“Huh.”
I looked down at my phone again.
At Stella’s name in the thread.
AtHurry back.
At the whole wildfire path we’d lit between us in less than forty-eight hours.
“Thought she’d mess me up,” I said quietly.
Kane followed my gaze.
“And?”
I smiled before I could stop it.
“She makes me better.”
He let that sit.
Then he grinned.
“I’m happy for you and her. And I have my own girl, now.”
“TR?”
“Huh?”
“Track girl.”
“Yeah, what can I say after T&T— the #TR hashtag blew up.”
I laughed and shoved him away.
But after he got up, after the noise swelled again and Coach started talking and guys started stripping tape off wrists and ankles, I sat there with that truth warm and settled in my chest.
Stella wasn’t a distraction.
She was the firestarter.
The spark.
The thing that hit steel and made it remember it could throw sparks too. Her love—if I was brave enough to call it that—didn’t take me off course.
It turned the whole damn road electric.
I unlocked my phone and typed before I could second-guess it.
Won.
Thirty-two.
You started it.
I looked at the message, smiled once, and added:
You’re not a distraction, Stells.
