“No. Not nothing.”
The memory hits low and hard as soon as I say it—dark gym, cold wall, her mouth one inch away, the look in her eyes when she said she was all in.
Leo sees it on my face and mutters, “Oh, damn.”
I nod.
“Yeah.”
Jade folds her arms.
“What happened?”
“I told her when I got back, we were doing this. All in. No one playing games or getting cold feet.”
Jade’s face softens a fraction.
“That’s actually good.”
“I know.”
“She believed you?”
I think about Stella’s face in that half light. About the way she looked at me—not gullible, not dreamy, not easy. Just steady. Like she was handing me one final chance to be the man I kept pretending I was.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I think she did.”
Leo watches me for a second, then says, “So what’s the plan?”
I shrug.
“Get back. Make her mine.”
“Define make her mine,” Jade says immediately.
I almost answer too fast.
“Alone. Somewhere private. Door locked.”
Jade’s jaw drops.
“Tristan.”
I blink.
“What?”
“No.” She points at me through the screen like I’m a disappointing intern. “Absolutely not.”
Leo starts laughing before I even figure out why.
I sit up straighter.
“Why not I’m not a saint?”
Jade looks personally offended.
“After all this?” she says. “After years of unresolved tension, betrayal trauma, longing, emotional damage, and whatever dark-academia-athlete nonsense you two have going on? You do not get back from a road trip and immediately disappear with her behind a closed door.”
