Tate's POV
I spend the entire drive trying not to think about the kiss and I fail spectacularly.
The memory lives in my body now—not my head, where I could rationalize it, file it away, dismantle it with logic. It lives in my hands, which still feel the curve of her jaw beneath my fingers.
In my mouth, which still carries the ghost of how she tasted—something warm and sharp that I can't name and can't shake. In my chest, where something cracked open the moment the performance dissolved and the kiss became real.
The moment it stopped being a strategy and became something that terrifies me more than my father ever has.
I shove it down—the way I've buried every inconvenient feeling since I was twelve years old and learned that emotions in the Mercer household are just weapons you hand to people who'll use them against you.
Harley texted me detailed instructions—park on Ridgemont, three blocks east of her building.
Nothing flashy, nothing that draws attention.
Change out of anything that screams money.
I follow them to the letter, trading my usual shirt for a plain dark crew neck I found at the back of my closet, leaving my watch in the glove compartment. The sedan still looks obscenely expensive against the cracked curb, but at least I won't be walking around with a target stitched to my chest.
The walk from the car to her corner feels longer than three blocks.
The neighborhood presses in—cracked pavement, walls tagged with symbols I recognize from news reports, a stairwell visible through a propped-open door that smells like mildew and something chemical I don't want to identify.
A group of guys on the corner track my movement with expressions that aren't hostile, exactly, but aren't welcoming either.
This is a nightmare. I don't want to be here.
Every instinct screams to turn around, get in my car, and drive back to a world where the sidewalks are smooth and the buildings don't look like they're slowly digesting themselves.
Then Harley appears on the corner, and the thought evaporates. I fall into step beside her as she guides me through streets she navigates without thinking.
"For the record, I want it noted that I'm doing this under extreme duress and against every survival instinct I possess."
"Noted. Also noted—you're already sweating. We haven't even reached the building yet."
"It's warm out."
"It's fifty-eight degrees, Mercer."
The apartment door opens before Harley can reach for her key, and her mother appears like a force of nature in an apron. She's smaller than I expected, barely reaching my shoulder, but the energy radiating off her fills the entire doorframe.
"So this is him! Ay, mijo, you're so skinny! Don't rich people feed their children?"
She grabs my hands before I can extend them for a handshake, pressing them between her warm palms, pulling me inside with a strength that defies her size.
"Harley told me you were handsome, but she didn't mention you look like you haven't eaten a proper meal. Sit, sit, dinner's almost ready. Do you like tamales? Of course you like tamales. If you don't, lie to me, because I've been cooking since three o'clock."
"I… yes, ma'am. I like tamales."
"Ma'am! Did you hear that, Harley? He called me ma'am." Her mother beams, still gripping my hands. "Call me Carmen, sweetheart. We don't do formal here."
The apartment is small. Impossibly small compared to what I'm used to—the living room and kitchen is nearly one space, a hallway barely wide enough for two people, walls lined with photos and children's artwork preserved under yellowing tape.
The four of her older brothers occupy the room like territorial animals claiming their corners.
A guy around my age leans against the counter, arms crossed, his disdain as subtle as a car alarm. His jaw is sharp, his build solid—the kind of guy who probably grew up fighting first and asking questions never.
Another one doesn't move from his position against the far wall, just studies me with an unreadable half-smile that somehow makes me more nervous than the counter guy's open hostility.
The youngest sits on the couch with his sketchbook, watching silently—the only face I recognize.
An older man rises from the kitchen table and offers a handshake—firm, measured, his eyes doing a full assessment that makes me feel like I'm being catalogued for weaknesses.
"Mateo Valdez." He gestures around the room. "My brothers—Diego, Rafael, and Aro."
His expression stays neutral, but there's a weight to his gaze that makes it clear this introduction is also an interrogation.
"Nice hands," Diego observes, his voice dripping with implication as he takes my extended hand and shakes it, gripping with more force than necessary. "Real soft. Have you ever actually worked with those?"
"Diego." Mateo's voice carries a quiet warning.
"What? I'm making conversation."
"He played a football game yesterday," Harley cuts in, steering me toward the table. "His hands work fine."
"Football." Diego's eyebrows rise. "The sport where they wear full body armor to play catch? Yeah, that's really tough."
Dinner is chaos in the truest sense. The table seats five at most—we are seven, crammed together with elbows knocking and chairs pulled from various rooms.
Carmen loads plate after plate from the kitchen while simultaneously managing six conversations, swatting hands that reach for food before grace, and topping off glasses with a precision that borders on militant hospitality.
"So, Tate." Rafael speaks for the first time. "Harley tells us you play quarterback. Are you any good, or is that one of those things where the rich kid gets the position because his father donated the scoreboard?"
"I earned my spot." I keep my voice steady, meeting his gaze directly. "Three years starting, two all-conference selections, and Division I scouts started showing up junior year."
Rafael holds my stare for a beat, then his smile shifts—still unreadable, but something in it warms by a single degree. "Fair enough. I can respect someone who earns their place."
"Can we stop pretending this is normal?"
Diego sets down his fork with deliberate force.
"We've got the governor's son sitting at our table, and everyone's acting like this isn't the most bizarre thing that's ever happened in this apartment. What exactly are your intentions with my sister, golden boy?"
"Diego, I swear to God…" Harley starts.
"My intentions," I say carefully, "are to treat your sister with the respect she deserves. Which, based on what I've seen, is considerably more than she gets from most people. Present company included."
The table goes quiet as Diego's eyes narrow, Mateo takes a slow sip of water while Carmen looks between us with an expression caught between pride and anxiety.
Then Rafael laughs—a short, genuine sound that cracks the tension like a rock through glass. "He's got teeth. I like that."
The conversation finds its rhythm after that. Harley sits beside me, her shoulder occasionally brushing mine, tense at first and then gradually, so gradually I almost miss it, relaxing.
It's loud and messy and warm and nothing like dinner at the Mercer table.
My mother vanishes behind her wine glass and my father delivers lectures about legacy while Ezra and I eat in practiced silence. The contrast hits me somewhere deep and unexpected.
These people have so little, and yet they show up for each other in ways my family never has. The love here isn't conditional on performance, on grades, on political usefulness. It's just there—imperfect and loud and so painfully real it makes my chest ache.
“Come,” Harley stands up after handing a plate to her mother. “I’ll show you around.”
Harley leads me down the narrow hallway to her room, the one she shares with Aro. It's small, every inch organized with purpose, and I study the space quietly.
This is where she studies until midnight, where she alters secondhand clothes into something she can wear with dignity, where she lies in the dark and carries things she won't tell anyone about.
I'm seeing her now. Not the scholarship girl, not the opponenth—her.
"My mom really liked you. She told me in the kitchen that you have kind eyes." Harley’s leaning against the doorframe. "Her words, not mine. I personally think your eyes look like they're permanently calculating property values."
"Your mom's a good judge of character."
"She also thinks Diego will grow out of his anger phase, so her track record isn't flawless."
I almost smile. "I should go. It's getting late, and I'd rather navigate back to my car while there's still some light left."
"I'll walk you."
"Absolutely not. You'd have to come back alone through these streets in the dark—"
"Tate, I grew up here." She says it with the patience of someone explaining gravity to a toddler. "These are my people, they don't hurt their own. I've walked these blocks alone since I was seven years old. I'll be fine."
I make another few attempts to argue, but she walks me anyway. We reach my car and linger, both of us leaning against the passenger door, the evening settling around us like something we're not ready to fold up and put away.
"Thank you," she says quietly. "For coming and not running when Diego went full interrogation mode."
"Diego's terrifying, but your mother’s tamales are worth the risk."
Harley laughs—something warm and unguarded that changes her entire face, and the sight of it settles behind my ribs like an ember I can't extinguish. "Goodnight, Mercer."
"Goodnight, Valdez."
She steps back from the car and turns toward home, and I watch her until she rounds the corner—not because I'm worried about her safety, but because I'm not ready for the evening to end.