She doesn’t look fragile.
Her eyes lift to mine. “Feels like it’s still echoing,” she says quietly. “But… yeah. It’s quiet.”
The university president’s frantic apology call. Coach telling me Alistair’s gone, not just shuffled sideways. Beatrice’s text—You win—deleted before it could finish loading.
The leash is gone.
For the first time in my life, I don’t immediately reach for what comes next—stats, practice schedules, the next opponent. My brain keeps circling one thing.
Her.
“How’s your dad?” I ask. I watched his face in that tunnel. I watched hers.
Her fingers tighten around mine. “Tired,” she says. “Angry. At himself. At Jensen. At the whole system. But… we talked. Really talked.” Her mouth twitches. The memory hurts and heals at once. “He already called Blackwood. He left a voicemail for the Commissioner that probably scorched the server. He’s backing you with the board.”
Relief hits like a delayed body check. I swallow around it.
“You did that,” I say. “You started that.”
Her eyes flick up, sharp. “We started it. All of us.”
I should let go of her hand. Let her sit. Offer water, food, some kind of normal step-down from the day.
I don’t.
I tug her further in instead, until we’re in the center of the living room, the couch at our backs, the city a blur of light through the blinds. The air between us hums—battlefield adrenaline with nowhere to go.
She studies my face, searching for cracks. “You okay?” she asks, soft. It’s the same question I threw at her ten times today.
I huff out a breath. “I don’t know what to do with myself when I’m not holding a grenade.”
“Maybe,” she says, tilting her head, “you’re allowed to just… hold me instead.”
That sentence slides under my ribs and lodges there.
My fingers flex around hers. “Come here, then.”
Not a command. Not really. But she follows like it is.
I tug her closer, until she’s right in front of me, toes bumping my socks. Her head tips back to look up. My stupid heart does that stutter it’s been doing since the first time I saw her in the stands.
“I keep replaying it,” she admits, voice low. “The article. The call. The tunnel. Part of me keeps waiting to wake up and find out none of it stuck. That he still owns everything.”
“He doesn’t,” I say. The only thing I’m certain of. “He doesn’t own the grant. Or the team. Or you. Especially not you.”
Her throat works. She swallows hard. The gloss in her eyes is not panic this time. It looks suspiciously like hope.
“I thought I’d feel more…” She waves her free hand, searching. “Vindictive? Satisfied? But mostly I just feel… done. Like my body finally got the memo that it doesn’t have to grind its teeth at three in the morning anymore.” She exhales slowly. “I don’t know who I am without the panic.”
I let go of her hand just to cup the back of her neck, my thumb brushing the pulse point under her jaw. Grounding her.
“Mine,” I say, before I can stop myself.
Her gaze snaps up, startled.
I should roll it back. Make it a joke. I don’t.
“You’re still you,” I say, smoother now. “You’re just not somebody else’s damage report.”
