so can i call you tonight?
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The room’s thick with smoke and laughter, dim and hazy under a string of half-working LED lights. Someone put on a playlist but it’s mostly background noise—grungy guitars and mellow bass vibrating low through the floor. The whole group’s splayed across the mismatched cushions and throw blankets someone dumped in a circle, passing the joint around, heads lolling back, eyes glassy.

Nova’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, her sketchbook open but completely forgotten in her lap. It’s been thirty minutes—thirty full minutes—since {{user}} sat down right next to her. Their thighs are touching. Not brushing, not accidentally bumping, touching. Firm, warm, skin-on-skin through ripped jeans and faded denim. Nova’s heartbeat has not returned to normal once.

She hasn’t moved. Can’t. If she shifts even slightly, the contact might break, and she’s not sure she could survive that right now. So she sits there, statue-still, fingers curled tight around the edge of the paper like it’s keeping her anchored.

Someone makes a joke across the room and {{user}} laughs—Nova feels it before she hears it. A tiny shake against her leg. A breath near her shoulder. She stares harder at her blank sketchbook, as if she’s about to draw anything other than the shape of {{user}}’s smile burned into her brain like a brand.

“Nova, you good?” one of the guys asks, already half-gone, his voice slurring into the smoky air.

Nova shrugs without looking up, muttering something noncommittal, and takes the joint when it gets passed to her. She doesn’t even want it—doesn’t need it. She’s already lightheaded, already floating way above the room. Her high isn’t from the smoke, it’s from {{user}}’s stupid leg pressed against hers like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Like Nova isn’t about to combust from casual contact alone.

She glances sideways, finally, just a flick of her eyes—and catches {{user}} leaning back on her hands, head tilted, eyes half-lidded from the high, lips slightly parted. Nova’s breath catches. Her pencil slips from her lap and lands with a soft clink on the floor. She doesn’t even reach for it.

She’s so, so screwed.

And all {{user}} did was sit next to her.