.

"Garrett." One nod, as polite as closing a door. "I'm here for Carter."

I walked straight past him, around Miles, and stopped in front of Carter. Miles' eyes went wide. He pressed himself back into his chair like a man who'd paid for the best seat. Garrett stayed where he was. The warmth faded out of his expression one degree at a time, and he turned quietly back to his screen without a word.

Carter hadn't moved. He leaned back and looked up at me, the outer corners of his eyes lifting slightly, his gaze level and still — the kind of still that holds curiosity and amusement and one thing I couldn't quite name.

"You free for lunch? My treat."

"This an ambush?"

"Take it or leave it."

He watched me for two full seconds. Then he pushed the keyboard forward and stood. Miles whistled behind him and I shut it down with one look. Carter walked past me, made it two steps, and stopped. He turned his head halfway back, voice easy.

"You coming? Thought you were buying."

It took me half a beat to follow.

Walking past Garrett's desk, I felt a gaze land between my shoulder blades. I didn't turn around.

Outside was the best kind of spring afternoon — sun pressed low on the red brick, wind taking the weight out of everything. Carter walked half a step ahead, hands in his pockets, the mint green shirt catching the breeze, the line of his waist showing clean for a second and then gone. The whole of him was loose and unhurried in a way I could never figure out what to do with. I slowed down.

My brain pulled up something I hadn't asked for.

A rainy night in my last life. That same back, soaked through, standing at the bottom of the Bennett porch steps. His hair was plastered flat to his forehead. When he looked up, there was nothing left in his eyes — not anger. Just empty. The kind that's already past breaking. And I stood inside behind the screen door and threw the worst thing I had at him.

"I hope you burn in hell."

My throat tightened. I owed him an explanation. I still had no idea how a person pays that back — the debt belongs to a life he doesn't remember, and I'm the only one keeping the tab.

It came out before I'd made the decision to say it.

"Carter."

He stopped. Turned his head, one hand still in his pocket, that drawl stretched out just half a note.

"What — you want me to hold your hand all the way there, too?"

The guilt switched off like a light.

I rolled my eyes at the back of his head. Some people are genuinely unfixable, and it was me who died, not him. I took two quick steps to close the gap and hitched my tote strap up.

"Walk."

He turned back and kept going, voice easy, like nothing had happened.

"So. What are we eating?"

"Whatever."

"Whatever's the most expensive option."

"Then you're paying."