I wrote it down. I deleted the log. I didn't tell Cole. I didn't tell Richard.
The house is different without Cole in it. The geometry is wrong. Without him here, there are only two points left in the room: Dante and me.
I'm writing about the senior class defensive identity when the front door opens.
My spine locks. My hands stay on the keyboard, but every word on the screen drops out of focus.
Dante walks in.
He sees me and stops hard enough that his bag swings forward on his shoulder. His weight shifts back, and I can almost feel him recalculating the room with me inside it. Damp hair. Dark eyes. Jacket still on. His gaze moves from me to the couch, to Cole's sweatshirt on my body, to the hallway where the office sits.
Two weeks since his hand stopped an inch from my face. Two weeks since he pulled it back. Except for goodnight. He said goodnight, and he used my name.
"Maddox." His voice is sharp.
"Voss."
"Cole?"
"Booster dinner."
"And you're here because?"
"My heat's out. Cole said I could use the house until the landlord sends someone in the morning."
He sets his bag down harder than necessary. His jacket stays on. His keys stay in his hand.
He walks past me to the kitchen. The keys hit the counter. I hear the coffeemaker running. One mug. He comes back, sits in the armchair across the room, and drinks.
I go back to my laptop, write a sentence, and delete it.
"Your piece on the defensive scheme," he says.
I look up. He's watching me over the rim of his mug.
"The one that ran last week."
"I know which piece."
"It's wrong."
"Explain."
"You argued the weak-side gap is systemic. It's not. It's Addison compensating for the hole Rylan left in the lineup. He reshuffled the D-pairs mid-season to cover the loss. The weak-side exposure you're seeing is roster management rather than scheme failure. Pull the deployment numbers before and after Rylan's removal. The pattern changes."
I open my mouth, then close it.
He's right. Fuck him, he's right. The trend is real, but the Rylan variable is something I missed because I was working from press box data, not internal deployment decisions.
"The internal deployment changes aren't public," I say.
"No."
"So you're telling me my analysis has a gap you can see because you have access I don't. That's a leash, Dante."
His jaw tightens. "That's not what I said."
"It's what you meant. You meant I'm writing from the outside. That my analysis is still sixty feet from where it needs to be. That I'm still sixty feet above the ice looking down. Still a tourist."
