LOGINNobody prepared me for what it actually meant to live with Rhys Caldwell.Not the assistant thing. Not the letter thing. Not even the swimming pool disaster or the midnight hallway negotiation that had somehow turned my entire senior year into a hostage situation.Nobody warned me about the mornings.Day three. Six fifty-two. I shuffled toward the kitchen in my oversized sleep shirt, hair doing something tragic, brain not yet technically online, thinking about nothing except coffee and whether I could drink it in peace before the world required anything from me.I pushed the kitchen door open.Rhys was standing at the counter.Shirt in his hand. Not on his body. In his hand, like he had just picked it up and had not yet decided what to do with it. His back was to me… broad, clean lines, the kind of effortless build that comes from actually using your body and not thinking about it… and he was reaching for something on the upper shelf with his free hand like this was a completely norma
Nobody told me assistant duties started at seven in the morning.I found out when Rhys knocked on my bedroom door at six fifty-eight, already dressed, looking like he had been awake for hours, holding two cups of coffee like this was completely normal.He held one out.I stared at it. Then at him. Then at the coffee again."What is this," I said."Coffee.""I can see that.""You looked like you needed it yesterday." He set it on the small table beside my door when I didn't take it. "Seven forty-five. Don't be late." He walked back down the hallway without another word.I stood there for a full ten seconds.Then I picked up the coffee.It was made exactly the way I liked it.I did not think about how he knew that. I absolutely thought about it the entire way to school.—Day two of assistant duties was somehow louder than day one.The whispers had graduated overnight from confusion to full opinions. I could feel them the second we walked through the front entrance… eyes tracking us, he
The hallway was dark, quiet and I was still standing outside his door like an idiot when it opened again.Rhys leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, looking at me with the expression of someone who had been expecting this."You're still here," he said."I was just leaving.""You've been standing outside my door for two minutes."I opened my mouth. Closed it. There was genuinely nothing to say to that.He looked at the letter in my hand. Then back at my face. Something shifted in his expression… not mean, not warm, just calculated in a way that made my stomach tighten."I have a proposal," he said."I don't want your proposal.""You haven't heard it yet.""Whatever it is the answer is no."He tilted his head slightly. "Even if it involves the letter?"I went very still.He smiled. Not the warm one he gave his dad at dinner… the other one. The one that meant he already knew how this conversation was going to end."There are copies," he said simply. "I took pictures… every fucking
Nobody moved.We just stood there, both dripping from the pool, staring at each other in the kind of silence that only happens when the universe has officially lost its mind.Rhys spoke first."So." He tilted his head slightly. "Stepsisters, hmm… Interesting development.""Don't." I pointed at him. "Don't say a single word. Just don't ever say anything about the letter again, and I'll pretend this whole day never happened.""What letter?""Rhys.""I don't know what you're talking about." He smiled. His hands were behind his back.Something about that made me look down.He was unzipping my bag.Slowly, quietly. While looking me dead in the eye and talking like nothing was happening."Give me my bag…"Too late. His hand came back around and there it was. My letter, held up between two fingers like a trophy.I screamed."You went through my bag! That is literally illegal…""You left it unzipped.""GIVE IT BACK…"I grabbed for it. He pulled back. I grabbed again, he stepped sideways, I lu
Everyone was gone.Chairs scraping, bags zipping, people spilling out the door like the bell was a personal attack on their freedom. I was halfway out of my seat when his voice stopped me."Miss Ellis. Please wait behind."My whole body went stiff.Priya looked back at me from the doorway. I gave her the smile that meant I'm fine, go, I will tell you everything later, and she disappeared. Then it was just me and Mr. Vance and the kind of silence that has actual weight to it.I walked up slowly and stopped in front of his desk. Kept my face completely neutral like a person who had absolutely nothing to feel guilty about."What's your name?" he asked."Nova," I said. "Nova Ellis… you said my surname earlier, and I'm curious how you knew that."He looked at me for a second. Then that small smile came onto his face. Not mean. Just… knowing, like he found something quietly funny that he wasn't going to share."Nova." He said it slowly, like he was filing it away somewhere. "Funny thing… I
"Nova, are you even watching?" Priya screamed over the crowd."I'm watching." God… I wasn't watching. I was busy watching Leo.Leo Carter, number seven, Westfield Academy's best student. In my very humble and totally unbiased opinion, the most beautiful human being to ever lace up a pair of hockey skates. He moved across the ice like he owned it… urhhgg, he's so unique, calm and clean.I had been practicing what I wanted to say to him for three weeks. Three weeks of mirror rehearsals, and gluing sticky notes on my room mirror so that I won't make a single mistakeToday was the day. After this match, I was going to walk up to Leo Carter, hand him the letter I had been rewriting since Tuesday, and finally stop being a coward… I'm gonna confess my love for him today.That was the plan.Then the crowd went crazy.Not for Leo, but for someone else."Oh my God, who is THAT?" Priya grabbed my arm so hard I almost dropped my hot chocolate.I looked toward the ice.There was a new player cutti







