Chapter 179
Summer's POV
The party started in Logan's basement an hour after the race, and by the time Kieran and I arrived—his hand warm on my lower back as we descended the stairs—the music was already pounding hard enough to make my ribcage vibrate.
Logan's house was one of those massive colonial estates in Brookline. His parents were some kind of tech executives who traveled constantly, which meant Logan had free reign over a basement that had been converted into what he unironically called his "lair"—all leather couches and exposed brick walls and a fully stocked bar that his mother definitely knew about but pretended she didn't.
"Finally!" Logan threw his arms wide when he spotted us. "The man of the hour arrives! And he brought the prize!"
I felt my face heat at the implication, but Kieran just smiled slightly, that quiet confidence radiating off him as people turned to look. His hand never left my back, fingers splayed across my spine, subtly steering me through the crowd like he was afraid someone might try to separate us.
Mia was already there, perched on the arm of one of the leather couches with a red Solo cup in her hand and her hair in a messy ponytail. She waved when she spotted us, her face lighting up.
"Summer! Oh my god, get over here!" She patted the couch cushion next to her. "I need to hear every single detail about what happened after we left the field. Logan's been giving me his version but he's an unreliable narrator at best."
"Hey!" Logan protested, but he was grinning as he handed Kieran and me each a beer. "My narration is perfectly reliable. I just happen to embellish for dramatic effect."
The basement was packed with maybe twenty or thirty people—mostly kids from the physics competition team, some of the more tolerable athletes who hadn't been part of Evan's inner circle, a few random juniors and seniors who'd probably heard about the party through the grapevine. The music was some indie rock playlist that Logan had clearly spent hours curating, and someone had dimmed the lights so the whole space had this warm, intimate glow that made everything feel slightly unreal.
Kieran settled onto the couch next to me, close enough that our thighs pressed together. He'd changed after the race into a simple black V-neck tank top that clung to his shoulders in ways that made it physically difficult not to stare. I was still in the cheerleader uniform—I'd pulled on a denim jacket over it but hadn't bothered changing, partly because I hadn't had time, and partly because of the way Kieran's eyes kept drifting to the bold 47 across my chest like he couldn't quite believe it was real.
"So," Mia leaned in conspiratorially, her eyes bright with alcohol and excitement. "Are you two like, official now? Because that whole scene on the field was basically a declaration of ownership. Very caveman. Very hot."
I nearly choked on my beer. "We're not—I mean, we haven't—"
"We're together," Kieran said simply, his voice cutting through my stuttering with quiet certainty. His hand found my knee under the guise of shifting his position, fingers curling around the inside of my thigh, and I felt heat flood through me that had nothing to do with the alcohol.
"Called it," Logan announced from across the coffee table, pointing at us with his beer bottle. "I fucking called it. Mia, you owe me twenty bucks."
"You bet on us?" I asked, torn between indignation and amusement.
"Obviously," Mia said, not looking remotely apologetic. "The sexual tension between you two has been suffocating since like, day one. We had a pool going on when you'd finally get together. I said after the F=ma results came out, Logan said after someone punched Evan in his perfect face. Technically neither of us won but Logan's claiming victory on a technicality."
"There was a footrace," Logan said solemnly. "Which is basically fighting. I'm counting it."
The next hour dissolved into a pleasant blur of conversation and laughter and beer. I watched Kieran gradually relax in ways I'd never seen before—the tension that usually lived in his shoulders melting away as Logan told increasingly ridiculous stories, as Oliver Martin challenged him to explain some complex theorem and they ended up in an animated discussion that involved way too much hand-waving.
He was beautiful like this. Unguarded. His laugh was low and genuine and completely unfamiliar—free and unselfconscious in a way that made my chest ache. Every time he smiled at something someone said, I felt that flip in my stomach that confirmed how stupidly gone I was for him.
At some point, Logan's playlist shifted to something with a heavier beat, and the party transformed from casual gathering to actual celebration. Someone suggested moving the furniture to make space for dancing, and suddenly the basement was full of bodies pressed close together, and Kieran pulled me up from the couch with that slight smile that meant he was about to do something reckless.
"I don't really dance," I started to say, but he was already pulling me into the center of the makeshift dance floor, his hands settling on my hips.
"Neither do I," he admitted, his mouth close to my ear. "But I want to touch you, and this is a socially acceptable excuse."
We swayed together, not really dancing so much as moving in vague time to the music, his body warm and solid against mine. His hands slid from my hips to the small of my back, pulling me closer until we were pressed together from chest to thigh, and I felt his heart beating against my cheek, rapid and slightly unsteady.
"Having fun?" he asked, and there was something soft, almost vulnerable in his voice that made me pull back to look up at him.
"Yeah," I said, and meant it completely. "Best day ever, actually."
His smile was blinding. "Good. You deserve good days, Summer. You deserve all of them."
"Okay, okay, everyone sit down!" Mia's voice cut through the music, loud and commanding. She was standing in the middle of the room holding an empty beer bottle above her head like a trophy. "We're playing spin the bottle because apparently we're all secretly thirteen years old and I will not be taking questions or objections at this time!"
There was a chorus of groans and laughter, but people started moving anyway, dragging cushions off the couches and arranging themselves in a loose circle on the floor. Logan was already settling down with an enormous grin, and Mia positioned herself directly across from him with the bottle in the center.
Kieran's hand tightened on my hip. "We don't have to play if you don't want to," he said quietly, but something tense in his voice suggested he very much did not want to risk watching me kiss someone else.
"It's just a game," I said, even though my heart was already racing at the thought of that bottle landing on him. "It'll be fun."