All Chapters of Crossing the line : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Ava’s POV The gym smelled like sweat and resin, the kind of sharp tang that clung to your skin even after you showered. The bleachers were mostly empty now—practice had ended an hour ago—but I lingered under the pretense of notes. My pen scratched nonsense across the page. I wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all myself. I was waiting for him. Ethan. He was the last one off the court, as always, dragging his bag across the polished floor, shoulders hunched under the weight of something heavier than just practice. His towel hung loose around his neck, damp with effort. He looked tired—bone-deep tired—but he still carried that untouchable presence, like the gym bent around him. And I was furious with him. For shutting me out. For pretending that night outside his apartment never happened. For acting like I didn’t exist when I could still feel the heat of his gaze on me across the room. “Cole,” I called, louder than I meant to. My voice echoed in the cavernous space. He froze mid-st

Ava’s POV I couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss. Not just the way Ethan’s lips felt against mine—warm, tentative, like he was afraid I’d vanish if he pressed too hard—but the way everything shifted afterward. The walls we’d both spent weeks building didn’t just crack; they fell apart. I walked back to my dorm that night feeling lighter than I had in months, almost like I was floating. My father’s voice still echoed in the background, sharp and unforgiving, but for once it didn’t drown everything else out. Ethan’s voice lingered louder. We’re really doing this, aren’t we? Yes. We were. Of course, “doing this” didn’t mean parading hand-in-hand across campus or stealing kisses in the bleachers where anyone could see. It meant stolen moments behind closed doors, quiet conversations, and the dangerous knowledge that I carried a secret no article could ever contain. And God, did it make everything harder. --- The first test came the next morning. Ethan and I shared a communicatio

Ethan’s POV Some lines weren’t meant to be crossed. I’d been telling myself that for weeks—like a mantra, like a shield. Ava Reynolds was off-limits. She was Coach’s daughter, the girl with the notebook always poised like a scalpel, the one person who could ruin me without even meaning to. And still, I found myself watching her when I shouldn’t. Still, I caught myself waiting for her voice in the newsroom, waiting for her laughter to slip past my defenses. And tonight, after everything that had happened—Jake’s smear job, the whispers circling campus, the way she’d looked at me after I stood up for her—I knew I was standing on the edge. One wrong move, and I’d fall. --- The campus was quiet. Late enough that the noise had dulled, early enough that the streetlights still burned like halos. I walked Ava back toward her dorm, our shoulders brushing now and then, the silence between us not heavy, but charged. “You didn’t have to defend me,” she said again, her voice soft, like she’

Ava’s POV The world didn’t shift all at once. It tilted slowly, like a balance I couldn’t quite steady. One day Ethan Cole was the boy my father barked at during practice, the star player whose name belonged in headlines and not in my heart. The next, he was the boy whose hand had brushed mine in the dark, whose lips had found mine under the weight of everything we weren’t supposed to want. And after that kiss, after his words in the gym, we became something else. Not together. Not official. Not even defined. But something. And that something lived in the shadows. We became masters of timing. At practice, I sat in the bleachers with my notebook, my face a mask of professional indifference. But every so often, when no one was looking, Ethan’s gaze would find mine. Just for a second. Long enough to send heat rushing up my spine. Later, when the locker room cleared, he’d linger. Pretending to tie his shoes. Pretending he’d forgotten something. And I’d linger too, jotting one la

Ethan’s POV The thing about secrets is they don’t stay quiet for long. Not when you’re on a team full of guys who can smell blood in the water. Not when your coach is the kind of man who notices a shoelace tied too loose, let alone a shift in focus. And definitely not when the secret involves the one person you’re not supposed to touch. Practice should’ve been easy that week. Conditioning drills, shot reps, defensive rotations—stuff I could do in my sleep. But my head wasn’t locked in. It was her. Ava, watching from the sidelines with her notebook, pretending to be detached but biting her lip when she thought too hard. The way her eyes followed me, the way they dipped when I caught her staring—like she knew she shouldn’t but couldn’t help it. It was fire under my skin. And the guys noticed. “Yo, Cole,” Marcus called, jogging up behind me after sprints, slapping a towel against my shoulder. “Your girlfriend’s got good attendance, I’ll give her that.” I shot him a look sharp e