Trapped Behind the Curtain

Harper's heart was going so hard she could feel it in her teeth. She was crouched behind a shower curtain thin enough to see shapes through, wrapped in a towel that suddenly felt like nothing, while two guys from the team stomped around the locker room hunting for whatever girl's voice they thought they'd heard through the wall.

Luca leaned down until his breath hit her ear over the running water. "You know this looks incredibly suspicious from the outside, right?"

"Be quiet," she hissed.

"I am quiet."

"Quieter than that."

He almost smiled. Of course he did. Bossy, he'd probably say later, and she'd already decided she hated him for being right.

The footsteps stopped just outside. One of them said something about Jack, about hearing him talk, and the other guessed he was still in the shower. Then a second pair of sneakers slid into view under the curtain gap, close enough that Harper's stomach dropped clean through the floor. The curtain didn't reach the tile. If either of them looked down even once, six years of carefully built reputation would end in a locker room on a Tuesday.

She mouthed oh no with no sound behind it. Luca followed her stare to the gap and understood immediately, his whole posture changing in half a second.

She didn't ask. She grabbed his shoulders and climbed onto the narrow tiled ledge behind him, one arm hooked around his neck to keep her feet out of the water pooling near the drain.

He went rigid. "Seriously?"

"I didn't have a choice."

"You could've warned me first."

"There wasn't time, Luca."

"You've gotten weirdly affectionate for someone who claims to hate me."

"I will strangle you the second we're safe."

"Hard to strangle someone while hugging them."

"This isn't a hug."

He glanced at the arm locked around his neck like it was making his exact point for him, and she genuinely considered cracking his skull against the wall tile just to make a point of her own.

Outside, one of the boys laughed, said something about catching something interesting, and got told he was probably just hearing things. Harper stopped breathing. One more step. One glance down. That was the whole margin she had left.

Luca didn't move. There was no smirk on him for once, nothing performative, just his hand hovering near her waist like he wasn't sure it was his to put there.

"I should probably," he started, and stopped.

"What?"

"You're slipping."

She hadn't even noticed her sneaker sliding on the wet tile until he said it. She tightened her grip, and that put their faces close enough that she could see the thin white scar cutting through his eyebrow, the one she knew the exact story of because she'd caused it. They were nine. A tree-climbing dare. She'd bet him he couldn't clear a branch she had, and he'd landed face-first in Mrs. Dawson's rose bushes screaming the whole way down, then spent a decade insisting it still counted as a win because technically he'd made the jump.

"What?" he said, catching her staring.

"Nothing."

"You've been staring for five seconds."

"Checking if a concussion explains your whole personality."

He laughed under his breath. There she was, he said, like he'd been waiting for the version of her with an insult already loaded.

Neither of them said anything for a second after that, and the quiet felt different than any silence they'd shared in seventeen years of knowing each other. She'd seen him across classrooms and dinner tables and football fields her entire life and never once been this close, close enough to notice his eyes weren't really blue so much as gray with blue trying to get in, close enough to hear that his breathing had gone uneven, and that his heart under her palm was going faster than it should be for someone just standing still.

Why was she even noticing his heartbeat. She caught herself on the thought and her face went hot before she could stop it.

"You've gone quiet," Luca said.

"Thinking."

"Dangerous for you."

She told him, low and dry, that she felt sorry for every girl who'd ever had a crush on him, because clearly their judgment was garbage if they thought he was charming, or mature, or anything close to smart.

"I passed chemistry," he said.

"Barely."

"Still counts."

She smiled before she could catch it, and he caught it instead. There it was, he said. She denied it. He didn't believe her, and he was right not to, because she'd been relieved those two had left the room, not amused, that was all it was.

A voice from the entrance cut through before he could push it further. Coach wanted everyone on the bus. Someone answered that Jack was still showering, got told to hurry him up, and the footsteps finally faded down the hall until the room went properly silent again.

Harper let out a breath she felt like she'd been holding since fourth period. "They're gone."

"You can let go now," he said.

She looked down and realized exactly how tangled they'd gotten, her arm still around his neck, her knee against his hip, and the heat that crawled up her face had nothing to do with the steam in the room. She tried climbing down too fast. Her foot slid on the wet tile and she went sideways, caught only because Luca grabbed her on reflex, his towel slipping an inch in the process.

"Your towel," she said, eyes huge.

"It didn't fall."

"I know that now."

"So what's the problem?"

"I thought it was going to!"

He lost it laughing, one hand braced against the wall, and she shoved his shoulder hard enough to make a point.

"You're impossible."

"And yet you keep ending up in my personal space."

"I keep ending up in disasters. Same thing, apparently."

"Same thing, Pepper."

She got both feet on solid ground and pointed a finger at his chest, told him what happened in that room stayed in that room, no telling the team, no jokes about it Monday. He considered that for a second and said Pepper suited her anyway.

"My last name is Bennett."

"I know."

"So stop it."

"You're kind of adorable when you're mad about something."

"I am not adorable."

"You really are."

She warned him she'd declare war if he ever called her that again, and he said he almost believed she'd win. She didn't answer that. She turned for the door instead, telling herself one more minute in that room and she'd lose something she wasn't going to get back.

She'd almost made it out when his voice dropped the teasing completely.

"Harper. Be careful with Noah."

She turned back around, jaw already tight. "You don't even know him."

"I know his type."

"You think every guy but you is garbage."

"I think anyone who makes you chase them isn't worth catching."

"That's rich, coming from the biggest flirt at Westbrook."

His smile dropped clean off his face. "You actually think that's who I am?"

She hesitated a beat too long before answering. "Isn't it?"

For the first time all afternoon, he didn't have a comeback ready. She looked away first, tightened her fist around the crumpled letter she was still carrying, and left without saying anything else.

Luca stood there after the door swung shut, then braced both hands on the sink and looked at himself in the mirror like his own reflection owed him something. "Nice job," he muttered. "One chance to actually tell her how you feel, and you called her Pepper instead." A short laugh escaped him anyway, more disgust than humor.

Out in the hallway, Harper leaned against the wall with her eyes shut. The day had started out hopeful. Now she'd confessed to the wrong boy, nearly gotten caught half-dressed in the boys' locker room, and somehow ended up smiling in the middle of an argument with the person she'd spent her whole life competing against. That last part bothered her more than the other two combined, and she didn't want to think too hard about why.

Her phone buzzed before she could get anywhere near an answer.

Noah Calling...

She stared at it a second too long before picking up. "Noah?"

His breathing sounded wrong. "Hey. About tonight."

Something in his voice twisted her stomach before he even finished the sentence. Then, faint underneath his words, a girl's laugh.

Her hand tightened around the phone. "Who's with you?"

Nothing came back.

Then the call dropped.