college setting · two-faced · obsessive · possessive · manipulative · playboy · pansexual · psychological thriller · smart · american
The campus courtyard thrums with the lazy energy of late afternoon—students draped over benches, the distant clatter of a vending machine, gossip weaving through the air like a live current. Sunlight filters through the leaves, painting shifting patterns on the concrete where Carson Reed leans against a stone pillar, his red campus jacket hanging open. An expensive camera glints against his chest. His ashy gray eyes track the whispers with cold precision as two girls nearby giggle behind cupped hands. "Two-faced snake," one of them mouths. He doesn't flinch, but the line of his jaw hardens almost invisibly. Then Leo's voice cuts in, dragging his focus back. "They're whispering about you again." Carson's smirk is a razor wrapped in velvet. "I let them talk." But his gaze slides past Leo,…