My grip loosened.
Maddox dropped against the wet pavement with a pained grunt.
I leaned close enough that only he and the nearest players could hear me. “You stay away from her. You don’t look at her, talk to her, breathe near her, or put her name in your mouth again. You see her on campus, you turn around. You see her in this bar, you leave. You see me anywhere, you keep walking and thank whatever mercy you believe in that she told me to stop.”
He didn’t answer.
Smartest thing he had done all night.
I stood as rain ran down the side of my face and blood warmed the corner of my mouth. My knuckles throbbed, my ribsburned, and the entire parking lot stared as if waiting to see whether I would go back for more.
I didn’t.
I looked at Maddox’s basketball guys. “Get him home or to a doctor. Discretion is wise when it comes to what happened to him.”
One of them, the forward with dreads who had kept his hands visible the entire time, looked from me to Maddox before nodding once. “It’s cool, man. We saw nothing.”
Another basketball player swallowed, his eyes flicking toward Aura in the doorway before returning to me. “A one-on-one fight is just that.”
The first guy bent to help Maddox sit up. “Shit happens, East. Take it easy.”
It wasn’t true. Half the bar had watched us go through the door, and Hannah’s cameras had probably recorded enough to bury me if Maddox decided to run to the cops. Athlete culture had its own rules, though, and nobody standing in that parking lot planned to volunteer a statement on his behalf.
If consequences came, they would come because Maddox went rat, not because anyone there intended to help him.
Take it easy.
The words almost made me laugh.
Nothing about me was easy right then. Not my breathing. Not my hands. Not the rage still clawing beneath my ribs because Maddox remained conscious and Aura was crying and I couldn’t undo either thing.
Briggs approached me slowly, like he was moving toward a wild animal with a history of biting. “You good?”
I looked at Aura.
She stood beneath the edge of the awning now, Hannah behind her and the phone lowered at her side. Her eyes remained on me, wide, wet, furious, and afraid.
No.
I wasn’t good.
I didn’t know if I had ever been less good in my life.
I walked past Briggs and Rider without answering, leaving Maddox in the dirt where he belonged.
14
Aura
By the time we got Easton back inside, the Sin Bin had gone from packed weekend chaos to the kind of silence people only pretended wasn’t fear.
The Red Wings game still played across the TVs, but nobody was watching anymore. Tables had shifted out of place. Chairs sat crooked. Someone had tracked rain and mud through the front entrance, and cold air leaked inside every time the door swung open behind another person deciding they had seen enough for one night. The whole bar smelled like beer, fryer oil, wet pavement, and now blood.
Rider handed Easton the hoodie he had left behind before they brought him through the door. Easton walked ahead of him and Briggs with the fabric shoved against his split mouth and his knuckles hanging at his side like they didn’t belong to him anymore. His shirt was damp from the rain and clung to his shoulders, while the bruising near his cheekbone had already begun to darken.
He didn’t look at the crowd. He didn’t look at Hannah.
He looked at me like the rest of the bar had burned down and I was the only thing left standing in the smoke.
