Just watches me with that cold, pretty face and those dark eyes that say he understood every word and hated all of them.
Good.
I point once at him on my way backward.
“This isn’t over, Vale.”
He doesn’t answer.
So I give him the part I really came to say.
“I see through your pretty-boy bullshit.”
That one lands. Kane’s mouth tightens.
For one second, Vale actually looks like he might come through the whole room and finish what we started.
But he doesn’t. He can’t. His NIL money and sweetheart transfer portal deal would blowback hard.
I turn and walk out before anybody can stop me.
The training room door swings shut.
My pulse is violent.
My hands are useless rocks at the ends of my arms.
And all I can think, over and over, is the same thing—Isa’s gonna hate me for this. And she’s still gonna get hurt anyway. That’s the part that makes me want to punch concrete. Because I asked her out.
She said no.
Fine.
I can live with no.
What I can’t stand is watching her walk clean into something I already know how to name.
So yeah.
Maybe this isn’t over.
Maybe I’ve got no business in Tristan Vale’s life.
Maybe Isa Calloway will tell me to go to hell again.
Maybe I’m a loud, broad-shouldered idiot with scissors and bad timing and no respect for boundaries when I think a girl’s about to get played.
All true.
Still.
I saw her first.
And I’m not done.
Chapter Four
ISA
