Zoë snorts. “Okay, fine. He’s not a psycho. He’s a controlled psycho with immaculate cheekbones. Happy?”
Genny looks up long enough to hum. “Obsessive is a more accurate adjective.”
“Obsessive is hot,” Zoë mutters.
Clara turns her attention to me, gaze sharp and knowing. “What about you, T? You’ve been quiet.”
I flinch, caught. “What about me?”
“Come on, you’ve noticed. He watches you.”
Heat floods my face so fast it makes me lightheaded. The room suddenly feels smaller. “He does not.”
“He so does,” Clara insists. “At the bar, he didn’t take his eyes off you. And at the game? Total stare-down.”
My mind flashes back to the tunnel—to that long, unbroken look. The way the world narrowed. The way I forgot how air worked. The way he looked through the glass like the distance meant nothing.
“Genny’s right,” I say, trying to sound detached. “Goalies are always watching. It’s their job. Maybe he’s just assessing threats.”
My own words echo back at me.
He sees one.
The conversation drifts, pulled away by Zoë’s latest conspiracy theory about Dante and Cole. We put on a movie—some stupid, bright-colored rom-com that requires zero brain cells.
I’m almost relaxed.
My muscles uncoil.
My breathing evens.
Every once in a while, a loud sound from the TV makes my shoulders twitch, but I breathe through it, forcing myself to stay.
This is the test.
And for a stretch of minutes, it works.
Then, down the hall, a door slams.
A heavy, echoing thud that rattles the picture frames on Genny’s wall. The music skips for half a beat before the next song starts, muffled by the blood rushing in my ears.
My body jerks, a full-body jolt like someone grabbed a live wire. My hands twitch halfway up, reaching for my head, for shelter that isn’t needed, and I stop them mid-air, fingers curling in on themselves instead.
Breathe.
The room flickers—fairy lights, blanket, Clara’s fuzzy socks—then blurs, the echo of wood hitting a frame swallowing everything else. The sound isn’t just a door.
It’s the sound of the metal locker.
It’s the sound of the old door, the one that broke the frame.
He’s angry. He’s coming.
No. Different door. Different building. Different life.
I suck in a sharp breath that feels like it scrapes my throat.
“Hey.”
