CHAPTER 169: WALKING HER HOME

The diner hadn’t been a study session so much as three hours of pharmaceutical foreplay—Latin terms and drug interactions dressed up as conversation while my brain quietly fantasized about things the FDA definitely wouldn’t approve.

By the time we stumbled outside, night had staged a hostile corporate takeover of the city. Streetlights carved amber scars into the dark, and everything looked like a David Fincher establishing shot—moody, expensive, and vaguely threatening.

"I still can’t process the fact you wore fingerless gloves and wrote poetry about darkness," I said, picturing Valentina in full emo regalia. "There’s video evidence somewhere. Don’t lie to me."

"Buried deeper than Epstein’s client list," she deadpanned, her shoulder brushing mine like it was just supposed to be there. "And notice how you’re dodging your own humiliation reel."

"Currently living it. Viral mugshot, assault charges, aggressively hitting on women who could ruin my entire future with one phone call to the school board."

She raised an eyebrow sculpted like it had been designed by a surgeon. "Study date? Thought we agreed this is a real date."

Without hesitation—fine, hesitation disguised as bravado—I reached for her overstuffed messenger bag. "Give me that before it dislocates something I might eventually want to monetize."

Her eyes widened like no guy had ever volunteered to carry forty pounds of institutional trauma before. "I can handle—"

"I know you can." I slipped the strap off her shoulder, contact brief but nuclear. "Same way you could probably perform emergency surgery with a butter knife. Doesn’t mean you should. My mom raised me to be useful, even if I occasionally redirect those skills into reupholstering administrators’ faces."

"Such a gentleman," she murmured, and the sarcasm didn’t fully land. "Where were guys like you when I was seventeen?"

"Getting our heads shoved in toilets by future JCPenney assistant managers."

Her laugh detonated down the street—sharp, bright, vandalism in sound form. We fell into rhythm, me hauling her bag like I’d been drafted as her long-term pack mule. Jesus Christ, the weight. Either she moonlighted as a cadaver smuggler or medical textbooks were printed on neutron star matter.

"What’s in here? The shattered dreams of pre-meds who failed organic chemistry?"

"Just essentials. Three textbooks, drug reference guides, laptop, and maybe the powdered remains of first-years who thought medicine would be like Grey’s Anatomy."

"Ah. Crushed souls. Densest material in the universe. That tracks."

We cut down a quieter street, where the campus chaos bled into trust-fund condos. She walked close, arms brushing mine in these accidental-but-not-really collisions that lit up my nerves like faulty wiring.

"You know," Valentina said, eyes flicking sideways at me, "most teenage boys would be milking today’s fight. Dangerous bad boy. Bragging rights. That whole thing."

"I’m secure enough in my violence to multitask as your sherpa." I adjusted her bag. "Besides, if I lean too hard into the brooding thug thing, I don’t get to hear about your Hot Topic era."

"I showed you mine. Show me yours. What was Baby Peter’s cringe phase?"

"Bold assumption it’s past tense."

"Spill." Her hand wrapped around my arm, fingers sketching absent patterns that weren’t remotely accidental.

"Fine. Conspiracy theorist arc. Convinced the Old estate was a vampire coven thanks to my friend who started it and convinced the young me too. Tommy and I spent months gathering ’evidence.’ Thought we were Van Helsing, turned out we were just trespassing idiots with camcorders."

Her eyes lit like paparazzi bulbs. "The vampire house? Everyone knows that place. Lincoln Heights folklore."

"You know it?"

"Native daughter, Carter. Every kid had a theory. Mine was a witch brewing potions out of missing pets."

"Jesus. Dark. Very proto-Wednesday Addams."

She smirked. "I had her whole aesthetic down. Braids, deadpan one-liners, casual homicide energy."

"And now you’re training to save lives. That’s either character development... or the perfect cover."

"Why not both?"

"Note to self: Never piss off the woman who knows which drugs are untraceable."

We finally hit the part of town where apartments came with doormen and the parked cars outside were worth more than my extended family’s combined net worth. Valentina didn’t slow down.

The building screamed ’young professional, parental subsidy required’—glass, steel, and a security system that probably cost more than my tuition.

"Home sweet subsidized home," she said, breezing past the marble entrance. "Or at least the container that holds me when I’m not at school reminding teenagers that my ass is not part of the anatomy syllabus."

"Nice place." I took in the manicured hedges, the obscene architecture. "School nurse salary must come with stock options."

She laughed, but it cracked at the edges. "Not exactly. Mother insists on paying. Calls it an ’investment in my focus.’ Translation: she doesn’t trust me with roommates who might know how to mix tequila shots."

"Smart woman."

"She has her moments," Valentina admitted, voice casual but edged. "Though she’d probably reconsider if she knew I was bringing home teenage boys who specialize in reconstructive violence on administrators."

"Technically, you’re just letting me carry your books to your door." I hefted the bag higher on my shoulder. "Very Eisenhower era. Chivalry, malt shops, and zero statutory concerns. Your reputation’s untouchable."

Her eyes glinted, predatory under all that professionalism. "Is that what you’re banking on? A chaste little doorstep goodbye? Flowers, curfew, the whole Norman Rockwell fantasy?"

"Among other things."

The key fob chirped at the reader like punctuation that cost more than my entire wardrobe. The lobby greeted us with marble floors and curated modern art—money that whispered instead of shouted, like the kind that owned judges instead of bribed them.

She didn’t slow down.

Straight for the elevators, like this path had been paved long before I showed up.

"Coming up?" she asked, pressing the button. Her eyes slid everywhere but mine. "Unless you’ve got a bedtime story waiting back home."

"Mom’s on shift. Sisters assume I’m chaos incarnate. Tonight? I’m yours."

The elevator announced itself with a soft ding—like opportunity politely clearing its throat. Once those mirrored doors slid shut, the air shifted: no longer potential, but inevitability. Valentina pressed eight and leaned back against the wall, studying me with the kind of intensity you usually reserve for EKG spikes and mystery chest pain.

"What?" I asked, catching her stare ricocheting in four identical reflections.

"Processing the absolute insanity," she said softly, dissecting every inch of me. "This morning I was a functioning adult with boundaries. Now I’m smuggling jailbait into my apartment."

"You’re letting me walk you to your door," I corrected. "Different legal classification. Any competent attorney could spin it."

"Right. Very legal. Completely above board." The corners of her mouth betrayed her, curling into something criminal. "But full disclosure—my mother runs the emergency department at Mercy General."

The elevator slowed, or maybe it was just my nervous system registering the bomb she’d dropped. "Mercy General? That’s where my mom spends her nights saving people."

Her gaze never wavered, diagnostic. "Dr. Sonya Luna. Genius. Tyrant. Would happily vivisect you on principle if she knew you existed in my apartment."

Of course. Because my life required more Greek tragedy incest-adjacent plot twists.

"Mom’s mentioned her," I said flatly. "Calls her the kind of boss who makes God nervous."

Valentina laughed, sharp and unguarded. "Perfect description. If she knew what I was doing right now, she’d turn it into a teaching hospital spectacle."

"And what are you doing?"

Her smile sharpened. "Apparently whatever the fuck I want for once."

The elevator sighed open onto the eighth floor, a hallway dressed like a Four Seasons corridor—plush carpet, muted lighting, silence expensive enough to hum. She walked ahead, pulling keys from her bag with the smoothness of someone who’d already made this decision ten floors ago.

At 812, she paused, key hovering in the lock. "Last chance," she said, eyes daring me. "Cross this threshold and you’re not just a guest. You’re officially stepping into career-ending territory."

"I’ve been in inappropriate territory since I asked about beta-blockers."

"True." She unlocked the door but paused, turning, eyes catching mine like headlights on a deer that knew it was already fucked. "Peter, what are we doing? Really?"

The question hung in the air like a live grenade with no pin. I set her bag down gently, then stepped close enough she had to tilt her chin up—close enough that her perfume hit me, some expensive chemical weapon designed to make bad decisions smell justified.

"We’re two people—"

"You’re sixteen."

"—who connected over coffee and cardiac medications. Now we’re seeing where that connection leads. Simple."

"Nothing about this is simple." Her voice barely above a whisper, like confessing to a priest with a gun. "But I can’t seem to care."

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No." The word shot out, surprising even her.