Remember donors, sponsors, players’ families. We stick to the story. No surprises.
As if last night didn’t already knock something loose in me. I meant to keep my distance at dinner. Be polite, be present, get through it. Instead, I spent half the night watching the way her shoulders slowly dropped, how she started talking back to Cole and teasing Ramona and cutting vegetables like she had always belonged in that kitchen. Now I’m supposed to walk into a gala with her on my arm and pretend none of that meant anything. No wonder I can’t breathe right.
The door opens, and everything in me short-circuits.
Alycia stands framed in the warm light of her apartment. I knew she’d look good, but this is something else entirely. The first thing my brain registers is the color. Deep green, the kind that looks almost black in shadow but flashes rich emerald when she moves. The dress clings and skims in all the right places, soft fabric catching the light like it’s holding secrets. It dips at the neckline just enough that the simple gold necklace at her throat draws my eyes and refuses to let go.
Her hair is mostly down, pulled back just enoughto show the clean line of her jaw and the softness at her mouth. Gold heels make her a few inches closer to my height, which shouldn’t make my pulse pick up, but it does. I do a quick check for words and find exactly none.
She is… fuck. A problem.
“Hi,” she says, a little breathless. Her hand smooths down the side of her dress like she’s second-guessing choices she has no business doubting.
What comes out of me is barely human. “Wow.”
Her mouth tips into a wry little curve, like she knows exactly what she looks like and doesn’t believe it. “Good, wow, or oh no, this is a disaster, wow?”
“Definitely not a disaster.” I clear my throat, trying to sound like a functioning adult. “You look… incredible.”
Color touches her cheeks, quick and soft. “You clean up pretty well yourself, Hendrix.”
I wish she hadn’t said that, or maybe I’m glad she did, because the way she looks at me when she says it lands like she sees more than the suit and the tie she selected for the cameras.
“You ready?” she asks, pulling the door closed behind her.
I should say yes and make a joke about having her schedule memorized or how Cooper will have a coronary if we’re late. Instead, my chest tightens, and what comes out is the truth.
“I don’t know,” I admit quietly.
Her eyes lift, surprised and searching. There is nopress room, no microphone, just my uncertainty hanging between us. She inhales, steadying herself. “What do you mean?”
“Last night.” I shake my head because it feels too big for my chest. “The way you looked at me and my family keeps replaying in my head. I don’t know how to walk into a room with you tonight and pretend it didn’t happen.”
She goes still, and I wish I could grab the words and shove them back down, pretend I never said them. Then she exhales, a fraught breath pulled from somewhere deeper than her lungs.
“Kyle…”
Just the way she says my name sounds like something caught between longing and fear, a confession wrapped inside a single syllable, urging me to step closer.
“I’m not great at pretending,” I admit, voice dropping. “Not with you. And tonight… I just don’t know how easy it’s going to be.”
The truth is out in the open between us, quiet and dangerous. Her fingers flex once at her side like she’s fighting the urge to reach for me, or maybe she’s fighting exactly what I am, how real this is feeling.
“Then we’ll just…” She swallows, finds steadiness by force. “Handle it as it comes.”
Her voice is calm, but there’s a tremor in her eyes. She nods once, chin tipping in the smallest pact I have ever felt hit this hard.
She steps past me toward the elevator, and my bodyfollows even before my brain decides to. We stand side by side, too close and not close enough, staring at the closed elevator doors like they’re some kind of test.
I know she’s replaying what I said the same way I am. When the elevator arrives, she moves to step in. I lift my arm, not blocking her, just giving her a second.
“Are we okay?” I ask.
“She nods almost immediately, but her eyes flick down the length of my chest in a quick sweep she probably doesn’t even register. My heartbeat answers for me as we step into the elevator. The doors slide shut with a soft hum that swallows us into a small, private box. For a moment, it’s just the soft whir of the lift and the sound of her breathing beside me.
She keeps her gaze aimed forward, but her voice is just a little unsteady when she says, “Do you really think that tie is better on camera?”
I almost laugh, because of course, she is grabbing for neutral ground. For something she can control. “It is, but that’s not why I’m wearing it.”
