No hood, no streetlamp, no cold truck glass between us now. Just flat campus lighting and a concrete sidewalk.
“Addison,” I say.
“Reid.”
Her tone isn’t hostile. It isn’t soft. It’s… aware. Like she’s carefully placing my name somewhere in the middle of a shelf, between danger and defense.
And something in my chest answers it.
Talia doesn’t check the parking lot behind her. She doesn’t glance at the exit door. She just looks at me.
Our eyes hold for a beat. The almost-kiss from the truck hangs there, unspoken and electric. The memory of my hand on her wrist in class fits into the same tight space.
Clara glances between us, something sharp and assessing in her gaze for half a second before she turns back to Adrian. “Study dungeon awaits. Let’s go, boys. I have color-coded flashcards and no mercy.”
Adrian groans. “Pray for me,” he mutters to me as he pulls the door open.
We fall into a loose line without talking about it. Adrian and Clara in front, shoulder to shoulder. Talia and I a step behind, not touching, not close enough to brush, but close enough that if I reached out I could tap my fingers against the edge of her backpack.
I don’t.
The door swings wide. The warm, stale air of the academic center washes over us—highlighters, old carpet, burnt coffee.
Adrian holds it open with one hand, nodding us through. Clara ducks under his arm, chattering about some professor. Talia slips in after her, spine straight, chin up, awareness tilting back toward me like a compass needle.
I follow them inside.
It feels like a line change. Four players stepping over the boards together, new formation. Captain, goalie, and two variables nobody else on this team realizes are about to shift the whole season.
Knowing her routes, knowing which doors she uses, which corners make her shoulders tense—
Knowing her pattern isn’t obsession.
It’s defense.
And the first thing all defense needs is clarity. On her. On the threat. On what I’m already willing to burn for her.
Chapter 13
Talia
ThesilenceoftheAcademic Center is a lie, but I’ve learned to tune it out.
Two hours of proctoring mandatory Sunday study hall. My job is simple: sign them in, make sure they don’t kill each other, and tell them when they can leave. The room is a low hum of scratching pens, typing, and the restless shifting of twenty hockey players who are still buzzing with adrenaline from last night’s win.
I finish the last sentence of my own paper, hit save, and close my laptop with a soft, exhausted exhale. My brain is tired, but it’s the good kind of tired—the kind that comes from work, not vigilance. A quiet victory.
At the table directly in front of my desk, Clara taps her pen against Adrian’s notebook.
“Focus, Hale,” she murmurs, sliding a worksheet back toward him. “You’re not solving for X, you’re solving for Y. We went over this.”
Adrian groans, rubbing a hand over his face, but he doesn’t look annoyed. He looks charmed. “You’re a tyrant. I thought tutors were supposed to be supportive.”
“I support your eligibility,” she counters, pointing at the page. “Do it again.”
I hide a smile behind my hand. I don't have to look right to feel him there.
Declan hasn’t moved in forty minutes. Not sitting with the team, he has pulled a chair up to the far end of my proctor table. His body is angled slightly, with his back to the room, and his shoulder creates a wall between me and the rest of the players. A tablet occupies his attention, the stylus moving in sharp, precise strokes.
