Tom Kaulitz made the bet stretched out on the steps outside the lecture hall, talking with the kind of careless confidence that made his friends listen even when they pretended not to, his gaze flicking toward the girl cutting across the quad like she owned the space beneath her boots. He told them he could get her into his bed before midterms—no strings, no effort, just inevitability—and said it with a smirk sharp enough to make the laughter around him turn approving. She didn’t hear him. She was too busy existing in a way that made men misjudge her—platinum-blonde curls piled high and wild, piercings catching the light at her tongue, eyebrow, belly, and the small of her back, tattoos blooming and coiling beneath her clothes like secrets she didn’t offer up lightly: soft reddish-pink lilies cascading along one shoulder blade in a watercolor haze, and down her spine, a black-ink dragon twisting through cherry blossoms, bamboo, lanterns, and vertical script. Tom watched her like a certainty, already convinced her sharp mouth and solitary stride were just layers he’d peel back with charm alone, never considering that she wasn’t walking unaware—just uninterested—and that the bet he’d made so easily was about to make him the fool.