Harley's POV
We don't go home. I walk without direction, my heels hitting pavement I don't recognize, moving because stopping means feeling, and feeling means breaking.
And I sure as hell will not break in front of Tate Mercer.
The humiliation sits in my throat like acid—every whispered comment, every turned head, Sloane's voice dripping with theatrical concern as she told a room full of people that I don't belong.
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Nothing good comes from people like her.
People like me.
Tate keeps pace beside me, his stride matching mine without effort. He doesn't speak at first—just walks, hands in his pockets, letting the silence do what words can't. The night air cools the heat burning behind my eyes, and I focus on the rhythm of our footsteps against concrete until my breathing steadies.
"You're not your brothers, Harley."
His voice is quiet, not soft—Tate Mercer doesn't do soft. But stripped of performance, stripped of the usual edge, leaving something blunt and honest underneath.
"Whatever they did tonight, whatever fight they got into, whatever mess they made… That's their choice, their mistake, their reputation. Not yours."
He doesn't look at me while he talks, keeps his eyes on the sidewalk ahead like he's delivering facts to the pavement.
"You're a different person with your own head on your shoulders. You've been proving that every single day for two years, and anyone who can't see the difference between you and them isn't worth the energy it takes to hate them."
The words land differently coming from him.
The boy who once used my family against me, who weaponized my father's prison sentence and my brothers' reputation for entertainment, now refuses to let anyone else do the same.
The irony should make me angry. Instead it does something worse—It makes my chest ache.
"Since when did you become the voice of reason?" My voice comes out rougher than I intended. "Did the party punch have some kind of emotional intelligence supplement I missed?"
"I've always been reasonable. You've just been too busy hating me to notice." A long pause. "What would make you feel better? You've got that look like you're three seconds from either crying or committing a felony, and I'd rather redirect that energy somewhere constructive."
I think for a moment. The humiliation still burns, but underneath it something else is stirring—something reckless and defiant that has nothing to do with tears and everything to do with the fact that I refuse to let Sloane Whitmore's party be the last thing I feel tonight.
"Come on. I'll explain later."
We end up at Mateo's auto shop—the one place in Southside that smells like motor oil and possibility instead of mildew and dead ends. I have a key because my brothers trust me, and sometimes they let me drive the cars that come through for repairs.
Tonight I don't ask permission.
"Harley." Tate watches me unlock the garage with an expression caught between intrigue and alarm. "What exactly are you planning? Because if this is a murder scenario, I'd like to at least text someone my location first."
"My brother didn't think about my reputation when he got into whatever mess made the news tonight. So I'm not thinking about his car."
I pull the cover off a restored gorgeous Mustang that Mateo finished last month. "You're stealing your brother's car?"
"I'm borrowing it without asking. There's a difference, and the difference is that I'll bring it back. Probably. Get in, Mercer."
He gets in and I drive fast, too fast, reckless in a way I'd never allow myself during daylight.
The windows come down and the night air tears through the car, through my hair. The speedometer climbs and the city blurs and somewhere around seventy miles per hour, I finally feel something loosen.
The road stretches out ahead of us, empty and dark and infinite, and for a few stolen minutes, I'm not the scholarship girl or the gang member's sister or the target of Wentworth's cruelty.
We end up parked on a ridge overlooking the city—engine ticking as it cools, the skyline glittering below us like a promise someone made and forgot to keep.
The adrenaline fades, leaving behind something quieter and more honest in the space between our seats.
"So." Tate shifts, angling toward me with that particular expression he wears when he's about to be insufferable. "Since we're having a moment of honesty, and you seem marginally less likely to murder me than usual... that kiss. At school. In the hallway."
"What about it?" I keep my voice flat, bored, unaffected.
"You kissed me back. I mean… Your fingers were in my shirt, your breathing changed, and you made this sound, this tiny little sound against my mouth that I personally found very…"
"I was acting. It's called commitment to the role. Something you'd understand if you had any discipline whatsoever."
"Right, acting."
His grin sharpens in the dim light.
"So tell me something, Valdez—how many guys have you acted with like that? Is it always that intense, or am I just special? Because the way you responded felt less like a performance and more like someone who—"
"Don't finish that sentence."
"How many guys have you kissed like that, Harley?"
The question corners me. I feel the walls closing in—the lie forming automatically, the deflection rising to my tongue. But the adrenaline has stripped something away tonight, loosened the bolts on my armor, and the truth falls out before I can catch it.
"None. That was my first kiss."
The word drops into the silence between us like a stone into still water.
Tate goes completely still beside me. The silence stretches, thick and uncomfortable, and I can feel his gaze on my profile even though I refuse to look at him.
Part of me wants to dismiss it, to claim it didn't matter—just a performance, just part of the arrangement. It was my first kiss, and whether I wanted it to or not, some traitorous part of me felt something when his lips touched mine.
"And before you make whatever assumption you're already making—I haven't done… anything else either. I didn't lose my virginity at fourteen in some sticky backseat, despite what you said that first morning in your car."
The silence that follows is deafening.
I watch the shift happen in real time—genuine shock breaking across his face, cracking through the smirk like a fissure through stone. And beneath it, something almost tender flickers behind his eyes. Something that looks dangerously close to regret.
It lasts exactly one second before he buries it. The cheeky jerk resurfaces with the speed of someone who's been hiding behind armor his entire life.
His grin returns, wider now, sharp with delight. "So what you're telling me… is that your first kiss ever was me."
He leans back against the headrest, looking supremely satisfied with himself.
"You must have melted like an ice cream cone, Valdez. The governor's son, hands on your face, the whole school watching… As first kisses go, I'd say you peaked early. You're welcome."
"You're delusional, I felt absolutely nothing." My walls slam up so fast I can feel the impact in my chest. "It was tactical—a strategy to shut Sloane up, nothing more. You're flattering yourself to an embarrassing degree, and if your ego gets any bigger, it's going to need its own zip code."
"You felt nothing." He repeats it slowly, tasting each word, his eyes never leaving my face. "Nothing at all. Not even a little?"
"Not even a fraction."
"Prove it." The word lands between us like a match struck in the dark. "If you felt nothing, if that kiss was purely tactical, purely strategic, purely a performance, then let me kiss you again, right now. And you can prove exactly how unaffected you are."
"That's the most ridiculous—"
He doesn't wait for permission as his hands find my face—warm, deliberate, cradling my jaw with a gentleness that contradicts everything I know about him. His mouth meets mine, and this kiss is nothing like the hallway.
It's slower, controlled, intentional in a way that feels like architecture—every angle calculated, every pause designed to dismantle me piece by piece. His thumbs trace my cheekbones as his lips move against mine with a patience that borders on cruelty.
He's not rushing, he's savoring—building heat the way you build a fire, layer by layer, until the warmth becomes a blaze that consumes everything in its path.
My hands find his shirt, fingers curling into the fabric. My legs go boneless beneath me. The sound I swore I didn't make last time escapes again—soft, involuntary, devastating in its honesty.
When he finally pulls back, his eyes are dark with satisfaction. Heavy-lidded, certain.
I say nothing and my silence betrays everything my words won't—the flush on my skin, the tremor in my hands, the way my lips are still parted and my breathing hasn't returned to normal and every nerve in my body is still vibrating at a frequency he created.
I’m clearing my throat, adjusting the rearview window that didn't need adjusting. “See? As I said… nothing.”
Tate laughs softly, close enough that I feel the warmth of it against my lips.
"Liar," he murmurs.