LOGINDeclan's POVWe were in Pittsburgh for a Friday night game and I was in the locker room getting my head right when the bond told me she was getting ready to go somewhere.I knew her getting-ready feeling by now. It had a particular quality to it, a kind of focused energy that was different from her studying or her walking to class. This was deliberate. She was putting herself together for something specific, and the something had an edge to it that felt like obligation more than want.I laced up my skates and didn't think about it.Coach came in at six and the room settled."Pittsburgh's defensive line has been leaking on the left all season," he said, moving to the board. "We've watched the tape, we know where it is, and tonight we're going to use it." He tapped the diagram. "Hayes, I need you reading that gap every single time you're in possession. Don't force it, just know it's there.""Got it," I said."Their centre is physical but slow to recover. You get past him once, he second
Maeve's POVI said yes to Preston because my mother was watching and I needed to appear normal. That was the honest version of it. The version I told myself on the drive to the restaurant, sitting in the back of the car my mother had arranged because of course she had arranged a car, because every part of this evening had been arranged by someone other than me. Preston had called, not texted, which my mother had noted approvingly when I mentioned it. He had suggested a restaurant downtown that had a three-week waiting list for reservations, which she had also noted. He had done everything correctly, and she wanted me to give him a chance, and I had run out of reasons to say no. The restaurant was the kind of place that didn't put prices on the menu, which I had always found deeply irritating. Either put the prices or don't charge that much. Pick one. Preston was already there when I arrived, which was the right thing. He stood when he saw me and smiled like a man who was genuinel
Declan's POVI found his profile at midnight, and I was still on it at three in the morning, which was a new low even for me. Preston Whitmore. Harvard Law, second year. Father was a state congressman, grandfather had been a senator, great-grandfather had apparently done something important enough during the war that there was a building named after him somewhere in Massachusetts. His profile was the kind that had been curated carefully enough to look uncurated, candid photos that were too well-lit to be candid, captions that were confident without being arrogant, everything calibrated to project the specific image of a man who had it all and wore it lightly. I hated him. The fundraiser photo was the one that had started it. Someone had posted it to one of those society pages that covered political events, and it had shown up when I was running the same search I had been running since I found her name. The photo was from the evening. She was in green, with her hair up, and she w
Maeve's POVMy mother sent the dress two weeks before the event, which was her way of making sure I didn't show up in something she didn't approve of. It arrived in a garment bag with a note in her handwriting that said the green is perfect for you. Wear your hair up. Not a suggestion. A brief handed down from someone who had already decided how the evening was going to go. The green was perfect for me. I hated that she was right about that. The fundraiser was in Hartford, at one of those hotels that had chandeliers so large you had to actively avoid looking at them, or you'd spend the whole night with a crick in your neck. I had been to enough of these that I could navigate one in my sleep. Smile at the right people, hold my glass correctly, make conversation that was warm enough to be pleasant and vague enough to be noncommittal, and stay close enough to my mother that she could steer me where she needed me without having to come find me. I was good at this. I had been traine
Declan's POVMarcus had been waiting for the right moment for two months, and he picked a Tuesday after practice when everyone else had cleared out. I knew it was coming. I had known it was coming for a while actually, because Marcus was patient in the way that people were patient when they had already decided something and were just waiting for the conditions to be right. He had been watching me since last week with those quiet eyes of his that didn't miss much, and I had been watching him watch me, and we had both been pretending neither of those things were happening. The locker room was empty. I was pulling my jersey off when he sat down on the bench across from mine and didn't move toward his locker. I looked at him. "Talk," he said. "About what?" "Declan." I dropped the jersey on the bench and sat down. There wasn't much point in the runaround with Marcus. He was too smart for it, and I was too tired for it, and we had known each other long enough that performing was mo
Maeve's POVMorgan called on a Thursday to say she was coming Saturday, which was not a question, but an announcement. That was how my sister operated. She didn't ask if it was a good time, she didn't check whether you had plans, she simply announced her arrival the way the weather announced itself. You could be inconvenienced by it, or you could prepare for it, but either way, it was coming. I spent Friday night doing three things. Studying, which I would have been doing anyway. Cleaning my side of the room, which I did not ordinarily care about, but Morgan had a way of reading spaces like other people read faces. And applying my foundation twice, building it up in careful layers over my neck, blending it so thoroughly that I stood under the bathroom light at eleven at night, turning my head at different angles looking for any shadow, any line, any give. It held. I went to bed and told myself I was fine. ***** Morgan was two years older than me and had our mother's face with o







