Just that electric touch, lingering longer than it should have.
I pulled my hand back like I’d been burned, dropping the tape onto the nearest table. “There. Take it,” I said, too quickly.
He caught it, eyes still on me, but didn’t say anything. Just turned and finished taping the banner like nothing happened. When he stepped down from the stool, he dusted his hands off, looked at the sign, and nodded. “Perfect.”
“Congratulations,” I muttered, trying to sound unaffected even though my heart hadn’t figured out how to slow down again.
He glanced at me, head tilted. “You don’t have to pretend, you know.”
“I’m fine,” I said automatically.
“You’re not.” His tone wasn’t harsh—just steady. “You just don’t want anyone to see it.”
The words hit harder than I wanted them to. I turned sharply toward him, defensive before I could think. “Why do you care so much?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Because someone should.”
The silence that followed felt like glass—thin, delicate, one wrong breath away from shattering.
I didn’t know what to do with that answer. With him. With the strange, quiet truth sitting between us.
So I fell back on sarcasm. It was safer.
“You’re impossible,” I said again, shaking my head.
His mouth curved into that crooked grin again. “You like impossible.”
I tried to glare, but it didn’t quite hold. A laugh slipped out—tired, genuine, a little helpless. “Go home, Beckett.”
“Only if you promise to do the same before sunrise.”
“No promises.”
He rolled his eyes, grabbing his jacket from the back of a chair. “You’ll burn out before the big night if you’re not careful.”
I called after him, “Then at least I’ll look productive doing it.”
He paused at the door, shaking his head as he chuckled under his breath. That low sound—half amusement, half something softer—echoed down the hall long after he was gone.
The room felt bigger without him in it, somehow emptier. I looked at the banner he’d fought to hang—straight, centered, perfect—and sank back into my chair.
The exhaustion hit all at once, the kind that wasn’t just physical. The kind that came from holding everything together when no one else saw how close it was to falling apart.
I rubbed a hand over my face, whispering to the empty room, “You’re not supposed to need him.”
But the truth was already settled somewhere deep inside me, quiet and undeniable.
I did.
I did need him.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
Chapter 22
Beckett
I was still dripping sweat when Cam Hunter appeared in the doorway, arms crossed like he’d been standing there long enough to get impatient. Morning drills had barely ended, and the locker room still smelled like turf and exhaustion.
