Chapter 4: Playing with Fire

CLARA’S POV

The harsh morning light was already cutting through the dusty blinds of my dorm room when the sharp, violent buzz of my phone rattled against the wooden nightstand.

I groaned, burying my face deeper into my pillow, wishing for just five more seconds of oblivion. 

Every single inch of my body felt bruised from exhaustion. My eyes were swollen and dry from crying half the night, and my chest carried a heavy, suffocating ache that refused to lift. 

For a fleeting second, my half-asleep brain tried to convince me that yesterday had just been a terrible, feverish nightmare. 

I wanted so badly to believe I had not walked into Locker Room Four and caught Ethan with another girl. I wanted to believe I had not lost my mind in the frozen parking lot and kissed Jaxon Vance in front of half the varsity roster.

Then the phone buzzed again, followed by a third, impatient vibration that rattled my water glass.

I dragged myself up onto one elbow, my stomach tightening with a sudden spike of dread. 

My fingers trembled as I reached across the tangled sheets, grabbed the device, and tapped the glowing screen.

A text message sat right at the top of my notifications.

Ethan: Annual hockey kickoff dinner tonight at The Blue Line Grill, 7 PM sharp. Wear that black fitted dress I bought you.

I stared at the screen, my breath catching hard in my throat. I read the words once, then twice, then a third time just to make sure my eyes were not playing tricks on me.

There was no apology. No excuse. No frantic attempt to explain why he had been half-naked with a varsity cheerleader pressed against the locker room benches twelve hours ago. 

There was not even a simple question asking if I had made it back to my dorm safely.

He was acting completely unfazed.

Ethan was treating me like an obedient possession, a piece of property that would naturally come crawling right back to his feet the second he snapped his fingers. 

His cruel, mocking words from last night echoed through my skull, ringing like a slap across the face.

He truly believed I had spent the night wallowing in misery, terrified that he was right. 

He thought his little text would make me run to my closet, put on the dress he chose, and sit quietly by his side at the banquet just to keep up appearances.

“What is that idiot texting you about?”

Mia’s groggy voice broke through the silence. She pushed her wild curls out of her eyes as she sat up in her bed across the room, squinting at me with immediate concern.

Without a word, I turned the screen toward her.

Mia dragged herself out of bed, snatched the phone from my hand, and read the message. Her jaw dropped, and a second later, she let out a loud, incredulous scoff.

“Are you out of your mind, Ethan?” she shouted at the phone, as if he could hear her through the glass. 

“He cheats on you in the middle of the athletic facility, laughs in your face, and now he is ordering you to wear a specific dress to his team dinner? Who the hell does he think he is?”

“He thinks I don’t have any other options,” I whispered, pulling my knees up against my chest. 

“He thinks I am pathetic. He thinks I am going to sit at his table, smile for the cameras, and pretend nothing happened because I am too weak to leave.”

“Well, he is about to find out how wrong he is,” Mia said fiercely, thrusting the phone back into my lap. 

She sat down on the edge of my mattress, her dark eyes flashing with pure determination. 

“You are done playing the sweet, quiet girlfriend who takes his garbage, Clara. You are done letting him treat you like a trophy he can put on a shelf whenever he gets bored.”

 “He genuinely thinks nobody else would look twice at me.” I murmured, staring at my hands.

“Ethan is an arrogant clown who is threatened by anything he cannot control,” Mia said, tapping the corner of my phone screen. 

“And right now, you have something in your inbox that would give him a heart attack.”

My pulse jumped.

I swiped down on the screen and looked at my direct messages. There it was, pinned right under Ethan’s text—the verified account with the black-and-white profile picture.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. The memory of last night hit me all over again in a dizzying rush—the cold metal of his car, the scent of cedar and ice, the hard line of his jaw, and the absolute heat of his mouth when he pulled me against his chest. 

I had acted out of pure, desperate rage, but Jaxon had not pushed me away. He had held me tight and said deal.

“What if he was just mocking me?” I asked, my voice wavering as self-doubt clawed at my throat. 

“What if he just wanted to mess with Ethan’s girlfriend for five minutes and now he is laughing about it with his teammates?”

“Jaxon Vance does not waste his energy on games like that,” Mia countered immediately. 

“He is the Tier-A captain. He hates Ethan more than anyone on this campus, and he has never let anyone push him around. He gave you his private number, Clara. He called you his girlfriend. He threw you a lifeline, and you need to take it.”

My palms were sweating. Dialing Jaxon felt like playing with matches over an open pool of gasoline. 

Ethan was dangerous when he was angry, but Jaxon was an entirely different league. 

He was bigger, sharper, wealthier, and completely untouchable on and off the ice. If I stepped into his world, there would be no going back to the quiet life I used to have.

“Call him,” Mia urged softly, placing a steady hand over my trembling fingers. “Take your dignity back.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat, opened my dial pad, and entered the ten digits. My finger hovered over the green button for five agonizing seconds before I forced myself to press it.

I brought the phone to my ear, holding my breath.

The line clicked. It rang once.

It rang a second time.

“I was wondering how long you were going to stare at your phone before dialing.”

The deep, low voice resonated through the receiver, smooth and completely calm. 

There was no hesitation in his tone, no morning grogginess. He sounded entirely awake, steady, and in complete control of the conversation.

My throat went dry. “Jaxon?”

“Good morning, sweetheart,” he answered, his voice dropping into a quiet, intimate cadence. 

In the background, I could hear the faint, echoing clatter of skates cutting across ice and the sharp thud of rubber hitting a Plexiglas board. He was already at the rink. 

“How are you holding up?”

“I am fine,” I managed to say, gripping the phone tighter as heat rushed into my cheeks. 

“I just... I wanted to ask about last night. In the parking lot. When I asked you to be my boyfriend and you said deal.”

“I don’t make deals I don’t intend to keep, Clara,” Jaxon replied without missing a beat. His tone was firm, leaving zero room for doubt. 

“When you kissed me, I gave you my answer. I wasn’t joking, and I wasn’t playing around.”

A shiver traced down my spine. Hearing my name roll off his tongue with such easy familiarity made my stomach flip.

“Ethan just texted me,” I blurted out, unable to hold the words back any longer.

The line went silent for a single beat. The distant sound of pucks in the background seemed to fade as Jaxon focused entirely on me. 

When he spoke again, the playful warmth in his tone had vanished, replaced by something cold, sharp, and lethal.

“What did he say?”

“He ordered me to go to the annual hockey kickoff dinner tonight,” I explained, staring down at the bedsheets as my knuckles turned white around the phone. 

“At The Blue Line Grill. Seven o’clock. He told me which dress to wear. He didn’t apologize for what happened yesterday. He just assumed I would show up and sit next to him like nothing happened.”

A low, dark chuckle rumbled in Jaxon’s throat. It was not a sound of amusement; it was the quiet, dangerous laugh of a predator watching someone walk straight into a trap.

“Ethan has always been blind,” Jaxon said calmly. “And he clearly doesn’t realize the rules of the game just changed.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The athletic department combined the banquet this year,” Jaxon explained, the steady authority in his voice cutting right through my remaining anxiety. 

“Both Tier-A and Tier-B teams are scheduled at The Blue Line Grill tonight. The coaches, the athletic director, the boosters, and every single player from both rosters will be in that dining room.”

My eyes widened. I looked up at Mia, who was watching my expression with a wide, breathless grin.

“Both teams?” I whispered.

“Every single one of us,” Jaxon confirmed.

He did not ask for messy details about Ethan’s infidelity, and he did not make me feel small for wanting payback. 

He did not demand an explanation for why I had grabbed him by his jacket collars the night before. Instead, he simply laid out the board and offered me an unbeatable alliance.

“Ethan thinks you’re sitting in your dorm crying over him. Let’s show him who owns your time now. I’ll pick you up at six-thirty.”

The words hung in the air between us, heavy with raw promise.

Showing up at that restaurant on Jaxon Vance’s arm would not just surprise Ethan—it would publicly humiliate him in front of his coaches, his teammates, and his fiercest rivals. 

It would shatter his pride into a million pieces and prove to everyone that he had lost complete control.

I looked down at Ethan’s arrogant text still glowing on my screen, demanding my obedience. 

Then I listened to Jaxon’s steady, rhythmic breathing waiting patiently on the other end of the line, ready to stand between me and the boy who broke my heart.

The fear that had paralyzed me all morning vanished, replaced by a sudden, intoxicating surge of adrenaline.

I squared my shoulders, met Mia’s encouraging nod, and brought the phone firmly back against my ear.

“Pick me up in front of the dorms, Jaxon,” I whispered, my voice completely steady. 

“Let’s give them a show.”