Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Fifteen Seconds

*Sloane*

I checked my account balance three times that night, like it might be different the fourth time. It never was.

Mom's dialysis was starting soon, and dialysis isn't cheap, not even with insurance covering part of it. Mateo's fees were still due. The electric bill was sitting in my email, unread on purpose, because I already knew what it said. I did the math again, the same grim math I always do, and landed on the same answer.

Not enough.

I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at the wall for a long time. I didn't cry. I've gotten very good at not crying, mostly because once I start, it's hard to stop, and I didn't have time to fall apart tonight. I didn't want to call anyone either. My mom would worry. Mateo would apologize again. My best friend Tessa would tell me to take a break, and she'd be right, and I'd ignore her anyway.

What I wanted, more than anything, was one single night where I didn't think about money.

So I got up, put on the one good dress I own, and did my makeup, not for anybody, just for me. Then I went to a bar in Manhattan I'd never been to before, sat down, and ordered a drink I couldn't really afford.

For about twenty minutes, it worked. The music was good. The lights were warm and gold. Nobody at that bar knew my name or my bank balance or the fact that I was one bad week away from panicking. I let my shoulders drop for the first time all day.

Then I heard his laugh.

I would know that laugh anywhere by now, unfortunately, because it's usually aimed at me.

I turned, and there he was. Rhys Calloway, surrounded by a group of guys who were clearly his teammates, all of them loud and easy and comfortable in a way I hadn't felt in years. My mood dropped about ten floors in half a second.

Of course he was here. Of course.

He spotted me almost right away. His eyes moved over me, and then landed on my hair.

"Nice wig," he said, walking over with a drink in his hand.

I touched my hair on instinct, even though I knew exactly what it looked like. "It's not a wig."

"Could've fooled me."

"It's called good hair days, Rhys. You should look into it sometime. Maybe start with not glaring at every human being who talks to you."

"I don't glare at everyone."

"You glare at me."

"You deserve it."

"Wow," I said, sipping my drink. "Do you practice being charming, or does it just come naturally?"

"I don't need to practice anything. People like me plenty."

"People like your hockey stats. There's a difference."

One of his friends, a big guy with a friendly face, leaned over with a grin. "You two sound like an old married couple."

"Absolutely not," Rhys said.

"Absolutely not," I said, at the exact same second.

We both stopped and looked at each other, and for one strange beat, neither of us said anything. His friend just laughed and shook his head like he'd seen something funny, and I decided I'd had enough for one night.

"Anyway," I said, grabbing my bag, "I was having a nice evening before you showed up. I'm going to go find another one somewhere far away from you."

"Don't let me stop you," Rhys said.

I didn't answer that. I just walked off toward the other side of the bar, and for the rest of the night, I made sure there was always a crowd between us. I talked to a few strangers. I danced badly with a girl I'd just met in the bathroom line. For a little while, I almost forgot he was in the building.

By midnight, I was tired but in a good way, the kind that meant I could finally sleep without my brain running numbers all night. I grabbed my coat and headed out.

The street outside was quieter than I expected, just a few people scattered near the entrance, most of them heading the other direction. I started walking toward the subway, keys already out of my bag, the way my mom taught me back when I first moved to the city.

That's when I noticed the two men.

They were leaning against a wall a little way down the block, and the second I passed them, one of them pushed off and started walking beside me.

"Hey, where are you headed? Let me walk you."

"I'm fine," I said, not slowing down.

"Come on, don't be like that." The second one joined, and now they were on either side of me, close enough that I could smell the alcohol on both of them.

"I said I'm fine. Please back up."

"Relax," the first one said, and he wasn't smiling anymore. "We're just being friendly."

I tried to step around them. One of them shifted and blocked me, and my stomach dropped straight through the sidewalk.

"Move," I said, sharper this time, my voice not as steady as I wanted it to be.

A hand closed around my arm.

Everything after that happened fast, and also somehow very slow, the way bad moments do.

I yanked my arm, trying to pull free, and the man's grip only tightened. I opened my mouth to shout 

And then Rhys was there.

I don't know exactly how. One second he wasn't, and the next he was simply *there*, between me and the man holding my arm, and the man was suddenly stumbling backward like something had shoved him, hard, even though Rhys had barely seemed to move.

It happened too fast. That's the only way I can describe it. Too fast for a normal person, too smooth, like watching a video with a few frames cut out. The second man lunged, and Rhys caught his arm mid-swing without even really looking, and just... held it there, completely still, like the man weighed nothing at all.

"Walk away," Rhys said, very quiet, very calm. Calmer than anyone should sound in that situation.

Something in his voice made both men go pale. They mumbled something I didn't catch and half-ran down the street, glancing back over their shoulders the whole way, like they were more scared than two grown men had any right to be of one guy in a jacket.

I stood there, chest heaving, trying to make sense of what I'd just seen. Nobody moves like that. Nobody's that strong without even trying.

My legs picked that exact moment to stop working properly.

I felt myself sway, my knees turning soft and unreliable, and before I even understood I was falling, an arm caught me around the waist.

Rhys.

"Hey. I've got you," he said.

I grabbed at the front of his jacket without meaning to, and when I looked up, his face was right there, closer than it had ever been. His hand was warm at my waist, steadier than it had any right to be, like none of what just happened had shaken him at all.

Neither of us said anything.

For the first time since I'd met him, there was no sharp comment waiting behind his mouth. No sarcasm in his eyes. He just looked at me, quiet and careful, like he was checking whether I was really okay and for a few strange seconds, the street noise and the cold and the ache in my arm all seemed to fade out, like the city had decided to leave the two of us alone.

It wasn't the closeness that got to me. It was that neither of us was fighting. For the first time, the usual war between us had simply stopped, and I didn't know what to do with the quiet that was left in its place.

Then my brain caught up with the rest of me, and I realized exactly how close I was standing to Rhys Calloway, my hands still fisted in his jacket.

I shoved back so fast I nearly fell again.

"Don't—" I started, my voice coming out rougher than I meant it to. "Don't grab me like that."

"I was catching you," he said, an edge creeping back into his voice. "You were about to fall."

"I had it handled."

"You were swaying like a tree in a storm."

"I said I had it handled, Rhys."

"Fine. Next time I'll let you hit the pavement."

"Great. Perfect. Thank you."

"You're welcome," he snapped, and just like that, we were back to normal, sharp words flying between us like nothing strange had happened at all, like I hadn't just stood there a second ago not wanting to pull away.

"I'm going home," I said.

"Good."

"Good."

I turned and walked away fast, my legs still a little unsteady, my mind racing in about six directions at once. I didn't look back. I told myself I didn't need to.

Neither of us said a single word about what had happened in those fifteen seconds before I pushed him away. Neither of us admitted, even to ourselves, that something had shifted.

What neither of us knew, walking away from each other into the night, was that someone standing near the bar entrance had pulled out their phone the second Rhys stepped between me and those men. They'd kept recording straight through the part where he caught me, straight through the fifteen seconds where we just stood there, still, staring like the rest of the world had disappeared.

By the time I got home, changed, and finally fell asleep, that video was already online.

By morning, it had thousands of views.

By noon, it had millions.

And underneath it, in a comment section growing faster than anyone could keep up with, one theory kept repeating itself, over and over, until it became impossible to ignore:

*Are Rhys Calloway and this girl secretly together?*