From somewhere behind them, a nasal, delighted voice cut through the night air.

"Oh dear. Is someone in trouble?"

Quinn Carter emerged from the general direction of the dormitory with the unhurried swagger of a man arriving at a show he’d purchased front-row tickets to.

"You actually messed with Vivian Reeves?" He clasped his hands behind his back, grinning. "You’re getting expelled, aren’t you? Oh, that’s wonderful. That’s really just, that’s perfect. You deserve every bit of this."

He was practically glowing.

"Stupid," Stan said flatly, and walked past him without breaking stride.

Quinn’s grin didn’t waver. He fell into step behind Stan at a safe distance, determined to witness whatever came next.

Stan reached the parking structure where the Huracán was waiting. He dropped into the driver’s seat, closed the door, and sat in the dark for a moment, thinking.

Then he called Grayson Davies.

The chairman picked up on the second ring.

"I’m sorry for not picking the first Mr. Harrison, I just saw it... What can I do for you?"

Stan laid out the situation in concise, factual terms, Vivian Reeves, the confrontation, the expulsion threat, the principal’s apparent willingness to comply. He didn’t embellish. He didn’t complain. He simply presented the problem and asked if Grayson could help.

Stan was halfway to his apartment when his stomach reminded him, with pointed insistence, that he hadn’t eaten anything since the fried chicken he’d brought his sister that morning.

He turned the Huracán around and headed back toward campus. The cafeteria was still open, the late-night window that catered to students pulling all-nighters and night-owl athletes, and it was the closest source of food that didn’t require him to sit down and be waited on. He just wanted something quick. In and out. Five minutes.

He parked a block away, walked through the side entrance, and immediately understood that the universe had other plans.

Vivian Reeves was sitting at a table near the center of the cafeteria.

Not eating in the corner. Not passing through. Holding court. She was positioned at a large table with an elaborate spread of food arranged in front of her, dishes that had clearly been brought in from outside, not ordered from the cafeteria kitchen. Exotic platters. Imported ingredients. The kind of display that existed purely to communicate status to anyone within visual range.

A cluster of students had gathered at a respectful distance, watching the spectacle with the rubbernecking fascination of people who knew they were witnessing something that would be discussed at length tomorrow.

The whispers reached Stan before he reached the food counter.

"Have you heard? Stan Harrison offended Vivian Reeves."

"If he doesn’t apologize, he’s getting expelled. Like, actually expelled."

"Of all the people to mess with, he picked the one person at this school who can actually destroy him."

"This is going to be incredible."

Stan kept walking, eyes fixed on the food counter, expression neutral. He was here for a meal, not a performance. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Then Vivian saw him.

Her posture shifted, a subtle straightening, a slight lift of the chin, the barely perceptible smile of a woman who had been waiting for exactly this moment.

"Stan Harrison."

Her voice carried across the cafeteria with practiced clarity. Every conversation within thirty meters went quiet.

"I knew you’d come." She uncrossed her legs, then recrossed them in the opposite direction, slowly, deliberately, a gesture designed to project absolute control. "You heard I was here and came to apologize. Didn’t you? I knew you’d see reason eventually."

She paused, letting the silence build.

"Kneel down. Right here, right now. Apologize properly, and I’ll consider forgiving you."

The cafeteria held its breath.

Stan stopped walking. Not because the words had landed, but because the sheer, breathtaking audacity of them required a moment of quiet appreciation.

"Kneel down?" he repeated.

"Either you kneel and apologize," Vivian said, her tone hardening into something colder, "or you’re expelled by morning. You have five seconds to decide."

She was confident. Utterly, unshakably confident. In her mind, the outcome was already decided. Stan Harrison was a broke nobody whose entire academic future dangled from a thread she held between two fingers. He would resist for a moment, they always did, and then the reality of his situation would settle over him, and he would kneel, and she would pour the bowl of soup she’d quietly prepared beside her plate directly onto his bowed head.

She’d been rehearsing that moment since dinner. The image had sustained her all evening, Stan Harrison on his knees, soaked in soup, humiliated beyond recovery, in front of every person who mattered on this campus.

It was going to be perfect.

Stan looked at her for a long, quiet moment.

Then he turned away and continued walking toward the food counter.

"I’m here to get something to eat, Vivian. I didn’t even know you were here." He picked up a tray without looking back. "And you’re being incredibly childish."

The silence in the cafeteria deepened.

"So you refuse?" Vivian’s voice rose, the composure cracking. "You’re really going to stand there and refuse me?"

Stan selected a few items from the counter with unhurried attention, paid the cashier, and turned back toward the exit. As he passed Vivian’s table, he paused, just long enough to look her in the eye.

"You’re dreaming," he said, "if you think you can get me expelled. And you’re delusional if you think I’m going to kneel for someone who splashed me with a car and then tried to steal my umbrella."

He held her gaze.

"I don’t have time for this, Vivian. Whatever you’re planning, whatever little scheme you’ve been cooking up with that bowl of soup beside your plate, save it. It’s beneath both of us."

Vivian’s eyes darted involuntarily to the soup bowl, then back to Stan’s face. The fact that he’d noticed, that he’d read the setup without her saying a word, sent a visible jolt through her composure.

"You just wait," she hissed, her voice trembling with fury. "I will get the principal to expel you. Tomorrow. First thing."

Stan picked up his food, adjusted his tray, and walked out of the cafeteria without turning around.

Behind him, Vivian Reeves pointed at his retreating back and roared his name across the room, but the sound bounced off the walls and landed on empty air. He was already through the doors.