He nods, gaze dropping back to his sneakers.
“I play basketball,” I offer, for no reason except to fill the quiet. “I wanted to be at camp with my dad this week. But, you know, parents.”
Noah’s mouth twitches, the ghost of a smile, and I think maybe he understands more than I gave him credit for. “Yeah. Parents.”
We stand there, not quite looking at each other, letting the summer sun bleed the tension away. I think about how this is supposed to be the start of something new. How everyone wants us to play nice, to blend, to fit together like puzzle pieces. Maybeit won’t be as bad as I thought. Maybe, with eyes like that and the way his mouth curves when he’s nervous, this won’t be the worst summer of my life.
I just wish I knew what I am supposed to do with a kid who looks at the world like it’s something to be survived.
“Want to see my jump shot?” I ask, desperate for anything but silence.
Noah glances up, and this time, when he smiles, it’s real—small, but there. “Okay,” he says quietly.
Maybe this isn’t so bad after all.
Noah
20 Years Old
Theonethingnoone tells you about perfection is how much of yourself you lose in pursuit of it.
Goal weight. Best scores. Fastest. Better. Best.
Perfection isn’t a goal. It’s a punishment I’ve been chasing since the day I learned to hold my breath underwater longer than the other kids. My father said I had the bones of a champion, while my mother said I had the face of a star.
Neither of them asked whether I wanted to be either of those things—they just handed me the mold and told me to fit into it. No room for softness. No room for failure.
No room forme.
So, I broke off pieces of myself. Little ones, at first. The appetite, the weight, the attitude. Then the bigger ones—the dreams I never said aloud. The parts of me that didn’t fit into the son I was supposed to be: swimmer and supermodel prodigy. I shaved myself down until I could pass inspection, until nobody could see the mess underneath.
Only two people knew me best, and one of them I’m about to see for the first time in years.
Ryan Torres.
He’s been my best friend since the first year of high school and has become the only person who’s ever seen me without the mask. And that’s precisely why I trusted him when he told me living here would be perfect, even if the housing was temporary. That it would be a fresh start and a place I could just be Noah again.
Whatever the hell that means.
As I near the place he called the Sin Bin, I tell myself that I’m ready for this. That there hasn’t been a gnawing pit in my stomach since I got back from my father’s training camp in California. That this swimming scholarship is an accomplishment, not a prison sentence.
But as I turn into a long-ass driveway, any trace of that internal illusion dies a quick death.
I expected a house. Maybe a nicer one than your average college guy crash pad, but still—walls, a roof, and the smells of Axe body spray and microwave popcorn. What I did not expect was a goddamn mansion. Three stories tall, tinted windows, black stone exterior, manicured lawns, and…is that a goddamn fountain?!
“Holy shit,” I mutter to myself, cutting the engine as I stare up at the place. “Ryan, what the hell did you sign me up for?”
This looks like a place that belongs to someone with a trust fund and a private jet, not a bunch of college athletes. This is private-school rich.Legacy rich.The kind of place I wanted to get away from.
The front door swings open before I can second-guess or make a run for it. Ryan steps out with that same easy grin he’s had since high school. That grin got us into trouble, got us out of trouble, and somehow made everything in between a littlemore bearable. His dark curls are tied up, and he’s wearing a sleeveless red hoodie, and black basketball shorts.
He jogs down the stone steps and toward the car before I even open the door, and I’m out a second later, pulling my hoodie tighter over my frame. The sun is too bright, the air too warm, but my skin still prickles the second I step outside.
“Noah!” he shouts, waving both arms like a maniac. “About damn time, bro. I thought you crashed or chickened out.”
“I didn’t chicken out, jackass. GPS sent me around the lake.Twice. Also—” I gesture to the massive house. “—you forgot to mention you’re living in a damn palace. This place has a chandelier in the window, Ryan.”
“Welcome to the Sin Bin: home of bad decisions, elite athletes, and questionable life choices,” he says with a grin. “Told you it was a good deal.”
