I give her the keycard because building a night is sometimes placing the first brick. I don’t write the room number because she doesn’t owe me anything. The word on the sleeve is a map because we both like pretending we weren’t always going to pick that street.
“For the party,” I tell her, and sayif you want itout loud because I am not young anymore, and I put my teeth away on purpose.
She doesn’t ask for the room number. That’s the moment I realize I’ll sleep tonight if she doesn’t come, but only because I’ll build exhausted out of it.
When she leaves, I stand there and let the cold find me. It does. It takes its time. I text something I shouldn’t—Sleep—not because I’m trying to own the hours, but because I want her to feel the way the word is a blanket when you throw it over the right woman.
I don’t sleep. Not right away. I go home and I sit on the floor with my back to the couch and I lean my head on my hands and I remember Andrew’s voice telling me I’m not built to break what’s smaller than me. Then I think about Wayne, who is bigger than both of us and will try to break me if I hurt her, and I count the ways I won’t make him learn to.
I plan. Notjust the strawberries—that part is easy; money is good for some things. I plan the perimeter of the room she’ll need if she decides she wants to close a door behind us. I plan the sentences I’ll say if she says stop. I plan the breath I’ll take if she says go. I plan the way I’ll tell her she can walk away with everything that belongs to her and I’ll stand in a hallway with my hands in my pockets like a man who knows what he’s not allowed to carry.
When the clock gets rude, I send one last thing and set the phone on the counter and stare at the ceiling like it might learn a new shape.
Unknown:At the gala, if you want me, touch your ribbon before dessert. If you don’t, tuck it into your clutch and I’ll sit at the end of the table and be a good captain who knows how to lose.
I put the phone face down and try not to ruin the night with my hope. I fail a little. I build muscle around the failure.
Sammie
The keycard waits on my nightstand like a secret I could swallow. I brush it with my fingers like it might hiss. It doesn’t. It just lies there, flat and ordinary, until I remember how much power hides in plainthings.
My phone lights the room with a single instruction that isn’t really one:At the gala, if you want me, touch your ribbon before dessert. If you don’t, tuck it into your clutch and I’ll sit at the end of the table and be a good captain who knows how to lose.
I lie back on the bed and stare at the ceiling while the radiator knocks and the snow decides whether to let the moon show. I think about ruin and rescue and how sometimes they come in the same wrapping. I think about Wayne’s jaw tightening when he sees me in blue. I think about the feeling of my wrist under someone else’s breath, and the way my body didn’t confuse danger with harm.
I close my eyes and I practice the touch in the air—fingers to ribbon, a signal a room full of people will miss.
Then I smile at myself in the dark like a woman who knows the weather will obey her, just this once, just enough, and I sleep without dreaming, which is its own kind of miracle.
Chapter Four
Sammie
The velvet clings to me like a secret.
I told myself a hundred times I wouldn’t wear this dress, that I’d pick something safer, something that wouldn’t make my father’s eyes narrow the moment I walked into the room. But when I unzipped the garment bag tonight, the deep blue gleamed at me like it already knew the truth. I wanted to be seen. I wanted to be remembered. I wanted him to look at me like he did in the maze—like every choice I made was already his.
So I wore it.
My heels click softly against the polished floor of the hotel ballroom, the sound swallowed up by the hum of laughter and the clink of champagne glasses. The Storm Cats Christmas party is always extravagant, but this year it looks like someone bottled December and poured it out across the room. Garlands and bows are pinned along the railings, the giant tree in the corner is weighed down with silver ornaments, and strings of warm lights drape overhead, casting everything in a golden glow.
It should feel festive. It should feel safe. But the moment I step through the doors, my pulse picks up, because I can feel him here.
Wayne’s hand is heavy on my shoulder almost instantly, steering me forward. “Keep it classy tonight, Samantha.” His voice is low, firm, carrying the weight of both coach and father.
“I always do,” I murmur, though my cheeks are already hot.
He glances down at the dress, jaw tight, and I can almost hear his unspoken thoughts. Too much. Too bold. Too tempting. But he says nothing, just nods once and guides me toward the donors gathering near the buffet.
I paste on my practiced smile, shake hands, laugh politely at jokes that don’t land. But beneath the surface, my nerves hum like an electric wire. Because I know.
I don’t have to look for him. I feel him before I see him.
And when my eyes finally scan the room, they snag exactly where I knew they would—on him.
Triston Knight.
He’s across the ballroom, dark suit stretching broad over his shoulders, tie perfectly knotted, hair still carrying that just-showered sheen that makes him look both polished and dangerous. He’s standing with a few teammates, laughing at something one of them said, but his eyes aren’t laughing. His eyes are on me.
