The phone buzzes again. Something tightens in my stomach as I pick it up and swipe to answer. "What do you want, Kevin?"
"Hey, Iris." The voice isn't Kevin's. It's lower, rougher, and carrying that specific blend of confidence and entitlement that makes my shoulders go rigid before my brain even processes who's speaking. "Figured you wouldn't pick up if you saw my name."
Chad.
My jaw locks. "Why are you using Kevin's phone to call me?"
"Had to get creative. You blocked my number after the last time, remember?" He says it casually, like circumventing someone's boundaries is a minor logistical challenge rather than a violation. "But I gotta be honest with you. I need to know what's going on."
"What's going on with what?"
"With the Vark twins." The playfulness drops from his voice. "Are you dating Milo? Or is it Quentin? Because I've been watching, and something's different. You're different around them."
My fingers tighten around the phone. The bathroom feels smaller than it did thirty seconds ago, the steam pressing in on my nerves. "What is wrong with you? Why are you calling me about my private life?"
"Because it affects the team, Iris. It affects all of us." His voice hardens, the entitled charm giving way to something uglier underneath. "You're the coach's daughter. You work with the athletic department. If you're hooking up with players, that's a conflict of interest, and your father—"
Fucking asshole thinks the rules apply to only him and no one else. "Don't."
"I'll take this to your father right now." The words land like he's been rehearsing them. "They'll get kicked off the team and everyone will know it's your fault. Coach won't have a choice."
The air leaves my lungs in a controlled exhale. "Are you threatening me right now?"
"I'm being honest with you. Someone has to be."
"This goes both ways, Chad." I keep my voice flat, stripped of everything except a bit of my Alpha bark. "I just have to tell my father that one of his players is harassing and attempting to blackmail his daughter. Without any actual proof, I might add."
There’s a pause, the briefest crack in his confidence. Then he fills it. "You're not all that careful, Iris. And Milo is so fucking obvious. His scent turns into a candy store every time you walk within ten feet of him. The whole team's noticed."
"That he likes me?" My lip curls in frustration. "So? Half the team has a crush on someone. You're obvious as fuck too, Chad.Forty-seven rejections and counting. You want to talk about obvious?"
"This is different—"
"This is entirely inappropriate. Don't call me from Kevin's phone again. Don't call me from anyone's phone. We're done."
I hang up before he can respond. The phone hits the counter harder than I intended, the sound cracking through the quiet bathroom, and I stand there with my hands braced on the edge of the sink, staring at my reflection in the fogged mirror.
From the outside, I look exactly the same as I did five minutes ago, before Chad Mercer reached through the phone and pressed his thumb against every crack I've been trying to hold closed.
That's the part that scares me. Not the threat itself, but how practiced I am at absorbing it. How quickly my body locks everything down, routing the panic into some deep internal compartment where it can't reach my face or my voice or my scent. I've been doing this my entire life. Tucking the messy parts away, presenting the composed surface, and being the Alpha everyone expects me to be.
And right now, the composed surface is the only thing keeping me upright.
I leave the bathroom and head straight for the kitchen table, opening my laptop again from this morning, and refocus on the budget documents spread across the surface. My hands need something to do. My brain needs numbers, structure, and the skeleton of something that makes sense. I pull up the equipment spreadsheet I've been putting off, the one due to the athletic department on Tuesday, and start entering figures.
The numbers don't register. I type them anyway.
Milo comes out of the bedroom wearing my shirt. It hangs past his thighs, the collar slipping off one shoulder, his hair still damp from the shower and curling at the ends. Under any other circumstances, the sight of him in my clothes would make mystomach flip. I'd pull him close and breathe him in and tell him he looks good in my things.
Instead, I keep my eyes on the screen.
"Hey." He leans against the kitchen doorframe. "You okay? You were fine when I went to clean up and now you're..."
"I'm good." I pull up another spreadsheet. "Just getting a head start on the equipment report."
He doesn't move from the doorway. His head tilts, his eyes tracking the way my jaw is set and the way my fingers are hitting the keys harder than they need to. He knew my body thirty minutes ago. He can read the difference. "Did something happen while I was in the shower?"
"Nothing happened. I just need to get this done."
