“I know I can.” His voice was certain. Almost arrogant. “Question is whether you can keep up.”
My throat tightened. “Keep up?”
“Yeah. This isn’t a regatta. Just you and me breaking into a building.” He leaned against Noah’s desk. “You gonna freezewhen it matters? Can you actually handle pressure outside of a boat?”
The challenge in his voice made anger spike through my chest.
I stared him down. “I can handle it.”
“Can you? Because last time things got hard, you ran. Chose Kingswell. Chose the easy path.”
The words hung there.
Liam’s jaw tightened the second they left his mouth. Something flickered across his face—a crack in the armor. Shouldn’t have said that.
His eyes cut to Noah, quick, like he needed to gauge if Noah would know what it meant. If Noah would get that we had spent the summer before freshman year kissing.
We stared at each other. The room felt smaller suddenly. Too warm. The air between us charged with everything we weren’t saying.
Noah cleared his throat again, louder this time. “Okay. Great. Love the energy. Very inspiring.” He held up a pair of earbuds. “Can we focus? You’ll both wear these. Connect them to Liam’s phone. I’ll be on the line the whole time, guiding you through the building, telling you where to go.”
I looked up at Noah, glad that he kept pushing the whole thing forward. Not questioning. I had to say something to keep the conversation moving in any direction away from Liam’s comment.
“This feels like a bank heist," I said.
“Less money, same adrenaline,” Noah said, grinning. Then his expression shifted—something playful. “Besides, this is only my second time committing organized crime. I’m practically a professional now.”
Liam snorted. “The poker thing doesn’t count.”
“The disciplinary probation says it counts.”
“You were dealing cards in a basement, not breaking into a secure server room.”
“Still crime.” Noah handed us each an earbud. “Still organized.”
I turned the tiny device over in my hand. “Your friend really gave you all this? The blueprints, the deletion script, the earbuds?”
“He owed me a favor,” Noah said. “And he’s very good at what he does. This will work. The earbuds are mine, don’t worry, I cleaned them.”
The room felt smaller suddenly. The three of us standing too close, the weight of what we were about to do pressing down.
“What if there are cameras?” I asked.
“There are,” Noah said. “But I don’t think they’re being monitored. And if you don’t get caught there will be no reason for them to check the tape.”
Liam picked up his earbud. “What’s the timeline?”
“Building closes at eleven. Security does one sweep at eleven-thirty. After that, the place is empty until six AM.” Noah pulled up another window—some kind of security schedule. “You go in at midnight. In and out in twenty minutes, max.”
Twenty minutes.
I tried to steady my breathing.
This was insane. If we got caught, it wouldn’t just be the video that destroyed us. It would be breaking and entering. Tampering with university property. We’d both be expelled.
But if we didn’t do this, the video stayed out there. A ticking bomb that could go off any time.
Liam was watching me. “You scared?”
