"We need Noah," Alex said.
"Noah's already carrying enough of my shit."
"This isn't about carrying your shit. Someone is threatening us and Noah is the smartest person we know."
I stared at Alex's floor. Perfectly organized. Not a shoe out of place. The room of someone who controlled everything he could because the things he couldn't control were closing in.
"Let's just talk to him tomorrow."
"Fine. Tomorrow."
It was late and there was nothing we could really do tonight. The anger was draining. Leaving behind something worse—the hollow, gutted feeling of the best weekend of your life cratering into the worst night. Days ago I was kissing Alex on a covered bridge. Now I was looking at a photo of a different kiss, weaponized, on a cracked phone screen.
Alex stepped toward me. Put his hand flat on my chest, over my heart.
"Stay," he said.
"If someone sees me leaving in the morning—"
"I don't care about tomorrow morning." His voice cracked. "I need you here tonight. And you need me."
The deal was cracking. Had been cracking since the shower. Since the bridge. Since the first morning in the boathouse. But it didn't matter, tonight we needed each other.
"Yeah. Okay."
We didn't have sex. Changed into whatever Alex had that fit me—his sweatpants too tight, a Kingswell t-shirt that smelled like his detergent. Got into his bed.
He turned off the light. The room went dark except for the glow of campus through the window and the radiator ticking.
Alex pressed his back against my chest. I wrapped my arm around his waist. His heartbeat against my forearm — fast, then slower, then steady.
"Today was still good," he said. His voice small. The voice of someone holding onto something that was slipping. "The time. The dinner. That was real. This doesn't erase it."
I kissed the back of his neck.
"Two photos," I said. "Theirs and ours. Ours is better."
He almost laughed. Not quite—the exhale of someone who needed to but couldn't get all the way there.
"Yeah," he said. "Ours is better."
I tightened my arm around him. His hand found mine on his stomach. Laced our fingers together. Held tight.
Tomorrow we'd go to Noah. Tomorrow we'd figure out who was watching.
Tonight, I held him.
And for now, that was enough.
Chapter 11: Alex
Iwoke up alone.
Liam had left before dawn—slipped out of bed, pulled on his shoes in the dark, kissed my forehead so lightly I might have dreamed it. By the time I opened my eyes, the only evidence he'd been there was the dent in the pillow and the faint smell of him on my sheets.
The photo was still on my phone.
Not the one from the anonymous texter—the other one. The selfie from the bridge. I checked it before I checked anything else. First thing every morning now—unlock the screen, stare at two guys grinning on a covered bridge in the middle of nowhere, and remind myself that the version of us in that photo was real. That it wasn't something I'd invented. That somewhere underneath the texts and the fear and the performance, that day had actually happened.
