In the quiet of my apartment, the notifications have slowed to a manageable drizzle. The team’s statement made the rounds; the worst of the fan hysteria has already found a new toy. I pour a glass of water and stand at the window. The city is bright without being loud—one of those afternoons where everything looks clean because the light is honest.
I unlock the phone and open Magnus’s thread.
Don’t go out with Thorn again.
It still makes heat lick low in my stomach. It shouldn’t. It’s controlling and presumptuous and absolutely him. He didn’t bother dressing it up as concern. He didn’t make it about my reputation or the team or the locker room. He made it about what he wants.
I scroll up to last night’s message.Nice view.He sent that in another mood, one that sounded almost human. He wanted to build a room we could stand in without smoke. Now he’s back to fire.
I should reply with something that pushes him away. Something that tells him where to put his arrogance. Something like:You don’t get a vote.
Instead, I set the phone on the counter and take slow sips of water until my body stops wanting to sprint somewhere it shouldn’t.
I tell myself, again, the plan I decided this morning: Fall for Kyle. Let the safe thing do its job. Let sweetness crowd out the dark. Let Saturday be enough to tip the scale. It’s a good plan. It’s also a lie I carry like a talisman against something bigger than me.
The truth is that Magnus Flint lives in my skin now. Practice wore him out of my muscles for ninety minutes; a kiss in a quiet hall washed him from my mouth for twenty. Then a single line of text brought him roaring back.
I pick up the phone. My thumb hovers over the keyboard. I don’t want to reward him. I don’t want to ignore him either. I want him to feel what I feel: the itchy-hot awareness, the almost-pain of wanting to be in the same room if only to end the static.
I type:You don’t get to tell me who I see, Flint.I stare at it, then hit send before I can smother the impulse.
The reply is instant. Like he’s been sitting with the thread open, waiting for me to breathe.
Magnus:Yes, I do.
I snort. The audacity is soothing—like yes, there he is, the man who makes a meal out of nerve. The man who looks at a rule and writes his name across it in a sharpie that bleeds.
My fingers move again before I consult my better angels.Goodnight, Flint.It’s afternoon. He’ll hear the smile in it anyway. It’s a pat on the head and a gauntlet at once.
Three dots flash, disappear, flash again. Then: nothing.
The quiet that follows is not empty; it vibrates. I feel the line between us like static woven into air. I imagine him on some couch, sprawled and restless, staring at the same words and deciding which version of himself he wants to be when he answers.
I should put the phone down. I should make a protein shake, stretch my hip flexors, watch film.
I stretch on the floor, hamstrings barking, quads humming. My body remembers the scrimmage; it remembers the kiss. It remembers a hand at my neck and a voice in my ear and a man whose texts sound like a skate blade carving into clean ice—hard, sure, loud enough to wake the bones.
When I finally check the phone again, there’s no new message. Good. Let him simmer.
I open my calendar and thumb to Saturday. I add an event:Movies. K’s place.It’s benign on the screen, just three words and a time block. But when I look at it, my chest loosens. I want what’s there: the couch, a shitty bag of microwave popcorn, a bad movie, the feel of his shoulder against mine, the oxygen of a room without outside noise.
I want that.
And I want the other thing—the thing with teeth and heat and danger. I want to stand on the knife-edge between them and see how long I can balance before I bleed.
It’s a terrible plan. I know that. I know I’ll have to pick eventually. But right now, the decisions aren’t today’s problem. Today’s problem is practice again tomorrow, a photo I didn’t ask for, a city that thinks it knows me because it learned my nickname.
? ? ?
Kyle told me to dress comfy. Which, coming from him, could mean anything betweenmovie night with take-outandimpromptu hike in January.I go with safe: soft gray sweats, a black long-sleeve tee, and a hoodie I’ve owned since college. Clean. Harmless. Non-threatening.
It’s ridiculous how much thought I put into looking like I didn’t try.
The drive to his place takes twenty minutes—enough time for my mind to wander. The radio hums under the sound of my tires on the asphalt, the kind of dull rhythm that leaves room for ghosts. I picture the text from Magnus still glowing somewhere in my phone memory like a live wire.Don’t go out with Thorn again.
By the time I pull into Kyle’s neighborhood—a quiet patch of brick townhouses softened by streetlamps—I’ve convinced myself that this is exactly what I need: normal. A friend’s smile. A movie. Maybe something resembling peace.
Kyle opens the door before I even knock. He’s barefoot, hair damp from a shower, wearing joggers and a loose Titans hoodie. He looks disarmingly at home.
