I know it, even if he won’t admit it. The last few days have been nothing but noise. Tension, heat, chaos and now? Now it’s just… this.

Stillness. I brace my hands on the kitchen counter, the cool surface grounding me for all of two seconds. My fingers dig into the edge as if I can hold myself steady with touch alone. But my mind’s already drifting, pulled right back to her.

To the way she looked at me before she left this morning, wearing that soft hoodie that wasn’t hers. To the way she laughed at Tate’s stupid comment like she belonged here. To the way she felt wrapped around me the night before, her body, her warmth, her breath in my ear.

God, I miss her already. I exhale, pushing off the counter, heading upstairs myself, shutting my door behind me, settling into my own chair, logging on because fuck it, maybe playing will keep me from thinking too much.

The moment we load into the match, the chats explode.

Mine, Tate’s, doesn’t matter where you look, people are losing their shit, the messages flying so fast that there’s no way to catch all of them, but I don’t need to. I already know exactly what they’re saying.

I focus on my loadout, trying to ignore the chaos, but Tate thrives on this shit. He leans into his mic, his signature smirk in his voice, the smugness practically radiating through the headset. “Damn, chat. Y’all really think I’m about to get bodied out here? You’re talking to the master.”

Haven doesn’t miss a beat. She instantly joined the party when I sent the invite.

“The master at getting carried, maybe.”

“Ooooohhhhhh,” I chime in, laughing as Tate scoffs, flipping through his own weapons menu.

“Pretty girl,” he says slowly, voice dripping in mock patience. “It’s cute that you think you’re gonna outplay me, really. But you do realize I’ve got years playing on you, right?”

“Oh, my bad, I didn’t realize we were measuring nerdiness and not skill,” Haven fires back, her tone so effortlessly smug that even I wince. “You want me to slow down for you?”

The way Tate sucks in a breath is enough to make me lose it, my laughter cutting through my mic, and before he can even form a comeback, the match starts, throwing us into the chaos, throwing Haven right into her element, throwing Tate into a spiral the second he realizes she isn’t just talking shit. She’s actually kicking his ass. In the span of the first five minutes, she racks up twice as many kills as him, running circles around him, landing shots he didn’t even see coming, and his chat? His chat is roasting him alive for it.