Page 65 of You Owe Me

I lean back in the chair. Arms crossed. Poker chips idle between my fingers.

“Canceled it.”

She lifts a brow. “That’s a first.”

“Felt like a night off.”

“From what? Blackmail? Or the capitalist underworld of campus academia?”

There she is. A spark of the girl who made this apartment hers just by sitting on my couch in dolphin pajama pants and telling me my spice rack looked like a hostage situation.

But tonight? She’s playing defense. Cute quips. No eye contact.

“You’ve been quiet lately,” I say, casually. Too casually.

She shrugs. “Busy.”

I nod, slowly. “So I noticed.”

Silence stretches between us.

She fidgets. Twists the cap off her water bottle and doesn’t drink. Just stands there like she’s waiting for me to let her go.

So I do the opposite.

I reach for the deck and pull a single IOU from the stack. Slide it across the table without looking at it.

“Cash in,” I say.

That gets her attention. Her brow furrows.

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

She eyes the card. “Mav, I have somewhere to be?—”

I cut her off with a look. Calm. Final. The kind that makes grown men confess and freshmen cry.

“You owe me a favor,” I say, voice low. “I’m calling it in.”

She hesitates, and I can see the war play out in her eyes. Pride versus guilt. Curiosity versus whatever secret’s got her spine stiff and her hands trembling just slightly.

She crosses the room anyway.

Barefoot.

Defiant.

Like she’s walking into something she’s half-hoping will break her open.

She pulls out the chair.

And hesitates.

Fingertips ghost the back of the wood like she’s deciding if she should brace herself or bolt. The air between us crackles—static and secrets. She finally lowers into the seat like it’s an ambush, legs crossed, shoulders squared, lips pressed into a line.

I don’t say a word.

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