“Do you really think he drags himself out of bed at stupid o’clock, does bag skates, and then voluntarily loiters outside a dojo just to cure boredom?” She snorts. “He could scroll TikTok like the rest of us.”
I don’t have a good answer for that. My brain keepsrerunning the morning instead: him leaning against the railing, sweat-dark hair, that quieter version of his voice. The one from the lab. The one that sounds like it is talking tome, not to a crowd.
We reach the lecture hall steps. Students funnel toward the doors in chattering clusters. Inside, I spot Theo near the front, already at his desk, head bent over his notebook. Glasses sliding down his nose. Pencil tapping in neat, even beats.
He does not look up.
Aubrey follows my gaze. “Yeah,” she murmurs. “Still hot. Still married to his problem sets.”
“He’s safe,” I say, softer than I mean to.
“Safe can be great,” she allows. “But safe never shows up dripping from practice to ask you to breakfast.”
“That doesn’t automatically make Kieran a good idea.”
“Never said it did.” She bumps my shoulder. “Just saying one of them is acting like you exist outside of lab reports.”
I search my memory for a time Theo invited me to anything that didn’t involve whiteboards or shared Google Docs. Dinner. A movie. One of his races. Anything.
The list comes up blank.
“Just…think about it,” Aubrey says, rescuing me from the spiral. “I’ll see you after class?”
“Yeah. I need to grab my stuff from the dorm before I catch the bus.”
She waves and disappears into the lecture hall.
I linger on the steps, coffee cooling in my hands, thoughts knotting themselves tighter.
Theo’s steady focus or Kieran’s stupid, rough-edged voice at the dojo. The guy who slots neatly into my plans orthe one who keeps showing up where he has no business being.
Known equations or problems I don’t even know how to write yet.
I tell myself staying in control is the point.
Lately, it feels more like I’m just pretending that’s true.
8
EMPTY NET (KIERAN)
The locker room smells of tape adhesive and pre-game adrenaline.
I pull my jersey over the pads, smooth the A on my chest, and check my phone one more time.
Nothing from Wren.
Why do I even bother checking? She wouldn’t text me out of the blue. She’s probably already on the bus to Queens, headphones in, reading whatever brilliant-person book she packed.
“You good?” Mason drops onto the bench beside me, already half suited.
“Yeah. Fine.”
“You’ve checked your phone like six times in the last ten minutes.”
I pocket it. “Just making sure Liam didn’t text. He said he might watch the stream.”
Mason doesn’t buy it, but he lets it go. “Big crowd tonight. Harvard always brings it.”
