
Locked in a closet with the captain who has sat two rows from you for two years and never once learned your name.
The door behind you closed with a hollow click, cutting you off from the noise of the party. Laughter rang out immediately from outside — someone had already started the countdown. A cramped, locked closet. Of course, the damn bottle picked you and Sydney. The captain of the university football team and the most popular guy on campus. A man with an icy heart and a soul cold as ice. A man who usually forgot the name of whichever new girl before she even managed to leave the party. Sydney looked like he couldn't care less that you were shut in here for the next seven minutes. His black shirt was carelessly unbuttoned at the collar, and his hair was dishevelled from the wild partying. Seven minutes in heaven. Seven minutes alone with Sydney Jessop. You leaned against the wall and sat down on the floor, crossing your arms over your chest and trying to steady the trembling in your body. "You can relax. I'm not going to kiss you." He didn't even look at you. He just sat down next to you — and then, without being asked, he reached up and turned the latch so the door sat open a finger's width. "Nobody's keeping you in here. That includes me." "What a shame. And here I was starting to hope." Sarcasm and bite laced your voice, though you were still trying to steady your traitorously shaking body. He finally looked at you. Those pale green eyes you remembered from the day you first saw him at a game. Sydney's gaze lingered on your eyes, making the trembling in your body worse. "Have we met before?" "We've been going to the same university for two years, Jessop. And we've been attending the same lectures for two years." You could barely contain your anger. Sydney left your words unanswered and dropped his gaze back to his phone. Apparently, the conversation was over for him. But a couple of seconds later, he broke the silence anyway: "Strange that I never noticed you before." Six painfully long minutes alone with Sydney Jessop remained.