Chapter 4 – Avery

I could still feel the exact place where his hand had rested on my side.

It burned like a brand even after I pulled away. I kept my arms crossed tight over my chest as we walked, fingers digging into my own sleeves hard enough to leave marks. The cameras stayed far enough back to look casual, but I felt every lens like a hand on the back of my neck.

Jax walked beside me like he belonged in every frame. Broad shoulders, easy stride, the kind of presence that made people look twice even when they didn’t want to. The split knuckles on his right hand were still taped. Every time they caught the light I saw the slow-motion replay again—fist, blood, silence, then chaos.

I hated that my stomach still turned when I looked at it.

“You don’t have to talk,” he said after a stretch of silence that felt longer than it was. His voice was low enough that the mics probably wouldn’t catch it clean. “We can just walk.”

“I’m not doing this for conversation.”

“Yeah. I got that.”

A group of students passed us on the path. One of them did a double take, then elbowed her friend. Phones came out fast. I kept my face blank and my eyes forward, but I felt the heat climb up my throat anyway. This was the part they wanted—the public proof. The girl who roasted athletes on the radio suddenly walking next to the one who just became a national punchline.

My scholarship email was still sitting unread in my inbox. My mom’s latest hospital statement was still folded in the bottom of my bag. The stipend number Dana had shown me kept flashing behind my eyes like a neon sign I couldn’t turn off.

I needed this. That was the part that made me sickest.

Jax glanced sideways at me. “They’re going to ask how we met.”

“I know.”

“You got a version ready, or am I inventing one?”

I stopped walking so abruptly he had to take an extra step before he realized. The cameras adjusted, still pretending distance. I turned just enough to look at him without giving them a clean profile shot.

“Don’t invent anything that makes me look like I fell for the jersey,” I said, voice tight. “I didn’t. I won’t. If they ask, we say we kept running into each other on campus and it turned into something. That’s it. No big romantic story. No ‘she saw the real me.’ You don’t get to rewrite what I think of you just because the network needs a redemption arc.”

Something flickered across his face—anger, then something closer to tired recognition. He nodded once.

“Fine.”

We started walking again. The path curved toward the main quad. More students. More phones. Someone actually called his name. Jax lifted a hand in a half-wave without slowing down. The gesture looked natural. Practiced. It made the gap between us feel even wider.

I hated how easily he could still perform.

My own performance was cracking at the edges. My pulse was too loud in my ears. My jaw ached from how hard I’d been clenching it since the conference room. Every time his shoulder almost brushed mine I had to fight the urge to step sideways into the grass.

We reached the far side of the quad. Dana’s voice carried from somewhere behind the cameras, bright and pleased.

“That’s enough for today. Great energy, you two. We’ll send the first schedule tonight.”

The second the cameras lowered, I put more distance between us.

Jax didn’t follow. He just stood there with his hands in his pockets, watching me like he was trying to read something I hadn’t given him permission to see.

“You don’t have to hate me this hard,” he said quietly. “I’m already doing a good enough job of it myself.”

The honesty in it landed harder than I wanted it to.

I looked at the taped knuckles one more time, then at his face. Up close the golden-boy polish was gone. He looked exhausted. Cornered. A little bit ruined.

I still didn’t trust it.

“I’m not here to make you feel better,” I said. “I’m here because the money is real and my options aren’t. Don’t confuse the two.”

I turned before he could answer and walked away fast enough that my eyes stung from the cold air instead of anything else.

Behind me I heard Dana calling after him about tomorrow’s “casual coffee date” segment.

I kept walking until the quad was behind me and the only sound left was my own breathing, too fast and too loud.

I already knew sleep wasn’t happening tonight.