Chloe closed the door and leaned against it.

"Oh my god."

She said it out loud. Her voice cracked on the last word.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god."

Her face felt like someone had pressed a hot iron against it. She pushed off the door and started pacing from her kitchen counter to her couch and back again, her hands coming up to cover her mouth.

What did I just do?

She’d only meant to apologize. That was the plan. Knock on his door, tell him Alexis was a monster, maybe offer some kind words, and leave. Simple. Clean. Neighborly.

Except then he opened the door.

And he was shirtless.

And sweaty.

And his abs.

Chloe made a noise somewhere between a whimper and a groan and pressed her palms against her eyes.

She’d seen abs before. Of course she had. Her feed was full of fitness models and thirst traps. She edited photos of attractive men for content ideas. Abs weren’t new.

But those abs had been right in front of her. In three dimensions. With sweat running down them in actual real-life rivulets that caught the hallway light. And the way his chest moved when he breathed. And his arms, which had veins running down the forearms that definitely weren’t there yesterday.

Stop it.

Chloe dropped her hands and resumed pacing.

She’d looked at him and his expression had been so tired and defeated and something in her chest had twisted. She couldn’t leave him alone looking like that. Not after watching Alexis tear him apart at the student union. Not after he’d sat through Leo’s whole performance without saying a single word in his own defense.

So she’d opened her mouth and Netflix came out.

Netflix.

"I said Netflix," Chloe whispered to her empty apartment. "I invited a boy to watch Netflix. At my place. Alone."

Every guy on the planet knew what that meant. Netflix was code. Netflix was the universal signal for come inside and we’ll see what happens.

And he’d said yes.

Oh god he said yes.

Chloe walked to her couch and sat down hard. Her hands were shaking. She clasped them together in her lap and stared at the grey fabric.

Jordan McKnight. The guy who spent three thousand dollars on a coffee date. The guy who subscribed to her OnlyFans for six months and never once sent a weird message or acted like he owned her time. The guy who lived twenty feet away through a wall and apparently spent his afternoons doing enough pushups to look like a Men’s Health cover.

Why would someone normal spend three thousand dollars?

The timeline worked. He’d said his ex cheated on him on Christmas. The coffee date purchase came through on December 28th. Three days after his world exploded, he’d panic-bought a meeting with a faceless girl on the internet.

That kind of thing made sense in a sad, desperate way that Chloe understood better than she wanted to.

But now he was coming over.

In fifteen minutes.

To her apartment.

To watch Netflix.

"Fuck." 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Chloe shot off the couch and walked to her kitchen. She yanked open the cabinet above the sink. Empty except for protein powder and a box of chamomile tea her mom had sent three weeks ago. The next cabinet held dishes. The pantry had oats, a bag of rice, and one lonely can of chickpeas.

No popcorn. No chips. No candy. Nothing.

She’d meant to go grocery shopping after class. It was on her list. Buy food, film content, respond to DMs, finish her sociology reading. Grocery shopping was supposed to happen at two o’clock and now it was one-twenty and she’d just invited a boy over with zero movie snacks.

I could cancel.

Chloe pulled out her phone and opened her messages. Jordan’s contact sat at the top of the list under his real name, not the username he used on OnlyFans.

She started typing.

Hey actually I forgot I have to—

She deleted it.

Something came up and—

Deleted.

Rain check?

Her thumb hovered over send.

Chloe thought about Jordan’s face in the hallway. The exhaustion. The defeat. The way he’d just said "okay" and "yeah" like he’d run out of words.

She locked her phone and shoved it in her hoodie pocket.

"I’m not canceling. I’m just going to explain that we need to get snacks first. That’s fine. That’s normal. People get snacks."

Her voice sounded way too high.

Chloe walked to the bathroom and checked her reflection. The blue streaks in her hair looked good. Her face was still flushed but that could be explained by walking up stairs or something. She adjusted her white crop top, then immediately pulled her hoodie back on to cover it.

Too much skin.

Then she pulled the hoodie off again.

It’s just a crop top. You wear this on campus.

She put the hoodie back on. Zipped it halfway. Unzipped it. Compromised by leaving it open but keeping it on.

A knock echoed from the front door.

Chloe’s heart stopped.

He said fifteen minutes. It’s been like eight.

She walked to the door and paused with her hand on the handle. Took a breath. Opened it.

Jordan stood in the hallway with damp hair that curled slightly at the ends. He wore a white t-shirt that clung to his chest and shoulders, black sweatpants, and slides with white socks pulled up to his ankles. He smelled like body wash and clean laundry.

"Can I come in?" he said.

His voice was quieter than before. Less rough.

Chloe stepped aside. "Yeah. Of course."

Jordan walked past her into the apartment and stopped in the middle of the living room, taking in the space. His attention landed on the fake fiddle-leaf fig, then the perfectly arranged magazines on the coffee table, then the kitchen with its gleaming white counters.

"Your place is really clean," he said.

"I, um." Chloe closed the door. "I don’t really let it get messy."

"Yeah. I noticed."

An awkward silence stretched between them. Jordan stood with his hands in his sweatpants pockets. Chloe twisted her fingers together.

"So I have a confession," she said. "I don’t actually have any movie snacks. I was supposed to go grocery shopping today and completely forgot. So I was thinking maybe we could, like, go to Walgreens or something? Get popcorn and candy and stuff?" She was talking too fast. "If you want. We don’t have to. We could just watch without snacks. That’s fine too."

Jordan looked at her. Something almost like amusement crossed his face. "Sure. We can do that."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Okay." Chloe grabbed her keys from the counter. "Cool. Yeah. Let’s go."