He matched my pace, sneakers scuffing the floors. “Big empire. Fragile footing. Everyone sees it.” His smirk widened. “Guess you’ll be the last to know when it falls.”
My jaw tightened, fingers flexing around the strap of my bag. The worst part? He wasn’t pulling it out of thin air. I’d heard the same tension in my dad’s clipped calls, the same unease in Drew’s late-night silence.
But a fight in the middle of the hall wouldn’t solve anything. It would prove him right—that I was reckless. So I didn’t bite.
Logan leaned in anyway, breath hot against my ear. “Maybe Mila should be careful who she ties herself to. Funny, isn’t it? She crawls back, latches on to you, and you’re the one headed for the drop. Dunn’s going to make sure of it.”
I stopped walking. Out of the corner of my eye, Mila stood by the stairwell near the art classroom, watching. Logan caught it too—his grin widened like he’d staged the whole thing for her audience—then he peeled off into the stream of students.
Her brow furrowed for a second before she masked it. But I’d already seen.
I stood there a second too long, fists locked at my sides, every muscle screaming for release. Then the bell shrieked overhead, and the crowd enveloped me again. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a look back. But the words stuck, lodged as if glass under skin.
After seventh period, when I was at my locker, Mila caught up to me. She caught the tension—the way my shoulders stayed tense after class, how I shoved my books in my bag as though they’d wronged me. She brushed close, low enough so only I could hear.
“What was that with Logan?”
“Nothing.”
She tilted her head, unconvinced. “Looked like something.”
I smirked faintly, too brittle to be real. “I’ll tell you later.”
It was the best I could give her in a hallway with ears everywhere.
By the time we hit the locker room, it was the usual chaos—gear slamming into lockers, somebody blasting tinny music through a speaker, half the guys shouting over each other as if it were their job. I dropped onto the bench, tugged at the laces of my skates, head still buzzing from Logan’s warning earlier in the hall.
Theo slid onto the bench beside me, hoodie half-zipped, calm in a way that felt calculated. But his jaw was too tight, his eyes fixed on the tape as though it owed him something—more guarded than usual, as if he carried a weight he wasn’t ready to share.
“Met with Tori,” he muttered. “Nothing solid. But she’s jumpy. Like she knows something and doesn’t want to be the one to say it.”
I kept my eyes on my skates. “Define jumpy.”
“She flinched when I brought up Elise and changed the subject fast.” He leaned closer. “I’ll give you the rest after practice.”
Across the room, Chase cursed about someone stealing his tape, a couple of guys laughing too loud, the smell of sweat and ice thick in the air. The noise enveloped us. But the weight of Theo’s words stuck, circling tighter than any drill Coach was about to throw at us.
Practice dragged. Coach was in one of his moods, riding every play, barking about precision as if we weren’t already grinding ourselves into the ice. My legs burned. My head was worse. Theo’s message. Elise’s silence. My father’s clipped dismissal about the boardwalk property, treating it as a case study, and I was supposed to learn the right lesson.
I didn’t need a shower after—I needed answers. But I hit the shower anyway. Habit.
I shot Mila a message once I was outside, hair still damp, bag in the backseat.
Me:You home? Okay if I stop by?
Mila:Mom’s out. So yeah.
By the time I pulled into her neighborhood, the sun was gone. Streetlights buzzed faint over cracked sidewalks and patchy lawns. Houses sat too close together, porches sagging, paint flaking, the opposite of the manicured bubble where I lived.
Her place was near the corner—a rental you could spot a mile away. Faded shutters, screen door hanging a little crooked, driveway gravel instead of paved. The porch light flickeredyellow across the warped steps where she stood waiting, hoodie pulled tight like she could disappear inside it.
She waited for me on the porch, arms crossed. The light cast her in a soft cone that made her look both fierce and small.
I killed the engine and climbed out, gravel crunching under my shoes. She stood on the porch, arms folded into her hoodie. Her eyes flicked to my hair.
“You’re wet.”
“Didn’t want to stink up your house.”
