جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 20

MAYAI got to the library before it officially opened.Habit, mostly. Saturday mornings were quiet there, before the weekend crowd arrived to camp out with laptops and coffee. I liked the quiet. I liked having a place that felt like mine before the day demanded anything from me.I'd been at my usual table for twenty minutes when the door opened again.Liam. Two coffees in hand. No explanation on his face. Showing up uninvited on a Saturday morning like it was something we did regularly, instead of something that had never happened before.He didn't say anything about the fight. He set one coffee down in front of me. He'd remembered how I took it. Then he sat down across the table with his own bag of books.I watched him for a moment, waiting for an opening line that didn't come."No apology?" I finally asked."I said what I needed to say last night." He opened his laptop without looking up. "This isn't an apology. This is just

MAYASara called us both to her office two days later.Brett sat off to one side when we arrived, the equipment manager I'd nodded to for two years without really knowing him. He looked smaller than usual, hunched in his chair, eyes fixed on the floor."Brett has agreed to talk." Sara gestured for us to sit. "Voluntarily, after some encouragement. Go ahead."Brett cleared his throat twice before he found his voice. "I didn't give out your combination directly. I want that clear first.""Then what did you do." Liam kept his tone even but firm."Someone approached me about three weeks ago. Offered money for information about Maya's schedule." He glanced at me, guilt written plainly across his face. "Practice times. When the locker room would be empty. I took it once. Five hundred dollars. Then I felt sick and stopped.""Who approached you?""A student. I'd seen him around campus, never talked to him directly." Brett hesitated. "D

MAYAThe Digest profile went live Friday morning, and I read it three times before I let myself believe it was actually as good as it seemed.Farrah had written it warm, not cynical the way campus profiles usually turned out. She'd captured the coffee detail, the steadying line Liam had said about me, small true things woven into the piece without making either of us sound rehearsed. It read like two people who liked each other. Because, underneath everything, we were.Priya found me still staring at my laptop when she got back from class."You've read that four times." She dropped her bag. "I've been counting the tab refreshes.""It's a good piece.""It's a very good piece." She sat on the edge of my bed, reading over my shoulder. "This part. About him remembering how you take your coffee. That's not something you make up for a magazine.""It's not made up.""I know it's not." Priya's voice went quieter, more serious than her

MAYAThe donor gala brought both families into the same room for the first time since the investigation opened, and I felt the tension before we'd even reached the door."Six years." Liam scanned the crowd as we entered. "That's how long since my father and yours have shared a building, apparently. Elena mentioned it this morning.""Six years is a long time to avoid someone.""Not when you've built entire careers around out-maneuvering them." He offered his arm, steady despite the undercurrent I could feel radiating off him. "Stay close tonight. This one's going to require actual work."Marcus Cross and my father spotted each other within the first twenty minutes. The room seemed to hold its breath around them. They exchanged handshakes, careful and cold, photographers capturing the moment from every angle. I watched my father's jaw tighten in the particular way it did when he was performing calm he didn't feel."They're circling." I kept my voice low."They always circle. Different r

MAYAThe library study session ran later than either of us intended, seminar reading dense enough that we lost track of time until the front desk started flickering the lights."They're closing." I glanced up from my notes."Already?" Liam checked his phone, surprised by the hour. "We should go."We packed up slowly, neither of us in a rush, and stepped out into a campus gone quiet and dark. The courtyard stretched empty ahead, fountain still running, lit faintly from below."Coins." He remembered suddenly. "We never actually did that properly today.""It's almost midnight.""The fountain doesn't check the time." He pulled a coin from his pocket, the ritual promise from our two a.m. conversation finally catching up to itself. "Come on."We walked toward it together, the campus silent except for our footsteps and the low murmur of running water. He stopped at the edge, studying the coin in his palm like the wish actually mattered to him.I stopped beside him.Neither of us moved for a