FAZER LOGINI sighed as I walked into class, the familiar hum of voices and scraping chairs doing little to ease the knot in my stomach. Blake had returned to his usual seat right behind mine, and I knew it was going to be hell. Trust me—there was never going to be an “us,” no matter how much he pushed. I slumped into my chair, trying to make myself small.He looked at me immediately, eyes heavy with hurt. “Noah, do you hate me that much?”I turned slightly, scratching the back of my neck in awkward discomfort. “Why would you say that?”“You know why,” he pressed. “I kept sending you multiple texts, but you responded to none. And when you came back, you didn’t even bother reaching out to me?”I sighed. He was right. But the truth was I had been hiding—avoiding exactly this conversation, this pressure. “It’s not like that, Blake. I just—”Before I could finish, a pair of warm hands gently covered my eyes from behind. I touched them instinctively and knew right away. Liam. He had left home early th
A hand on my shoulder. My heart lurched. Kai — the thought arrived before I could stop it, the specific, desperate hope that he had come back, that he had turned around somewhere in the corridor and thought about it and come back to say something different— I looked up. Maya. She opened her arms without a word and I stood up and went into them and cried the way I hadn’t let myself cry in front of him — fully, without management, without keeping any part of it contained for later. “What’s wrong, Ava?” Her voice was soft against my hair. She was the only person in this building who knew who I actually was. Not Noah, not the captain, not the boy who had confessed something in a dark hallway — just Ava. Just me. I was so relieved she hadn’t heard any of it. She pulled back eventually, looking at my face with the focused attention of someone reading something important. “Why did you say Kai’s name when I touched you?” I looked at her. “I’m so confused,” I said, “that I can’t even
The night wrapped around the dormitory like a heavy cloak, the kind that pressed down on your chest and made every creak of the old wooden floors echo like a warning. I had been drifting in that hazy space between sleep and wakefulness when I heard it—my name, soft and tentative, floating through the darkness. My eyes fluttered open, and there he was, silhouetted against the faint moonlight filtering through the frost-laced window. “Noah?” I muttered, my voice thick with sleep. Surprise jolted through me, chasing away the remnants of whatever dream I’d been lost in. He stood there at the edge of my narrow bed, shifting from one foot to the other, his arms wrapped around himself as if the chill had already seeped into his bones. “I can’t sleep in my bed,” he whispered, his breath visible in the cold air. “It’s so cold. Freezing, Liam. Like the radiator’s given up entirely.” I sighed, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. This was typical Noah—bold enough to sneak across the hall but vulne
The tension in the room thickened the moment I grabbed his hand as he tried to rise from the bed. I was still smiling, hoping to lighten the mood, but his expression remained clouded.“Liam,” I said softly, “please don’t. Don’t be too weird. I just met Camilla. I didn’t—”“Exactly,” he cut in, anger sharpening his voice. “That is your girlfriend, and I’m sorry if I’m misinterpreting anything here.”Before I could respond, he pulled away and stormed out of the room. The door slammed behind him with a finality that echoed through the apartment. I sighed, utterly confused. Why was he acting like this? Who had even told him I was meeting Camilla? Nothing made sense. I rushed to the top of the stairs, calling after him.“Liam, don’t go!”But he was already gone, the front door shutting with a heavy thud. I sighed again, a sad weight settling over my chest. Why was he acting so weird? And why did it hurt so much to see him angry at me? The ache felt deeper than it should, twisting something
The conversation with Camilla unfolded like a sudden release of pressure I hadn’t realized I was carrying. I stared at her, confusion knitting my brows. “Wait, you’re not going to confess to me?”She burst out laughing, the sound bright and genuine, filling the small dorm room. “Noah, are you okay? Please, what did they do to you at training camp? Why on earth would I confess to you?” She leaned forward, eyes dancing with amusement. “Wait—how weird are you?”I felt heat rise to my cheeks, embarrassment crashing over me in waves. She continued, still chuckling. “I called you here because I wanted to tell you about my man. He wants to meet my friends. I’m always talking about you, and he’s curious.”Relief flooded through me, sharp and sweet, tangled with a sting of embarrassment. How had I even thought that? My assumptions had spiraled so wildly out of control. “Why did you think I was going to confess, Noah, huh?”“Because of the way you’ve been on my neck recently, and how you—”She
The night air had cooled considerably by the time we reached the edge of the path, the town lights fading behind us like distant stars. I held the flower Liam had given me with careful fingers, its petals soft against my palm, but the ache in my chest had nothing to do with the long walk or the exhausting practice. It was time to return to my dorm, yet every step felt heavier than the last. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay with him—wanted it so badly the longing twisted like a vine around my ribs—but the words lodged in my throat. Instead, I stared down at my hands and said nothing.“Noah.” His voice was gentle, pulling my gaze upward. He tilted his head, studying me with that quiet intensity that always saw too much. “Why are you so quiet?”I sighed, forcing a weak smile. “Just tired. From the walk.”“Really? Is that so?” His tone was flat, disbelieving. He knew. Of course he knew. Liam had always been able to read me like an open book. He let out a long breath. “You’re lying to
“Kai.” I kept my voice low and firm. “I need to go back to my own bed. I’m just as cold as you are.”He made a sound something between a sigh and a murmur and his grip on my hand tightened instead of loosening.“I feel like I’m with my mother,” he said. Quiet. Undefended. The words coming from some
Kai didn’t come back to the room that night.I didn’t spend long thinking about why. I stretched out on my bed in the quiet and let the silence settle around me like something earned no tension in the air, no waiting for the next thing to go wrong, just the particular peace of a room that belongs
The days that followed had their own quiet rhythm.Every session I showed up with my group and we worked methodically, without fanfare, building on what the midnight practice had started. I could see it happening in real time, the gradual accumulation of small things becoming something larger. The
Nothing changed the following day.The coach had apparently decided that the co-captaincy was a permanent arrangement, which meant Kai arrived at every session with the energy of someone who had been given a platform and intended to use every inch of it. I said little. I watched. I had learned, in







