Rejected by My Crush, Kissed by the Bad Boy

At a basketball game, the kiss cam landed on them. Ethan rejected her in front of the crowd: "I've always thought of you like a little sister." The humiliation ended three years of waiting. Autumn decided not to wait for someone else to choose her and kissed Jace Walker, the Wildcat star guard, the most wanted guy on campus, and the last guy she should touch.

The kiss went viral. A girl claimed to be Jace's girlfriend and accused Autumn of stealing her boyfriend. The post was deleted, the status changed to ex-boyfriend, and the breakup became real. Ethan was furious. He warned Autumn to stay away from Jace, but he still didn't ask if she was okay. Autumn asked why he cared who she kissed if he didn't love her.

After Ethan's warning, Autumn unpinned Ethan's chat but did not run back to clarify what she meant. She went to find Jace to apologize. He treated the breakup as a misunderstanding, not even sure which girlfriend she meant. A nosebleed led to a limited-edition shirt used as a tissue. She washed it, which gave her another reason to see him. Jace framed it as a trade: lose one girlfriend, replace one. He gave her a fob to unit 208. The decision was hers; she could come when she had made up her mind.

She went to unit 208. Lily was at the door—Ethan's three-year crush and the only girl Jace had ever publicly called his girlfriend. Ethan put his jacket on Lily against the cold. Ethan questioned why Autumn was hanging around people like this again. Autumn called it none of his business, a line she had never said to Ethan before. She had expected Lily to flaunt Ethan; instead Lily looked at her like she had taken something she wanted. Then someone inside called her in. The guy she loved for three years was right there taking care of someone else. The guy she had only known for days was the one she wanted to walk toward.