Tyler was already inhaling his food like he’d forgotten the conversation.
Emily shot Tyler a look that could’ve curdled milk. “Do you ever... not drop chaos and then eat?”
Tyler shrugged with his mouth full. “Multitasking?”
Emily turned her gaze back to me, sweet now. “Hey, don’t let him get under your skin already.”
Too late. Alex had been under my skin since the second I saw his boat this morning.
I exhaled. “I’m fine.”
Emily didn’t look convinced, but she let it go—for now. “Just... don’t kill yourself over this.”
I nodded, though the truth sat heavy in my chest.
The rivalry was back on, and there was nothing I could do to get away from it.
Chapter 4: Alex
Ethan walked beside me, sipping his iced oat-milk latte. The whole unsanctioned sprint with Liam had scrambled my head. Over the last few months, my feelings for Liam had started to fade. But seeing him this morning brought everything back like we’d just kissed for the first time.
“Okay,” he said, lifting his cup at me, “you look like you’re plotting arson.”
“I’m not plotting anything.”
“Alex,” Ethan said, “your eyebrows are trying to stab each other.”
“They’re not.”
“Oh, they are.” He grinned.
I shoved my hands into my pockets. This morning’s race with Liam kept replaying in flashes—river spray, oar pulls, forearms flexing, the fire in his eyes.
Ethan nudged my shoulder. “What’s up with you today? You seem off.”
“Just stressed about the scrimmage.”
“Mm.” He didn’t push. That was the thing about Ethan—he knew when to let things sit.
We crossed through the main quad. Morning light cut through the ancient oaks, scattering shadows across the brick pathways. Students streamed past us.
“Hey, you never told me about your summer, you were in Berlin, right?”
His whole face changed. “Oh my god, yes. So I was supposed to be doing this documentary internship—filming civic infrastructure projects…”
“Sounds thrilling.”
“It was not. But then I met this group of filmmakers doing underground art parties in abandoned spaces. Warehouses, old factories, this one condemned theater. They needed someone to do video documentation.”
“So you ditched the internship?”
“I did it for four days,” Ethan said, grinning. “Then I spent the rest of summer following these artists around. There was this one night in an old train station—they’d set up projection mapping, live music, people painting murals in real time. Pure chaos. Beautiful chaos.”
We turned down the path toward the law building. The stone walls rose up on either side of us, ivy climbing the brick in thick tangles. Ethan’s voice had gone quieter, more real.
“Nobody cared about anything except what you were creating in that moment. No résumés, no family names, no five-year plans. Just... what you brought to the space.”
Something tightened in my chest.
