Chapter 37: Finn
The bus smells likesweat, rubber, warm gear, and victory.Usually it’s a good smell.Tonight it makes my chest tight.
I drop into a seat halfway down the aisle, stick bag wedged between my legs, helmet rattling against the window as I move.The light is dim, those yellowish overhead strips that make everything look softer than it should.I’m sweating through my undershirt even though my gear is already half off.My breath won’t settle.
I keep looking at her.
Wren sits near the front, tucked against the window, hands in her sleeves like she’s hiding her fingers from the whole damn world.Her forehead rests lightly against the glass.There’s a tiny crease between her eyebrows—the one that means she’s thinking too hard.Or trying not to.
Kael sits across from her aisle seat, posture steady, knees spread like he’s balancing the entire bus on his spine.Atlas sits one row behind them, elbow on the seat in front of him, jaw grinding like someone owes him an apology for the air existing wrong.
I tug off my elbow pad and scrub a hand through my hair.I’m still riding the high from the game—goal, assist, chirps that landed—but it’s laced with something darker.Something that started the second I saw her face tighten in the second period.Something that hasn’t let go since.
Fear.
Not mine.Hers.
She smiled after we scored.It was real.Bright.The kind that makes you want to earn another one just to see it again.And then...something shifted.Subtle.Quiet.But I felt it—like someone flicked off one of the arena lights inside her and left the rest buzzing too loud.
I want to fix it.
I don’t know how.
“Quit staring before you burn a hole in her,” Mason mutters from the seat behind me, smirking into his protein bar wrapper.
I flip him off without looking.He laughs.
Kael glances back, eyes scanning the bus the way he scans the neutral zone—quick, precise, cataloging everything.When his gaze hits me, I drop my eyes to my phone like I’m checking stats.I’m not.
I’m checking her again.
She’s too still.She gets still when she’s scared.And the thing is—she’s trying so damn hard not to show it.She’s holding herself tight, shoulders drawn in like she’s conserving heat.Or composure.
I stand before I can talk myself out of it.
Kael’s gaze shifts, tracking me.Atlas’s fingers tap once against his seat—a silent acknowledgment, not a warning, not permission, just...awareness.
