Before I can be sure, she yanks her arm in tight, hugging the jersey to her chest like a shield.
“Are you okay, Tessa?” The words leave my mouth without thought.
She blinks at me, her big brown eyes flashing wide. Fear flickers there before she forces out, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”
She stammers through her thanks and turns to leave.
“Do you want a picture?” I call after her.
She hesitates just long enough to look over her shoulder. That’s when I see it plainly—fear. Raw and unmasked. Her throat works around a swallow as she takes another step, widening the distance between us.
She shakes her head fast, almost frantic, and hurries off.
I’m left staring after her, confused and unsettled by every second of our brief interaction. I glance at Finn to my right and Max to my left, hoping one of them caught something, anything. But they’re both talking to fans, completely oblivious.
I wish I had a witness. Someone else to tell me I didn’t imagine it. Because something was off about her. Way off.
But why? Why would anything be off? I wasn’t rude or intimidating. I didn’t do anything out of line.
Still…
I swear she was afraid.
The hours fly by in a blur. I smile for pictures and sign my autograph, chatting with each fan. I give them the same grin, the same quick comments about last night’s win, the same responses I’ve said a hundred times today. On the surface, I’m here—engaged, upbeat, and doing exactly what’s expected.
But while I’m physically present, my mind is miles away on the fearful girl with the big brown eyes and the honey-blond hair.
Every time I scribble my name on a jersey, I’m thinking about the way her fingers trembled when she took hers back. Every time someone leans in for a photo, I’m replaying the moment she bolted away from me. I try to focus on the fansin front of me, but Tessa keeps slipping in, uninvited and relentless.
I don’t know her. I don’t know anything about her except her name and the way she said it—soft, careful, like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to take up space. Something about her has gotten under my skin, catching on something in me that I can’t seem to shake loose.
“Miss me?”
The next fan steps up, the voice familiar. I look up and see my companion from last night. I force a smile.
“Hey, Macy,” I say, and her face lights right up at the sound of her name. I silently thank Finn for that one.
“Sorry I left so early this morning,” she says. “But I knew I’d see you at this event. I don’t think we even exchanged numbers.”
“Yeah, I don’t think we did,” I answer.
There’s a flicker of something in my chest, an echo of that split second this morning when I realized she’d left without a trace and the pang of disappointment I felt. That feeling, whatever it was, has vanished.
“Do you want a picture or an autograph?” I ask.
Her expression falls, the hope draining from her face. “Oh.” She frowns. “A picture, I guess.”
“Great.” I offer her the same easy smile I give everyone else, and we lean in for a quick shot. I thank her for coming out, stepping back just slightly, enough to make it clear the moment is over.
I don’t have it in me to let her down gently with an explanation she doesn’t need. She’s a smart woman. She reads the room fast. She doesn’t offer her number, and she walks away without hesitation.
Macy is beautiful. There’s no denying that. But nothing about her registers the way it did last night.
The only thing I can think about is Tessa and the fear in those deep brown eyes that won’t let me go.
CHAPTER
THREE
