“Don’t what?”
“Pretend,” he snaps. “Pretend you don’t know exactly what you’re doing.”
My pulse kicks up, loud in my ears. “And what exactly am I doing, Coach?”
Silas’s hand curls into a fist against the wall. He steps in just enough that my back brushes the opposite side, thehallway suddenly very, very small.
“Playing with fire,” he says.
I swallow.
“Funny,” I whisper. “You’re the one who walked into Riot knowing I come here.”
Silas’s eyes darken—heat simmering into something volcanic.
His fist shifts against the wall, knuckles white, and his whole body goes taut, like he’s holding himself back with every ounce of control he has left.
Then he growls.
Low. Rough. Unmistakably possessive.
The sound coils around my spine and lodges somewhere deep in my chest, shattering every ounce of chill I was pretending to have. That is hot.
He leans in—not slowly, but as though something snapped—and I feel it before it happens. The heat of his breath. The shift in his posture. The split-second of hesitation that feels like gravity letting go.
He’s going to kiss me.
Right here. In the hallway. In the middle of a packed club with my friends just around the corner and a hundred reasons why this should never happen.
And maybe part of me wants it.
But the rest of me—the part still aching from how he fucked me against the lockers, then shut down, benched me for a non-injury, and how he looks at me like a problem and not a person—panics.
My heart jackhammers. My breath catches. And before his mouth can touch mine, I duck—quick, right under his arm—and stumble a step back.
“Don’t,” I breathe.
He freezes. I don’t know which one of us is more surprised.
His eyes flash—shock, hurt, something else—and he straightens slowly, dragging his hand down the wall like he needs it to keep himself grounded.
I back away another step, pulse in my throat. He doesn’t chase me. Doesn’t speak. He watches, still braced in the hallway like he’s afraid if he moves, something will break.
Maybe it already has.
I don’t wait to find out.
I turn and disappear into the bathroom, turning the lock with shaking fingers and brace both palms against the door like it’ll keep the whole fucking night from collapsing on top of me.
My lungs feel tight. My throat burns. What the hell was that?
He didn’t kiss me—but healmostdid. And for one blinding second, Iwantedhim to.
Stupid. So stupid.
I press my forehead against the cool metal, trying to force my heart back into rhythm.
From the other side of the door, muffled music pulses like a second heartbeat—louder, faster, harder. I suck in a breath and back away from the door, heading to the sink. My reflection looks like a stranger. Flushed cheeks. Wide eyes. Lips still parted as if they’re waiting for something that never came.
