His eyes ruin the lie.
He looks like he hasn’t slept since last night. Like the game didn’t end when the horn blew—like it followed him into whatever morning ritual the team pretends is normal. I see it in the tightness around his mouth, the way he shifts his weight like something aches.
Breakfast. Team breakfast. I remember him mentioning it yesterday in class like it was nothing—like today wasn’t a blade hanging over my head.
When he sees me, he straightens. Focused. Locked on.
“Zoë,” he says, like my name is a decision.
The sound hits wrong. The timing hits worse.
I keep walking.
He pushes off the wall and steps into my path with a lazy, deliberate move. Deliberate. A claim.
I stop because if I don’t, I’ll slam into him—and I refuse to give him contact I didn’t choose.
“Step aside,” I say.
His mouth twitches. Something sharp flares. “Did you get it?”
There it is. Clean. Direct. Like he has the right to ask.
I tilt my head, slow. “Do you usually wait outside buildings to collect other people’s outcomes, Rossi?”
“I usually mind my business,” he says evenly. “You made this one mine when you told me about Milan and then acted like you didn’t care if it killed you.”
My throat tightens again—fast, angry. He’s too close. I can smell him: soap, caffeine, that clean-metal edge that never leaves men who live in rinks.
“You don’t get to talk like you know me.”
“I don’t,” he agrees immediately. Calm. Steady. His eyes stay on mine. “So tell me.”
That should piss me off more than it does. It lands somewhere else—low and hot and humiliating. Like my body recognizes a challenge before my brain does.
I step to the side. He mirrors me. My pulse spikes.
“Move,” I repeat, softer, because my voice does something traitorous around the word.
He leans in just enough that I feel it in the air between us. “No.”
The single syllable lands like a hand at my throat.
I laugh once, sharp and ugly. “You’re really committing to being a problem.”
“Always have,” he says. Then, quieter—still controlled—“Did they say yes?”
I hold his gaze and let him sit in the silence I’m choosing on purpose.
“No.”
The word tastes like blood and floor wax and brass plaques.
Something shifts in his face—a tightening, a realignment, like the world just handed him a target.
“Fuck,” he murmurs, and it isn’t for me. It’s for whoever made the call. “That’s—”
“Don’t,” I cut in.
