Chapter 1 Hallway Heat

The hallway was already loud, already crowded, already a bad idea.

Tessa Rhodes slipped through it with her head down and her backpack digging into one shoulder, late enough to feel it buzzing in her chest. Lockers slammed. Someone laughed too hard. The air smelled like cheap cologne, fries from the cafeteria, and stress. She checked the clock mounted crookedly above the science wing and muttered under her breath.

Perfect. Just perfect.

She sped up, weaving past a knot of freshmen who walked like they had nowhere to be and all the time in the world. Her phone buzzed in her hand. Mikayla, probably. She ignored it. If she stopped now, she was done for.

She did not see Derek Saunders.

Derek Saunders saw her immediately.

He was leaning against a locker near the math hallway, one foot up, backpack slung loose like he had nowhere to be either. He had just finished telling a story, something animated enough to have three people watching him like a screen, when his eyes flicked over their heads and landed on her.

He clocked everything in a second.

The stiff way she was walking. The tension in her jaw. The way she kept adjusting the strap on her bag like it was personally offending her. The fact that she was very obviously late and very obviously already annoyed about it.

A slow grin spread across his face.

Tessa was two steps past him when she heard it.

“Wow,” Derek said, loud and easy. “Careful, Rhodes. You’re walking like the hallway personally wronged you.”

She stopped.

She did not want to. Every part of her screamed to keep moving, to pretend she had not heard him, to survive the day without an incident. But her feet betrayed her, halting like they had minds of their own.

She turned.

Derek was still leaning there, arms crossed, looking relaxed in that infuriating way that came from never having to worry about much. His hair was messy in a way that was absolutely intentional. His school jacket was half-zipped. His smile was already waiting for her.

A couple of people nearby paused, the way crowds always did when they sensed entertainment.

“Do you ever,” Tessa said tightly, “get tired of hearing yourself talk?”

There it was.

Derek’s eyebrows lifted, delighted. “Not usually, no. It’s kind of my thing.”

Someone snorted. Tessa could feel it now, the attention pulling toward them like static.

She should walk away. She knew that. She had known it since sophomore year, since the first time Derek Saunders had decided she was fun to poke at. But the words were already crowding her throat.

“I’m late,” she said, as if that explained everything.

“That tracks,” he replied, still smiling. “You look like you’re having one of those days.”

“Those days?” she echoed.

“Yeah,” Derek said, glancing at her up and down, casual and careless. “The ones where you’re two seconds away from snapping at an innocent bystander.”

A couple of juniors nearby laughed. Tessa felt heat rush up her neck.

“I am not snapping,” she said. “You talked to me.”

“And here I thought I was being charming,” he said. “My mistake.”

She laughed once, sharp and humorless. “You do not know the meaning of that word.”

“Oh, I do,” Derek said lightly. “I just use it selectively.”

The hallway seemed to lean in.

People were watching now, not openly, but enough that she could feel it. Phones half-lowered. Conversations paused. This was familiar. Derek in the center of it, effortless and amused. Tessa on the edge, too aware of how she probably looked.

He should stop. Most people did, once she fired back. But Derek never retreated when she expected him to.

He straightened from the locker and took a half step closer, not invading her space, just enough to keep her attention.

“You know,” he said, lowering his voice just a touch, “if you smiled once in a while, people might stop thinking you’re always mad.”

That did it.

Something in her snapped loose.

“You want to know why I don’t smile?” Tessa said, her voice rising despite herself. “Because some of us are actually busy. Some of us have jobs and classes and things to worry about beyond whether people are watching us in the hallway.”

A couple of laughs died mid-sound.

Derek blinked, surprised for the first time.

“And some of us,” she went on, words spilling faster now, “don’t get everything handed to us just because we can throw a football and grin at the right people.”

The air shifted.

A few students went quiet. Someone muttered a low “oh.”

Derek’s smile stayed in place, but it was tighter now.

“You done?” he asked mildly.

She swallowed, heart pounding. She had gone too far. She knew it. But stopping felt impossible.

“I don’t have time for this,” she said. “Or you.”

“Funny,” Derek said, tilting his head. “You’re the one who stopped.”

That earned him a laugh from somewhere behind her. Tessa clenched her hands into fists.

For a moment, it felt like something real might happen. Like he might say something sharp back. Like he might finally drop the act.

Instead, Derek lifted his hands in surrender, still smiling.

“Jeez,” he said, waving it off. “Relax.”

The word hit harder than anything else he had said.

Relax.

Not sorry. Not okay. Just relax. Like she was the problem. Like she had made a scene all on her own.

The bell rang overhead, loud and abrupt, cutting through the tension like a knife.

A teacher passed by at that exact moment, frowning in their direction. “Get to class,” she snapped.

The crowd dissolved instantly. People turned away. Lockers slammed again. The hallway surged forward like nothing had happened.

But something had.

Tessa felt it in the way the looks shifted, subtle but unmistakable. She was the dramatic one now. The girl who could not take a joke.

Derek was already stepping back, conversation resuming around him, unbothered.

She hated him.

She did not say another word. She turned and shoved her way down the hall, heart racing, ears burning. She did not slow until she reached the stairwell, where the noise dulled and the humiliation caught up with her.

Her anger twisted into something sour.

She replayed it all. His tone. His grin. That stupid, easy dismissal.

Relax.

She gripped the railing and took a breath. Then another.

“I will never,” she muttered to herself, “willingly deal with Derek Saunders again.”

She meant it.