Hidden Plays

Ava’s POV

The world didn’t shift all at once.

It tilted slowly, like a balance I couldn’t quite steady.

One day Ethan Cole was the boy my father barked at during practice, the star player whose name belonged in headlines and not in my heart. The next, he was the boy whose hand had brushed mine in the dark, whose lips had found mine under the weight of everything we weren’t supposed to want.

And after that kiss, after his words in the gym, we became something else.

Not together. Not official. Not even defined.

But something.

And that something lived in the shadows.

We became masters of timing.

At practice, I sat in the bleachers with my notebook, my face a mask of professional indifference. But every so often, when no one was looking, Ethan’s gaze would find mine. Just for a second. Long enough to send heat rushing up my spine.

Later, when the locker room cleared, he’d linger. Pretending to tie his shoes. Pretending he’d forgotten something. And I’d linger too, jotting one la