Se connecterNOAH'S POVWhat kind of a man would I be if I left the woman who I had just tongue fucked walk out alone in the middle of night?Well, a terrible one.Elena was in the shower. She had stayed because I couldn't let her go home at night alone. Ethan would kill me. It was the least I could do given that I was fucking his sister. I sat on the edge of the couch with my elbows on my knees and stared at the floor.Her bag had fallen over near the arm of the couch when she shrugged out of her jacket. A notebook had slid halfway out. Not the one she used for articles. This one was older — smaller, the corners soft with age, the cover a faded dark blue that had once been closer to navy. It had landed open, pages bent slightly under its own weight.I should have left it alone. I told myself that twice while I stared at it. Then I reached down and picked it up.The handwriting stopped me first.It was hers, but younger. High school. Senior year, maybe earlier. The ink had faded in places to a dul
ELENA’S POVI had only come to return the wallet he left at the bar. That was the story I told myself the entire walk over. My pulse was already too fast. The living room was dim, lit only by a single lamp near the couch and the faint glow from the kitchen. The air smelled like him — clean soap and faint cedar.Noah stood near the hallway, still in the same clothes from earlier, jaw tight, and his eyes dark. The second the door shut he moved.He didn’t ask me to stay. He didn’t give me time to speak. He crossed the space in three long strides, backed me against the wall beside the stairs, and braced both hands on either side of my head. The heat of his body pressed close without quite touching. My breath caught hard in my throat.“You’ve been avoiding me after that night,” he accused, his voice hoarse.“I’ve been busy.”“Liar.”The word landed between us like a spark on dry grass. Sexual tension that had been building for weeks snapped tight. I could feel it in the way his gaze droppe
NOAH'S POVEthan walked in just as the silence between Elena and me had grown thick enough to touch.The bar door opened with its usual soft creak and the faint rush of rain-cooled air. I didn’t look up at first. I was still watching Elena’s face — the way her eyes had gone distant after she turned her phone face-down, the way her mouth had closed around whatever she had been about to say. The almost-confession still hung in the booth like smoke. Footsteps stopped at the edge of our table.I looked up.Ethan stood there in a dark jacket, still moving carefully because of the knee, but his eyes were sharp. He looked at me. Then at Elena. Then back at me. The accuracy of it was almost cruel. He read the room the way only someone who had loved both of us for years could read it.“I’ll come back,” he said quietly.He meant it. I could hear that he meant it. But he didn’t leave fast enough.The three seconds it took him to turn and take the first step toward the door were enough. The spel
ELENA’S POVThe bar had grown quieter while Noah spoke.Most of the regulars had drifted out into the rain. The bartender wiped the same stretch of counter in slow, absent circles. Somewhere near the front, a single neon sign buzzed faintly. Our booth in the back felt like the only solid place left in the world.I still had both hands wrapped around my coffee mug even though the coffee had gone lukewarm. Noah sat across from me with his water glass untouched, his hands finally still after the long, careful telling of everything he had carried for years. The things his stepfather had done. The way the fear had shaped him into the boy who built walls so high almost no one could climb them.I had listened without interrupting. I had not cried in front of him. I would cry later, alone in my room with the door locked and the lights off, but not here. Not while he was still watching me like I might disappear if he blinked too hard.When the silence stretched long enough that it started to f
NOAH'S POVThe bar was almost empty. A handful of regulars nursed the last of their drinks under the low amber lights. The jukebox in the corner played something slow and old that I barely registered. I sat at a back booth with a half-finished whiskey in front of me, the glass warm from my hands. My phone sat on the table, screen dark, until I picked it up and called her.She answered on the second ring. “Noah?”My voice came out low and rough, scraped raw from the whiskey and everything I had been holding in for years.“I did something wrong, Elena. A long time ago. I’m starting to think… I did something very wrong.”Twenty-three minutes later the door of the bar opened and she walked in, hair still damp from the rain, black jacket zipped to her chin. She spotted me immediately, crossed the floor, and slid into the booth across from me.She caught the bartender’s eye.“Water for him. Coffee for me. Black.”The drinks arrived. She pushed the water toward me without comment. Then she s
ELENA’S POV2:41 a.m.The dorm room was silent except for the soft hum of my laptop and the occasional distant laugh from someone still awake somewhere on the floor. My eyes burned. My neck ached. I had been staring at the screen for so long the blue light felt like it was searing itself into my brain.I should have been asleep. I should have left the investigation alone the way Dr. Reyes kept warning me to. But the empty private folder where my article used to live still stared at me every time I opened my laptop, and the anonymous message still sat in my phone like a live wire."Someone who’s supposed to be loyal just burned you. Check who had access."I had dismissed Lora. I had dismissed Jax almost immediately. It had to be Lucas. Everything always came back to Lucas.So I went after him.I started with the public records I already knew how to dig through — the same tools I used for every story. Old social media archives that people thought they deleted. I told myself I was just f
NOAH’S POV The penthouse apartment I shared off-campus smelled like a locker a suffocating cocktail of stale sweat, cold takeout, and the undeniable, pungent scent of Jax’s gym socks. I wrinkled my nose as I crossed the threshold. Most times, my teammates were absolute pigs, and tonight, the mess f
ELENA’S POV The North Dorms’ lobby was a haven of fluorescent lights and the smell of different fragrances but it felt like a sanctuary compared to the suffocating luxury of that Mercedes. I didn't stop to catch my breath or to shake off the water. I sprinted for the elevator, my heart slamming aga
NOAH'S POV Practice was usually the only thing that could kill the noise in my head. The basketball court was a kingdom of logic: if you put in the work, you got the result. If you hit the apex of your jump, the shot was yours. The ball slapped against my palm as I drove past Marcus. I pivoted, my
ELENA’S POV The lecture hall smelled like damp notebooks and desperation, a scent that was currently doing nothing to inspire my "fresh start." I slid into a seat halfway up the tiered rows, the wood creaking under my weight as students filtered in around me. Behind me, a guy was arguing with his f







