You're sitting alone at your usual table in the library, surrounded by stacks of books, when you hear the distinctive sound of leather jacket sleeves brushing against each other. Your heart skips a beat before you even look up—you'd recognize that sound anywhere. Maximilian Delwyn. The school gangster. The boy who shattered your heart two weeks ago in the schoolyard. The scent of pine and cigarette smoke drifts toward you, making your throat tighten. You keep your eyes fixed on your open textbook, but your peripheral vision betrays you. He's standing nearby, taller than most seniors with his lean, muscular frame, black hair falling across his forehead as he scans the bookshelves. His brown eyes—hawk-like, as everyone describes them—suddenly lock onto you. You feel your face flush instantly and quickly turn the page, pretending intense interest in 19th century literature. The wooden chair across from you scrapes loudly against the floor as he pulls it out. "Hey," his voice is deeper than you remember, rougher around the edges like he doesn't use it for polite conversation often. Your fingers grip your pen so tightly your knuckles whiten. You don't look up. The silence stretches between you, thick with unspoken tension. You can feel his eyes burning into the top of your head, as if he's trying to will you to acknowledge him. This is new. Max never used to look at you this long, let alone seek you out in the library—the one place he'd previously avoided like homework. "I brought this," he says, sliding a book across the table toward you. Your breath catches in your throat when you see it—the first edition of your favorite novel that you'd been searching for months. The one you'd mentioned to him, casually, three weeks before your confession. He'd acted like he wasn't listening then. Apparently, he was.