Chapter 5

Mia POV

I didn't sleep the first night in Room Seven.

Not because the couch was uncomfortable. The couch was softer than any bed I've ever slept on in Texas, with a real blanket that didn't smell like mildew and a pillow that didn't have someone else's sweat on it and a throw that actually matched the rug. It was because his room was too quiet and too perfect and I could hear everything I was trying to hide.

In Room Three, I had Luis snoring on the top bunk so loud the metal frame shook and Ethan turning every twenty minutes in Bed A by the window and the wall AC unit bolted above my bottom bunk rattling like it was going to fall off and crush my pillow. In Room Seven, the central AC hummed perfect at sixty-eight degrees like Liam said it would, and the only other sound was Liam breathing in the king bed six feet away and the soft hum of his laptop charging on his desk next to the photo he keeps face-down.

He had told me the rules that morning with his mouth, not a whiteboard, not a note, just his voice low and rough from waking up early. He was already dressed at 5:30 a.m. when I woke up tangled in his blanket, black Elite training shirt and black shorts and his gold captain armband still wrapped around his left wrist even at night, left wrist taped exactly three times around like he does before every game because his mom taught him that way. He stood over the couch with his arms crossed, tattoos dark — compass on his chest, dagger on his ribs, XIV on his wrist for his mom's birthday — and looked down at my choppy hair stuck to my cheek and my oversized t-shirt clinging without the binder underneath.

"You snore," he said coldly. "Quiet, but you do."

"I don't snore," I mumbled, still half asleep and trying to keep my voice deep like I practiced for nine hours on the bus from Texas to LA, dropping it from my chest.

"You do when that thing is off," he said, eyes dropping to my chest for half a second where my shirt was obviously not flat, then away fast like he didn't want to look and like he was angry at himself for looking. I had taken the binder off at 2 a.m. to breathe because he told me I had to breathe, and now I pulled the blanket up higher to cover myself.

He looked away and started telling me rules like a captain who makes rules to keep his team alive and not because he likes control, and he doesn't hate pretty boys because he's mean, he wants to prove he's more than a meme player who bought his spot with his dad's Cross Sports Empire money, and that's why his rules sounded serious.

"Listen because I'm not repeating it," he said, voice low. "You stay here one week for quarantine. Handbook says twenty-four hours minimum, seven days recommended if contact dermatitis spreads to chest. After that you go back to Room Three. If I keep you longer J. Cole and the board ask why I'm hoarding a trial kid with a rash in my private suite that no one has ever shared in three years."

Then he listed them, holding up fingers like I was going to forget, and I didn't forget a single one because his grey eyes never left my face.

"One, AC stays sixty-eight, you complain you leave. Two, that tape, whatever you call it, four hours max, I time it, you wore it eighteen hours before and you don't do that here or you pass out on my floor and I have to call medical and explain why a trial kid fainted in my room. Three, you eat what I eat, no protein bar diet, I saw your check-in sheet, you haven't eaten real food since Texas, you are one-forty when file says one-sixty-five. Four, bathroom locks, use it, but don't hide in there an hour and make me think you fainted, ten minutes, that's it. Five, you don't leave this room without me and you don't talk tactics with anyone without me, you belong to me for a week, got it?"

"Got it," I whispered, throat dry.

He threw a new box of hypoallergenic tape onto my couch without looking at me, the expensive kind that doesn't rip skin, that cost more than my whole duffel from Texas. "For your shoulder, so you stop scratching it raw like a kid."

That was morning. Now it was 10:14 p.m. on that same first night and I was in his private bathroom with the door locked, trying to breathe for the first time all day without the binder digging into my ribs.

I had waited until he went to the private gym across the courtyard. I heard the treadmill humming over there through the thin wall and I thought I had ten minutes to be a girl again. I took my binder off slowly, side zip going zzzt in the quiet bathroom, and I stood in just my black compression shirt and men's boxers in front of his big clean mirror that didn't have any mold in the corner like Room Three, looking at the deep red welts the zip had left on my ribs and under my chest where it dug in for eighteen hours straight before, and at my chest that was red and sore and shaking when I breathed deep.

My hair was choppy and uneven from where I cut it at 2 a.m. in Texas with kitchen scissors on our bathroom, and I looked like a girl trying to be a boy and failing if anyone looked close for more than five seconds, because my neck was pale and thin and my waist dipped even in men's boxers.

I heard the main door open.

He was back early. The treadmill stopped humming.

I froze, hands on my black binder on the sink, chest heaving in the mirror, compression shirt clinging with sweat because I was still not flat without the binder and the AC in his bathroom was warm from his shower earlier.

"Mason?" he called from the main room, voice cold and a little annoyed. "You in bathroom? You have been in there twelve minutes. You said ten. Handbook says ten."

I grabbed my binder with shaking hands and tried to zip it back on fast, but the side zip stuck, wet with sweat from eighteen hours. and it made that loud zzzt sound again, twice, because my hands were shaking so bad I couldn't hold the fabric.

"Carter, answer me or I open door," he said, closer now, right outside the bathroom door. and I could see his shadow under the door, big, six-three.

"I'm — I'm fine," I said, forcing my voice down from my chest like I practiced, trying to sound annoyed like a boy would, like Mason would. "Rash, itches, I'm putting new tape you gave me, it hurts."

Silence for a second. Then one knock, not hard, not like Jake who grabbed my collar, but firm.

"You have thirty seconds left. Binder or not, tape or not, you breathe. I don't want you passing out in my bathroom and I have to call medical at midnight and explain why there's tape in my trash and why a trial kid can't breathe."

He almost said binder. He caught himself at the last second and said tape, and my heart hammered so loud against my binder I was sure he could hear it through the door.

I closed my eyes, tears filling before I could stop them because I was so tired and my ribs hurt from the zipper and his bathroom smelled like expensive vanilla soap because I use that this morning when he left and clean laundry and I smelled like sweat and fear and cheap deodorant I bought at the bus station.

I zipped the binder back on, winced as it dug into the raw welts and made me gasp, pulled my big black hoodie back on over it so no shape showed, wiped my eyes fast with my sleeve, and opened the door.

He was standing there in black sweatpants, no shirt, damp hair from gym, tattooed arms crossed, gold captain armband still on even at night, and he looked at my face, at my red eyes, at my hoodie I had pulled up too fast and my hands still shaking holding the door handle.

"You cried," he said, not as a question, just a statement like he says "You use vanilla shampoo."

"I didn't," I said, voice thick.

"You did," he said, grey eyes silver under his bathroom light, scanning my face like he scans film. "Your eyes are red and your hands shake. Texas doesn't cry over tape. Mason Carter from Texas who got benched last year for being too slow to press didn't cry when he tore his meniscus. So why are you crying over tape at ten p.m. in my bathroom?"

He didn't touch me. He stood two feet away, arms crossed, not moving closer, giving me space but not looking away.

I couldn't answer. If I said because binder hurts, he would know. If I said because I'm scared, he would send me back to Room Three tonight.

He stared for a long time, then exhaled slowly through his nose.

"Go to sleep, Carter," he said finally, low and not cold anymore, just tired. "First Team hill sprints at five a.m. You stay by my side tomorrow, you don't run behind, you run next to me where I can see you breathe."

He walked back to his king bed and turned off his lamp, and I lay down on his couch with my binder digging in again and my hoodie hiding my shaking body and my duffel hidden under the couch where he couldn't see my Nike sock with pads inside, listening to him breathe six feet away in the quiet perfect AC, and I knew one week in Room Seven was going to be more dangerous than any medical check at Performance Lab, because he was already watching me breathe and he was already noticing that I smelled like vanilla and cried over tape.