“I’m literally going inside.”
“Humor me.”
Curiosity sharpens past the lingering heat. I don’t argue. Up the steps. Key card clicks. Door buzzes open. Dim lobby quiet. Stairs to the second floor. Footsteps echo on linoleum. My room waits at the end of the hall. Door unlocked. Portfolio drops to the desk with a solid thud.
The hallway confrontation. The walk. His look. All of it vibrates under my skin. I need distance. I need it gone. The sweater comes off, fabric dragging over skin, catching at elbows before I toss it aside. Cool air shocks. The window pulls me in. A breath. Something beyond four walls. Below, the quad glows twilight purple. Tree line dark. And there—leaning against the oak—is a solid figure. Gio. He hasn’t moved. Watching the building. Watching my window.
Sightlines block him from seeing in. Distance helps. Light fades. He still knows where I am. My heart slams hard againstmy ribs. The blinds should close. I should step back. The performance should end.
I don’t.
The button of my jeans slides free, fingers steady despite the racing pulse. This is my space. My air. My light. If he wants to watch, he can see exactly what he can’t have. Denim pools at my feet. The glass turns reflective, my room ghosting back at me. Yet I feel him. Attention drags over exposed skin, heating the air between floors. Defiance. Open warfare. The most charged thing I’ve done all day.
I hold there another second—bra, fading light—letting him look. Letting him wonder. Then the glass loses me. A T-shirt yanked on, sharp and aggressive. When I glance back, he’s still there. A statue in shadow.
The blinds snap shut. Connection severed. Darkness fills the room. A breath escapes that I didn’t know I held. Skin burns. Hands shake. Somewhere below, he’s still watching the building— knowing I just won.
OceanofPDF.com
Chapter 21
Gio
Cold air hangs in the briefing room, thin and recycled. Coach is talking strategy, his voice a low drone about defensive gaps and power plays. I'm nodding, tracking the angles, but my focus is split. My phone sits on the table, screen down, a fucking black mirror waiting to crack.
It vibrates once—a sharp, insistent buzz against polished wood. I ignore it. Coach's eyes flick to me, a silent question. A short, sharp nod back. Nothing. It's nothing.
The phone buzzes again. And again.
"Rossi," Coach says, tone flat. "You with us?"
"Yeah." The word is gravel. I pick up the phone, flipping it over under the guise of checking the time. The screen lights up with a message from an unknown number. Rylan. The name hits like a punch to the gut.
The preview is a photo. Zoë. Walking out of the design building, her head up, spine straight, looking like she owns the fucking sidewalk. The photographer was far away. Long lens. The message underneath makes my blood run cold.
She looks calm. You don't.
Another text follows immediately, no photo this time. Just words.
I didn't get what I wanted. Funny how some stories get rewritten. Sealed records can feel like a safe bet… until they're not.
He's watching me. He's digging. He's threatening to unearth the one thing I buried—the one thing that could end everything before it even starts. My knuckles go white around the phone as the air in the room gets thicker, harder to breathe. I'm trapped. Between a ghost from my past and Coach's expectations.
Then the family group chat blows up. A news alert from my sister.
Hockey Star's New Campus Flame?
My mother's message follows immediately.
Giovanni, who is this girl?
Dad's is next.
We need to talk about optics.
Optics. They're turning my private life, my leverage, into a public spectacle. Another thing to manage. Another thing I can't fucking control. Pressure builds behind my eyes, a hot, sharp spike. Rylan has my past. My family has my present. And Zoë… Zoë is in the middle of it all.
"Rossi." Coach's voice cuts through the haze. I look up. He's stopped talking. The whole room is staring.
