“If necessary.”
I laugh. He glances down at me in the lamplight—tall, lean, tired, dark hair falling over his forehead again like it has a personal grudge against my self-control. My fingers actually ache to brush it back.
He slows as we near my dorm steps. That careful almost again. Not wanting the walk to end. Not quite knowing what to do with that.
I stop and turn toward him. He stays in the cooler light of the path.
For one second we just look at each other.
Then he reaches up like he’s going to touch my face. Stops himself. His fingers flex once. He changes direction and hooks one finger into the strap of my duffel instead, tugging it higher on my shoulder where it’s slipping.
Tiny. Stupid. Intimate.
“Go stretch,” he says.
“Bossy.”
“You like it.”
“Maybe.”
Something hot and real passes between us—something that could absolutely become a kiss on a different night, in a different life, if there weren’t ghosts in his eyes and caution in his shoulders.
He steps back. Nods toward the entrance. “Text me when you get upstairs.”
“Why? That sounds suspiciously like concern.”
His smile is smaller now. Private. “It is.”
I should say no. I should remember every warning I’ve ever given myself about beautiful boys with old sadness and complicated eyes.
Instead I hear myself say, “Fine. Don’t make me regret it, Vale.”
His gaze holds mine one last second. “Good night.”
Then he turns and walks back into the dark quad, shoulders broad under his hoodie, leaving me on the dorm steps with my hamstring aching and my heart doing truly stupid things.
I watch him go longer than I should.
Because there it is. The beginning of the problem.
Not that I want him.
That I think, maybe, he might want me too.
On a Tuesday in early October, soccer practice ran late again. By the time we wrapped, the sky had gone dark blue and the field smelled like cut grass and cold sweat.
I’m walking off with my hair half out of its ponytail when I see him.
Tristan.
Standing just outside the gate with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie like he accidentally ended up there and not like he’s very obviously waiting.
Lana leans into my shoulder. “Oh my God. He’s waiting for you.”
“Don’t.”
“He looks like a Victorian husband waiting outside surgery.”
