My bed, in the room I hated, suddenly felt less like evidence and more like something I might survive.
On the TV, the Christmas tree farmer kissed the city girl under fake snow.
Isa’s breathing evened out against me.
I pressed my mouth to the top of her head.
“I’m not letting you go at midnight,” I whispered.
The words left my mouth before I could stop them.
My whole body went still.
I looked down at her.
She didn’t move.
Didn’t stiffen.
Didn’t answer.
Her breathing stayed slow and warm against my chest.
Asleep.
I hoped.
I really fucking hoped.
Because if she had heard me, I had no idea how to take it back.
And worse—I didn’t want to.
Chapter Sixteen
ISA
The weeksbetween Thanksgiving and Christmas blurred into one long stretch of exams, sweat, deadlines, and denial.
Midterms became finals.
Finals became papers.
Papers became late nights in the library with my laptop open, coffee gone cold beside me, and Drew’s hand on my thigh under the table like he had any right to touch me that casually.
Training got harder too.
Light footwork turned into controlled drills. Controlled drills turned into short indoor sessions. My hamstring still complained if I pushed too fast, but it wasn’t screaming anymore. It was healing. I was healing.
Which should have made everything simpler.
It didn’t.
Because the better my leg got, the less time I had to live in Drew’s house like it was some private little world where the rules bent around us.
I wasn’t spending three nights a week on his couch anymore while he fed me Thai noodles and pretended oiling my hamstring wasn’t foreplay.
He wasn’t waiting outside rehab every day with coffee and that stupid, too-hot grin.
