Hayden’s stare didn’t falter. It didn’t waver or soften or blink. It stayed locked on me, sharp enough to cut through the noise and leave a mark beneath my skin. There was nothing academic in it. Nothing professional. It wasn’t the gaze of a professor watching a student. It was something far more dangerous, a man standing across the room, watching someone touch what he already considered his.
And I felt it. God, I felt it everywhere. In the back of my throat. In the ache deep in my chest. In the warmth that pooled low in my stomach until it burned. This wasn’t embarrassment. It was want, pure and unrelenting, and the realization that whatever boundary we’d built between us had never really existed.
Noah kept talking, his lips moving, laughter spilling from the table, but all of it blurred at the edges. Hayden’s presence was a gravitational pull, dragging every part of me into his orbit until I couldn’t hear, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe around it. The air felt charged, trembling between us, and he hadn’t even moved yet.
Then he did.
He crossed the dining hall without hurry, but with that same quiet force that seemed to bend the space around him. Each step was controlled tension, silent thunder rolling closer, the ground of the moment shifting with every measured stride. The chatter dimmed as he passed, though no one could’ve said why.
Aster nudged me beneath the table, her foot brushing my shin. “You good?” she whispered, her tone teasing, but I could feel the curiosity in her glance.
I didn’t answer. Because he was still coming closer, and I wasn’t sure there was an answer that wouldn’t give me away.
I nodded, though the movement felt more a reflex than truth. I wasn’t fine, not even close. My pulse was too loud, my skin too aware, my thoughts caught somewhere between wanting to flee and wanting to see what would happen if I didn’t.
Noah laughed at something Aster said, an easy, full sound that carried just enough charm to make people look. He leaned in again, closer this time, his shoulder brushing the air between us. And then I heard it, the scrape of a chair against the wooden floor, sharp enough to thread through the noise of the room and find me.
Not at our table. The one behind.
The sound landed too neatly, too intentionally to be chance. A quiet declaration that he was here, close, within reach if he wanted to be. I didn’t have to look. I could feel it, the pull of his presence cutting through the air, anchoring itself to me with quiet violence. It wasn’t touch, but it might as well have been. The space between us contracted, the air thickened, and every instinct in me knew exactly where he was without needing confirmation.
I wrapped my hands around my mug, the porcelain warm against my palms, and lifted it to my lips. My fingers trembled, barely, a tremor I could’ve blamed on caffeine if I wanted to lie tomyself. But I knew better. He wanted me to feel it, the nearness, the silence, the heat simmering beneath his restraint, waiting for something to crack.
Jason said something, a joke about skiing, about a group going together, but I barely caught the words. My focus splintered. Behind me, I could sense movement, Hayden leaning back in his chair, slow, calculated, the kind of motion that wasn’t casual at all. He was listening. Watching. Breathing too close to the edge of control.
I turned my head just slightly, enough to catch him in the corner of my eye. His posture was composed, the image of calm, but there was nothing easy in it. His gaze was fixed forward, his mouth drawn in that tight, restrained line that hinted at something coiled beneath it. The kind of tension that could detonate if provoked.
I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted the faint edge of blood. This wasn’t something I could keep doing, not for the weekend, not for the hour, not for the next breath that scraped against my ribs. It was all going to break, and I didn’t know which of us would shatter first.
“You should ski with me today,” Noah said suddenly, his tone effortless, his grin carrying that spark of playful audacity. “I promise I won’t let you fall. Much.”
Aster snorted into her drink, shaking her head.
I looked at him, forcing a polite smile as I reached for my tea again, the motion slow enough to disguise the chaos in my pulse. “That sounds…generous.”
“I’m a generous guy,” he said, leaning forward on his elbows, forearms crossing, his voice dropping into something warmer. ““And you seem as though you could use a little fun.”
Beside Aster, Jason stayed quiet. He had that kind of presence that didn’t need words to be felt, observant, grounded, watchful in a way that didn’t demand attention but always noticed morethan it should. His gaze lingered on me for a beat, unreadable, before returning to his cup.
I opened my mouth to answer, to deflect, maybe even tease, but the air around us shifted again. I didn’t need to look to know why. His gaze found me and held, weighted and wordless, pressing through the distance until everything else faded. I could feel it on my skin, running down my spine, threading heat through my chest until it was difficult to breathe.
Yes would be harmless. That’s what I told myself. Noah was being kind, lighthearted. There was nothing in it but friendliness. But still, those eyes. That stillness. The dangerous precision of Hayden’s attention locked across the room.
I could refuse. Make an excuse. Step back before the wire snapped. But then what?
What would that make me, someone governed by a man who had no claim, no right, no name that belonged to me beyond Professor? Someone tethered to a silence that still managed to dictate every pulse in my body?
No.
I turned back to Noah, forcing the curve of my mouth into something that felt steady even as my chest ached with the weight of it. “Sure,” I said, voice calm, betraying nothing. “Why not?”
The words came out smooth, but underneath, something inside me splintered, a quiet tremor that whispered the truth neither of us could admit, it wasn’t him I wanted to say yes to.
The words left my lips softer than I intended, a pale echo of confidence that didn’t quite belong to me, but Noah’s grin only widened, easy and untroubled, filling the space I’d left empty. Aster’s brows rose just enough to betray amusement, that knowing glint in her eyes promising she’d pry the truth from me later when no one else was listening.
I tried to eat after that, but the food tasted like nothing. The rest of breakfast passed in fragments, Noah talking about the slopes and the weather, Jason adding something about the schedule, Aster tossing in a sarcastic comment that made them both laugh. I smiled when I was supposed to. I even laughed once. But my mind wasn’t there. Every word at that table blurred beneath the sound of something far louder, my pulse, thrumming against my ribs, syncing to a presence that wasn’t supposed to be near but still was.
I didn’t need to see him. Hayden had a way of filling a room even in silence, bending the air until it remembered he existed. My hands stayed still, my expression calm, every motion precise, but inside, something wild was clawing to get out.
