“Straight ahead. Take the hallway to the end, then stairs on your left. Basement level,” Noah said.
I started walking. Alex fell into step beside me.
Our footsteps echoed too loud in the silence. Every sound felt amplified—the sounds of our footsteps, the rustle of our jackets, my own breathing.
Alex moved through the dark hallway like he belonged here—shoulders back, head up, that Kingswell confidence even when he was terrified. The emergency lights caught his profile every few steps. Sharp jaw. Smooth skin.
A heat built in my chest with every look.
Stop. Focus.
But my brain wouldn’t cooperate.
Since I’d beaten Alex in that race, I’d thought it was over. Thought I’d buried that summer for good. Thought the anger would be enough to keep everything else locked down.
But I hadn’t spent this much time with him since the lake. Hadn’t been this close. And it was doing something to me—something I couldn’t control.
We’d taken the double scull out at sunrise. Just the two of us on the water, mist rising, the whole world quiet except for our blades cutting through glass-smooth surface. That stupid, perfect morning when we’d rowed together like we’d been born for it. Like the boat knew us. Like we knew each other.
We’d stopped in the middle of the lake. Let the boat drift. And Alex had looked at me like he felt what I felt.
I should have kissed him then, but I didn’t.
Three weeks later, I did.
That night at the party, and the space between us just... collapsed. His lips on mine. Soft at first, then desperate.
It was everything.
Not like kissing girls. Not like anything I’d felt before. It was right in a way that made every other kiss feel like practice.
I shoved the memory down. Tried to push it back into the locked box where I kept everything I couldn’t afford to feel.
This wasn’t then. This was a problem to solve. Get in, delete the file, get out. Simple.
Except nothing about this was simple. The feelings weren’t just seeping in anymore. It wasn’t a slow leak I could bail out and ignore.
It was like the water was flowing in, sinking the boat. No matter how hard I bailed, no matter how many walls I put up, it kept coming. Alex’s presence beside me. The smell of him. The way his breathing matched mine in the dark. The feel of the heat coming off his body even though we weren’t touching.
I wanted to reach out. Grab his hand. Pull him close and—
Stop.
“End of the hallway. Stairs on your left,” Noah said in my ear.
I found them. A metal door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY in yellow letters.
I pushed it open.
The stairwell was concrete and cold. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead. Our footsteps clanged on the metal stairs as we descended. The sound echoed up and down the shaft.
Too loud. Way too loud.
“You’re stomping,” Alex said.
“I’m not stomping.”
“You sound like you’re trying to wake the entire building.”
