Because if I let myself admit what this really meant, that after twenty-six years of chasing the same lane, the same clock, the same impossible standard?—
I might be running out of water.
And I’d die before I let Roxie Montgomery be the one to witness me break.
CHAPTER 2
ROXIE
Ipower walked down the sidewalk, my ponytail bouncing with each irritated step, trying, and failing, to shake off the encounter I’d just had.
Of all the people to run into on my evening walk around campus, it had to be him.
Ledger Hayes.
A dripping, brooding mass of muscle and attitude, dark hair a wet mess, dark eyes fixed somewhere between a scowl and that infuriating almost-smirk he wore like armor. He somehow managed to irritate me just by breathing in my direction.
And he’d been extra unbearable today. Snapping. Scowling. Drenched like he’d crawled straight out of a chlorine vat and stomped into my path solely to ruin my day, water darkening the beige hoodie clinging to his shoulders, his stupidly muscular thighs on full display thanks to his tight blue swim jammers that left very little to the imagination.
My gaze had snagged for half a second longer than necessary.
I hated that I noticed. Hated that my pulse kicked up like my body had missed the memo that I couldn’t stand him.
But the part that stuck with me, annoying and persistent, was that something seemed off.
Not in anOh wow, he finally grew a personalityway. Not even in anOh dear, he’s even more of a menace todayway.
More like …
He hadn’t called me Roxanne.
Healwayscalled me Roxanne at least once during our interactions. Loudly. Wrongly. Intentionally. Because he knew it wasn’t my name. Because it annoyed me. Because Ledger Hayes lived solely to irritate me.
But today? Nothing. JustRoxie.My actual name. And not thrown like a dart, either. Delivered quietly. Distractedly.
And for reasons I absolutely refused to unpack, it landed low in my belly instead of bouncing harmlessly off my armor.
I slowed my steps.
He’d looked … tired. His dark brown eyes didn’t have their usual spark, exhaustion clinging to him, and his dark hair fell forward like he hadn’t bothered fixing it after the pool. It softened him in a way that was deeply inconvenient.
And I’d sensed irritation, yes, but not at me. More like … at the world in general. Or at a weight only he seemed to be carrying.
I shook my head. “Nope. Don’t care,” I muttered to myself, picking up my pace again.
I didn’t care about Ledger. He was a mutual acquaintance among friends. A nuisance. An annoyingly tall, broad-shouldered nuisance who took up too much visual space and far too much mental bandwidth for someone I allegedly disliked. A man whose moods swung between scowl and deeper scowl. Well, maybe only when it came to me. He was actually more a life-of-the-party kind of guy, but with us it had been hate at first sight.
So whatever his deal was today, it wasn’t my problem.
Even if something inside me—something small, traitorous, and nosy—wondered whether he was okay.
I shoved that thought so far down, it fell through the emotional floorboards.
The only person I needed to worry about was me.
Which was becoming increasingly terrifying, considering I still wasn’t entirely sure who “me” was outside of my last name, my parents’ expectations, and a trust fund I refused to touch.
Which was depressing enough.
