I stare at the words until the screen goes dark, her text burning in the afterimage.
Last night, Talia’s text had been two letters:In.
It settled something in me. Quieted it.
This does the opposite. The knot that’s been sitting under my sternum since the rink pulls tighter.
I finish the tape and stand, the cheap apartment bulbs buzzing overhead. The bathroom mirror throws back a washed-out version of me—hair damp from the shower, jaw dark with stubble I didn’t bother to shave close enough for a gala, shadows under my eyes. I look like I’ve gone a few rounds with a heavyweight.
I look like the guy she climbed into in the shadows last night, fingers curled in my hoodie, whispering,“I don’t want to run anymore.”
By the time I’m buttoning the white dress shirt, that version of me is gone. The suit swallows me. The navy jacket is tailored, expensive. It feels like someone else’s armor. My father’s. Beatrice’s. Anyone’s but mine.
I knot the tie by muscle memory. Over, under, through. Tighten. The silk slides smooth under my taped fingers. The loop closes around my throat—a soft noose.
Less than a day ago, her hands were in the back of my hoodie, nails scraping my neck as I deepened a kiss that had been building for weeks. Now I’m adjusting a tie for people who think they own every part of me the contract didn’t spell out.
I look up.
The man in the mirror isn’t the one who walked her to her dorm door and kissed her softer, slower, like he was afraid of breaking the moment. He’s the one my father parades. Clean-cut. Polished. Contained. A brand asset in a suit.
I hate him.
My phone buzzes again.
Father:Don’t embarrass us tonight. This is the launch.
I almost laugh. As if I ever forget.
Keys. Wallet. Phone. I grab them all and head for the door before I talk myself out of it and drive to the rink instead. To the only place that’s ever felt more like mine than his.
The night outside is cold and clear, stars pinpricked above campus. My truck engine rumbles to life, steady and familiar under my hands. For a second, I just sit there with my forehead pressed to the steering wheel, eyes closed.
Talia’s weight in my lap. Her breath in my mouth. The way she’d whispered,“I need a second,”and I’d backed off like it physically hurt, because her no—even a soft, shaky one—was law.
I hang onto that feeling as long as I can.
Then I put the truck in gear and drive in the opposite direction of everything that feels like mine.
The Haverford Country Club looks like money tried to build heaven and overshot into something uglier.
White stone. Columns. Black glass. Trees wrapped in white lights so tight they look strangled. Valets in matching jackets move like an assembly line, all polished smiles and efficient hands.
I pull up, step out, and hand a kid who can’t be more than nineteen the keys to a truck I paid for with bruises and blocked shots.
“Nice ride,” he says.
I nod like I didn’t bleed for it and walk inside.
The noise hits first. Not the honest roar of a crowd. A different kind of loud. High, brittle laughter; the clink of glass; the low drone of people bragging in polite tones. A jazz quartet plays in the corner, notes smooth and slippery as oil.
“Declan.”
I smell her before I see her—perfume heavy and sweet, coating the back of my throat. Then Beatrice steps into my path like she’s hitting a mark.
Ice-blonde hair twisted into something complicated and sharp. Silver dress molded to her body like foil over a knife. Diamonds at her throat. Her smile is perfect. So are her nails as she slides a manicured hand up my chest to my tie.
“There’s my golden boy,” she croons, adjusting the knot by a millimeter. To the left. Her thumb lingers under my jaw, tilting my face toward her. “Your father will be pleased. You clean up very well.”
