Chapter 3

She told herself she was going for closure.

She repeated this the entire walk across campus. Closure. Clarity. That's all. She was not going because she missed him. She was not going because her wolf had been pacing and whimpering for two weeks like something vital had been taken from her. She was going because she needed to look him in the eye and say *I think something happened* and watch what he did with that.

Whatever he did with it would tell her everything she needed to know.

She knocked on his dorm room door at eleven p.m.

He opened it in sweats and no shirt and the expression on his face when he saw her moved through surprised, guarded, and something unnamed — in about half a second.

"What are you doing here?" he said.

"I need to talk to you."

"I said everything I needed to say."

"I know what you said." She crossed her arms. "I need five minutes. Then I'm gone and you never have to look at me again."

He studied her for a long moment. His jaw worked. She watched him decide something — she could see it happen, the exact second he moved from *send her away* to *let her in* — and then he stepped back from the door.

His room was a mess of football gear and textbooks and it smelled so sharply of *him* that Nova's wolf woke up and pressed forward like she was trying to get through Nova's skin. Nova ignored her. She stepped over a duffel bag and turned to face him.

He'd closed the door. He leaned against it with his arms folded, watching her with those dark eyes that never quite went warm even when the rest of him almost did.

"Well?" he said.

"I think I might be—" She stopped. The word got stuck. She tried again. "I think there's a chance that I—"

"What."

"Jax."

His name came out quieter than she intended. More honest than she meant for it to be. She watched his whole body go still.

"What are you saying, Nova?"

"I'm saying I don't know yet." She pressed her hands together to stop them shaking. "I'm saying I needed to look at you first. Before I knew for certain. I needed to see if you were worth—"

"Worth what?"

She looked at him. Really looked. Past the locked jaw and the folded arms and the armor he kept soldered to himself at all times. She looked for the boy who had pulled her close in the dark and breathed *you're mine* like it cost him something to say.

She found him, buried. Still there.

That was the problem.

"Worth blowing up my life over," she finished quietly.

Something moved across his face. Pain, maybe. Or anger. With Jax Wilder they sometimes looked the same.

He crossed the room in four steps and stopped in front of her. Close enough that she had to tilt her head up to hold his gaze.

"You shouldn't have come here," he said.

"You shouldn't have let me in."

His hand came up slowly and touched her face — one thumb at her cheekbone — and she hated herself for leaning into it, just slightly, just enough that he felt it. She watched his eyes darken.

"I can't do this," he said. Low. Almost to himself.

"You already are."

His forehead dropped to hers. They stood there in his messy room with the campus silent outside and his heartbeat loud against the quiet — and for a moment there was no quarterback, no scholarship girl, no humiliating morning with his laughing teammates. There was just two people who had made something irreversible out of one reckless night and had no idea how to live with it.

"This is a mistake," he breathed.

"I know."

"I'm going to hurt you again."

"I know that too."

She felt his exhale against her mouth. Ragged. Like the words cost him something he couldn't afford.

"Then why—"

"Because I needed to feel it one more time," she said. "Before I decide what I do next. I needed to know if it was real or if I imagined it."

The silence stretched.

He kissed her first.

---

It was nothing like the first night — frantic and full-moon-feverish. This was slow and almost furious, like they were both angry at how much they needed it. Like every kiss was a concession neither of them could afford to make.

Nova kept her eyes open as long as she could. She wanted to remember this exactly as it was — not softened, not romanticized. Just the truth of it: Jax Wilder, who had publicly humiliated her, who had made her feel small and disposable, was holding her like she was the only solid thing in a room that was tilting. Like losing her would mean losing something he couldn't name.

Real, she decided. It was real.

She didn't know yet whether that was good news or the worst news of her life.

---

Afterward she was sitting on the edge of his bed pulling her shoes back on when his dorm room door swung open without a knock.

Stone.

He stood in the doorway, eyes going from Nova to Jax, face splitting into a slow, ugly grin.

"*Again?*" He laughed. "Man. Does she *live* here now?"

Nova stood up. She slung her bag over her shoulder and walked for the door.

"Nova—" Jax started.

"Don't," she said. She didn't look at him. She looked at Stone instead, met his grin with a flat, steady stare until the laughter flickered, uncertain.

Then she walked out.

She made it to the stairwell before the nausea hit her like a wave.

She sat down on the cold steps and pressed her back against the wall and let herself feel all of it — the tenderness, the hope, the fury, the grief — all at once.

*One more time,* she'd told him. *Before I decide what I do next.*

She pressed a hand to her stomach.

She had already decided.