The morning after the club felt surreal. I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, replaying last night’s events over and over in my mind. The conversation with Martinus, the intensity in his eyes, the weight of his words—they’d left me feeling disoriented.
How had we gone from enemies to… whatever this was? The very idea made my head spin.
I couldn’t deny it anymore. There had always been something between us—something I’d ignored, buried under our constant bickering. But now that it was out in the open, there was no going back.
A knock at my door startled me from my thoughts.
"Y/N?" Emma’s voice came through the door. "You awake?"
I sighed, sitting up. "Yeah, come in."
Emma pushed the door open, a smile on her face as she flopped down on the edge of my bed. "So, last night was wild, huh? Marcus was hilarious, and the music was great. Did you have fun?"
I forced a smile, trying to act like everything was normal. "Yeah, it was fun. Marcus was definitely in rare form."
Emma chuckled but then gave me a sideways glance. "You and Martinus were acting weird, though. What was that about? You guys weren’t fighting, but it was… tense."
My heart skipped a beat. Leave it to Emma to pick up on something that subtle.
"It was nothing," I said quickly, avoiding her gaze. "We just talked for a bit, that’s all."
Emma raised an eyebrow. "Just talked? You sure about that? It didn’t seem like your usual banter. There was… something else."
I groaned internally. She wasn’t going to let this go.
"Okay, fine," I muttered, running a hand through my hair. "It was a little weird. He… he said some stuff that caught me off guard."
"Stuff like what?" Emma’s eyes lit up with curiosity.
I hesitated. I wasn’t ready to explain everything, especially when I didn’t even understand it myself. "He just apologized, I guess. For all the years we’ve been at each other’s throats."
Emma blinked in surprise. "Martinus? Apologizing? Wow, that’s… unexpected."
"Tell me about it."
She leaned in closer, her expression softening. "So… what are you going to do about it? I mean, it sounds like he’s trying to change things between you two."
I shrugged, my stomach twisting with uncertainty. "I don’t know, Emma. It’s complicated. We’ve been fighting for so long, I’m not sure if we know how to be anything else."
Emma was quiet for a moment, her gaze thoughtful. "Maybe that’s exactly why you should give it a chance. Sometimes, the strongest connections come from the most unexpected places."
I stared at her, my mind whirling. Was she right? Could Martinus and I actually find some kind of middle ground, or was this just a temporary truce waiting to fall apart?
"I’ll think about it," I said finally, though the truth was, I’d been thinking about little else.
---
Later that afternoon, I found myself at Marcus and Nora’s place. The plan was to hang out, catch a movie, and just relax after the chaos of last night. But as soon as I walked in, I realized the universe wasn’t going to let me off that easy.
Martinus was there.
He was sitting on the couch, flipping through channels, looking just as casual and unaffected as ever. When he saw me, his eyes met mine briefly, and there it was again—that flicker of something deeper, something unsaid.
"Hey," Marcus called from the kitchen, oblivious to the tension between us. "We’re thinking of ordering pizza. You in?"
I nodded, trying to ignore the knot in my stomach. "Yeah, sure."
As I sat down on the opposite end of the couch, I could feel Martinus’s presence beside me like a gravitational pull. He wasn’t even looking at me, but I could sense him there, closer than I wanted him to be, yet not close enough to know what he was thinking.
The movie started, but I barely paid attention. All I could think about was the conversation we’d had last night and the way it lingered between us now, heavy and unspoken.
At some point, Nora and Marcus disappeared into the kitchen, leaving me and Martinus alone in the living room. The silence felt oppressive, but before I could get up and follow them, Martinus spoke.
"You’re avoiding me."
I froze, my eyes glued to the TV screen. "I’m not."
He shifted slightly, leaning forward so he could look at me. "You are. Ever since last night, you’ve been avoiding me. Why?"
I swallowed hard, the tension between us growing thicker by the second. "I’m not avoiding you, Martinus. I just… I don’t know what to say."
"Then don’t say anything," he said quietly, his voice softer than I’d ever heard it.
I finally turned to look at him, and the vulnerability in his eyes caught me off guard. This wasn’t the Martinus I knew—the cocky, sarcastic guy who thrived on pushing my buttons. This was someone else. Someone I didn’t recognize.
"I meant what I said last night," he continued, his gaze never leaving mine. "I’m tired of pretending like there’s nothing here. I don’t want to fight with you anymore, Y/N."
My heart pounded in my chest, my mind racing. I had spent years building walls between us, convincing myself that the only thing we could ever be was enemies. But now, those walls were crumbling, and I didn’t know how to stop it.
"What do you want from me, Martinus?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
"I don’t know," he admitted, his expression conflicted. "But I know I don’t want to go back to the way things were. I… I want to try something different."
Different. The word hung in the air between us, full of possibilities and uncertainty.
I stared at him, my emotions a tangled mess of fear, confusion, and something else—something I hadn’t allowed myself to feel until now. Attraction.
Could I really let myself feel that way about him? Could I trust him after everything?
"I don’t know if I can do this," I said quietly, my voice shaky. "We’ve spent so long hating each other… I don’t know how to just stop."
Martinus leaned back, running a hand through his hair, clearly frustrated but trying to keep his cool. "I get it. I do. But maybe we don’t have to have it all figured out right now. Maybe we just… take it slow. See what happens."
I bit my lip, my mind torn between what I knew and what I felt. I wanted to believe him, to believe that we could let go of the past and move forward, but a part of me was terrified of getting hurt.
Before I could respond, Marcus and Nora returned from the kitchen, laughing and carrying plates of pizza. The moment between Martinus and me shattered, replaced by the noise and energy of the group.
"Pizza’s here!" Marcus announced, oblivious to the tension that had just filled the room.
I forced a smile, grabbing a slice of pizza, but my mind was elsewhere. Martinus glanced at me one last time, his expression unreadable, before turning his attention to the others.
The rest of the night passed in a blur of conversation and laughter, but I couldn’t shake the weight of what had just happened between us. Martinus had opened the door to something new—something dangerous—and now it was up to me whether or not I wanted to walk through it.
As the night wound down, I said my goodbyes, my heart heavy with uncertainty. When I stepped outside into the cool night air, I took a deep breath, trying to clear my head.
But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking about Martinus.
And the fact that, for the first time in years, I didn’t hate him at all.
