Page 5 of False Catch

I walk out before anyone can respond, before I can see the disappointment in their faces or smell the confusion in their scents. Before I can change my mind and take back every word I just said.

The suppressants are working fine. My body feels normal, controlled, mine again.

So why does everything else feel like it’s falling apart?

I make it to my room upstairs before the tears start, biting my lip hard enough to keep the sob threatening to break from leaving my throat. Through the thin walls, I can hear the others moving around downstairs, getting ready for practice. Getting ready to pretend we’re just teammates again.

Getting ready to lie to everyone, including ourselves.

The suppressants might be working, but Tyler was wrong about one thing. We can’t go back to normal, because normal never included the way Gray looks at me like I’m something precious. Never included the way Bo’s presence makes me feel safe enough to sleep. Never included the way Jackson suddenly looks like he wants to protect me.

Normal never included any of this.

And now I have to figure out how to pretend it does.

CHAPTER TWO

Gray

I’m three miles into my run when the rage finally starts to cool.

Not disappear. Just settle from a rolling boil to something I can actually think through. My feet pound against the asphalt in a rhythm that matches my pulse, both too fast, both demanding more than my body wants to give.

Biology.

That’s what she called it. Like the way I knotted her was some accident of chemistry. Like the way she looked at me afterward, soft and trusting and completely wrecked, meant nothing.

Like I mean nothing.

I push harder, lungs burning as I hit the hill that leads back toward campus. The team house sits at the bottom, windows glowing yellow in the early morning light. Practice starts in fifteen minutes. I should head back, shower, pretend the last hour didn’t happen.

Pretend I’m just her teammate.

My phone buzzes against my ribs. Text from Bo: *Where are you? We need to talk.*

I don’t answer. Can’t trust what I might say right now.

Another buzz. This time it’s Coach: *Team meeting after practice. My office. Non-negotiable.*

Shit.

I stop running, hands on my knees as I catch my breath. Whatever support resources he was asking about this morning, it’s escalated. Someone’s been talking. Or someone’s been watching.

Either way, we’re fucked.

The boathouse is already buzzing when I arrive, twenty minutes late and still wearing yesterday’s clothes. The rest of the team stands in a loose circle around our shell, but the usual pre-practice banter is missing. Everyone looks like they’d rather be anywhere else.

Reese stands apart from the group, clipboard in hand, studying our training plan like it holds the secrets of the universe. She’s changed into her team gear, hair pulled back in that no-nonsense ponytail that means business. Everything about her screams professional distance.

Everything except the way her shoulders tense when she hears my footsteps.

“Nice of you to join us,” she says without looking up.

“Traffic,” I lie.

Now she does look at me, those blue-green eyes scanning my face for tells. She finds them, because she always does. The slight widening of her pupils. The way her nostrils flare like she’s catching my scent.

“We need to get on the water,” she says. All business. Nothing in her voice suggests she spent the night before last in my bed, sobbing my name into my pillow as I fucked her from behind until we both passed out. Nothing suggests she knows exactly what I look like when I lose control.