“Someone’s going to find out.”
“I know.”
“So what do we do?”
I cross to her, cup her face in my hands, the same way I did earlier, before everything went sideways.
“We figure it out. After the road trip. When we’re back home and I can think straight.” I brush my thumb across her cheekbone.
“Okay. After the road trip.”
“After the road trip,” I repeat.
I kiss her forehead, soft and sweet, letting my lips linger. Her eyes close.
“You should go,” she whispers.
“I know.”
“Before someone else shows up looking for game reports.”
“I know.” But I don’t move. I can’t seem to make myself.
She opens her eyes and smiles, just a little. “Go, Zayden.”
I steal one more kiss—quick, chaste, nothing like what we were doing ten minutes ago—and force myself to step away.
I slip into the hallway, check both directions, and walk back to my room on legs that don’t feel entirely steady.
The cold shower I take doesn’t help at all.
23
RUMOR HAS IT
Tori
The week after we get back feels like I’m holding my breath underwater.
Every interaction with Zayden is measured, calculated, filtered through the lens ofwho might be watching. We’ve become adept at it—the professional nods, the way we never stand too close or let our eyes linger. He calls me Wells. We pretend we’re nothing more than player and trainer, and most days, I almost believe it.
But at night, my phone lights up with his texts. Stupid things, small things. A photo of Maisie’s latest art project. A complaint about the hotel coffee. A singlethinking about youthat makes me smile into my pillow like a teenager.
We agreed to figure things out after the road trip. We just... haven’t yet.
And I’m trying not to read into it.
Now it’s Thursday morning, and something’s off. I notice it the moment I walk into the facility—the way conversations seem to stutter when I pass, the way eyes slide away from mine a beat too late. James gives me a weird half-nod at the coffee machine and practically speed-walks in the opposite direction, which isstrange because James usually corners me for a twenty-minute breakdown of whatever true crime podcast he’s binging.
I tell myself I’m being paranoid. That I’m projecting my own guilt about Zayden onto perfectly normal interactions. That nobody knows anything because there’s nothing to know—just some kissing and hand-holding and one very interrupted almost-more in a Minneapolis hotel room.
But the feeling doesn’t go away. It follows me through my morning sessions, through the staff meeting where barely anyone makes eye contact, through lunch in the break room where two trainers stop talking the second I sit down. What in the world?
By two o’clock, I’m wound so tight I could snap.
Logan’s shoulder assessment is my 2:30. He bounces in with his usual golden retriever energy, already talking about some TikTok he saw, and I let myself relax a little. Logan’s easy. Uncomplicated. The kind of guy who says exactly what he’s thinking at all times, which is either refreshing or exhausting, depending on the day.
“Okay, let’s see your range of motion,” I say, guiding him through the standard tests. “Any pain when you—”
