Chapter 91

Mark was laughing when I found them. That was the first thing — the easy, unbothered laughter of someone who considers what he’s done a reasonable afternoon. He was leaning against the lockers with the others around him, and when he saw me his face opened into the familiar grin. “There he is. Where have you been, man? We’ve barely seen you—” I slammed him into the locker. The sound of it went through the room and everything stopped. Mark looked at me — not afraid, not yet, but reassessing. “What—” “Why did you hurt Noah.” It didn’t come out as a question. He laughed. Short, disbelieving. “That chicken? He told you? We were just talking, man — having a conversation—” “You beat him.” I looked at him directly. “Did you.” He shrugged. The smirk was still there, smaller now but present. “You always said you hated him. You were the one who told us he was the enemy. So what changed? What’s wrong with you?” I hit him. Clean, hard, the full weight of everything I was ca

Chapter 92

“Does brotherly love disgust you that much?” I watched his face move through something — discomfort, or something wearing discomfort’s shape — and raised an eyebrow. He looked away, which told me everything I needed to know about what was actually happening behind that expression. Weird guy, I thought, with a warmth I didn’t fully examine. But I meant what I’d said. I did love him more — more than Liam, more than I had expected to, more than made any straightforward sense given the history between us. Liam had Noah. He had always had Noah. And somewhere in the last few weeks, without announcement, without anyone’s permission, I had found that I had Kai. It was only fair, really. I looked at his hands — treated, bandaged, the bruises already deepening. He had gone to his friends for me. Had stood in a locker room and said things I doubted came easily, with his knuckles split open, and then come back and apologised. Not everyone did that. Not many people did that. “You’re

Chapter 93

Kai’ POV When I finally came back to myself, Noah was on his bed. Turned toward the wall. Quiet in the deliberate, effortful way that isn’t actually sleep — the stillness of someone who has decided to be unreachable. “Noah.” I kept my voice soft. “Hey.” Nothing. I reached for my phone to check the time. Hanna’s message was on the screen. Please can you talk to me babe? Are you busy? Something moved in my chest before I’d finished reading it. A small, involuntary skip — the particular response of a heart that hasn’t fully finished with something it thought it had put down. I looked at the message for a moment. Then I put the phone face down on the table. Quickly. Deliberately. I looked at Noah’s back instead. “Noah, come on. Talk to me. Are you okay?” I leaned forward. “You didn’t eat. Come on — come and eat with me, both of us together—” “Why are you focused on me?” His voice came out muffled, aimed at the wall. “Go and reply to your babe and eat your food.”

Chapter 94

“No way.” “Come on.” I kept my voice reasonable. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just — you smell good. I want to know what it is.” “No.” “It’s not like you’ve never hugged me before—” “If you bring that up one more time,” he said, with complete evenness, “you’re going back to your own bed right now.” “I’m sorry.” I said it immediately. “I won’t mention it again.” “Good.” A pause. “So why won’t you go back to your own bed?” “I’m getting more from here. The light is better and I’m in the middle of something.” He sighed the long-suffering sigh of someone who has made a decision they know they’re going to regret. “Fine, Kai.” I stretched out properly. He lay down on my back — just like that, with the casual ease of someone who has assessed the available space and made a practical decision about it. “Why—” “Because you’re on my bed,” he said into my shoulder. “So face it.” I faced it. I read. The room got quieter as the building settled into night. The words on the page were

Chapter 95

“What are you doing here?”Kai’s voice came out flat with shock rather than coldness. He stood in the doorway looking at her like someone who has opened a door expecting one thing and found something categorically different.“I came to see you,” she said. Her voice was soft, her eyes softer — the specific quality of someone who knows the effect they have and has decided to use it. She crossed the room and wrapped her arms around him before he’d finished processing her presence, pulling him into the hug with the easy confidence of someone who considers this their right.Kai extracted himself carefully. “How did you know my dorm?”She smiled. “Kai. You know I always find what I want.” She tilted her head. “I spoke to your coach personally. He said you’re allowed out with me. It’s been so long — we need to catch up properly.” Her eyes moved past him to me, briefly. “I already met your roommate. I don’t know his name.”“He’s not just my roommate,” Kai said. “He’s my brother.”She blinked.

Chapter 96

On the way back to the academy the cab was quiet.Not the comfortable quiet we had found between us over the past weeks — the easy, settled kind that didn’t need filling. This was different. Kai sat beside me and looked out the window and said nothing, and the nothing had a quality to it that I recognised.I looked at him. “Do you like her?”He turned. “Does it matter, Noah?”“Of course it matters.”“No,” he said. Flat. Final. “It doesn’t.”He looked back out the window and the set of his jaw told me the conversation was finished whether I agreed or not. I let it be. I wanted to tell him what I had found on my phone — the photo, my cousin, the pieces fitting together — but I needed to be certain first. A photo was not proof. A tagged post was not a confession. I needed something solid.I said nothing.The journey finished in the same quiet it had started in.At the academy gates I stopped. “Go ahead. I’ll find you there.”He looked at me for half a second — something moving behind his