Even if it sets back months of progress and opens doors I worked hard to close.
Even if the smoke fills my lungs and reminds me of all the reasons I should not be doing this.
I shove my feet into my shoes, grab my keys from the counter, and head for the door.
I might as well start smoking again.
CHAPTER 23
Firecracker
~ETIENNE~
Friday.
The word has been running through my head on repeat since I woke up this morning, a single syllable carrying the weight of plans I have been too nervous to think about directly. Friday. The day the administration decided to cancel afternoon classes due to curriculum restructuring for the semester. The day that leaves the afternoon wide open, hours stretching before us like a blank page waiting to be written on.
The day I am going to take Mae on a date.
I stare at the clock mounted above the lecture hall door, watching the minute hand inch forward with the agonizing slowness of a glacier carving through rock. Professor Harrison is still droning on about economic theory, her voice a steady hum that washes over me without penetrating. I should be taking notes. Should be paying attention. Should be doing anything other than fixating on the clock face like it holds the secrets of the universe.
But I cannot focus on anything except the countdown.
Seventeen minutes until class ends.
Seventeen minutes until I can turn to Mae, who is sitting in the seat beside me with her pen moving across her notebookin focused concentration, and ask her if she wants to spend the afternoon with me.
My palms are sweating.
This is ridiculous. I am twenty-three years old, a starting goalie for the university hockey team, a man who has faced down slap shots traveling at ninety miles per hour without flinching. And yet the thought of asking an Omega to lunch has reduced me to a nervous wreck with damp hands and a heart rate that belongs in a cardio ward.
Get it together, Laurent. You have faced scarier things than a date.
Have I, though? Have I really?
Mae shifts in her seat beside me, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear as she leans forward to scribble something in her notebook. The movement wafts her scent in my direction, vanilla sugar and frosted roses curling through the lecture hall's recycled air, and I have to grip my pen tighter to maintain composure.
She has no idea.
No idea that I have spent the past three days working up the courage for this moment. No idea that there is a change of clothes in my car for her, carefully selected during a shopping trip that Cal found hilarious and I found deeply stressful. No idea that I have mapped out the afternoon with the kind of strategic precision I usually reserve for analyzing opposing teams' offensive plays.
The memory of planning this surfaces unbidden, pulling me back to two nights ago when the pieces finally came together...
Mae had fallen asleep on the couch.
It happened gradually, the way sleep claims people who have been fighting it without realizing. One moment she was watching the movie Cal had insisted on, laughing at the comedic timing and making comments about the plot holes. The next, her head was tilting against the cushion, her eyes drifting closed, her breathing evening out into the steady rhythm of someone who has lost their battle with consciousness.
Cal nudged my arm, gesturing toward her with raised eyebrows.
"Should we wake her?" he whispered. "She cannot be comfortable like that. Her neck is going to kill her in the morning."
I shook my head.
"Let her sleep. She has been running on fumes since she got here. Between the classes and the ice demonstration and the knee injury, her body probably shut down the moment she stopped moving."
Cal nodded, then attempted to wake her anyway because Cal has never been good at following suggestions that conflict with his immediate impulses.
"Mae," he said softly, shaking her shoulder. "MaeBell. Hey. You fell asleep. Let us get you to an actual bed."
