Chapter 11
Blake
It’s the first time in weeks my chest doesn’t feel like it’s caving in. Saying it out loud—everything about the girl from Briarwood, the drive, the silence since—was brutal, but it’s out now. Not just mine to carry. It’s small, but the weight eases just enough for me to notice.
Mads offers to grab our stuff from the car, and I don’t argue.
The quiet while he’s gone is almost a relief.
I get a few minutes to breathe, to let myself feel the edge of that release before the panic starts creeping back in.
By the time he returns, a bag slung over each shoulder, I’m steadier than I was.
Still wrecked, but not completely unraveling.
I’m caught between wanting to collapse onto the floor and pretending I’ve got it under control.
He drops the bags down without comment, eyes flicking over me in that way that makes it impossible to hide how close I am to cracking.
He doesn’t say anything, but the look is enough. Too knowing. My skin prickles under it, and I cross my arms like that’ll somehow make me harder to read. Spoiler: it doesn’t. He’s clocking every unspoken tell I have, and the worst part is I can tell he’s not even trying.
He just knows me.
I’m not exactly at my emotional best right now, but he hasn’t bolted. Or complained. Or made me feel like this is all too much. First, our punishment. Now all this. He just keeps showing up.
And that’s the part I don’t know how to deal with. He’s still here, just waiting for me to decide what comes next. No pushing, no questions, just… steady.
It throws me, because he’s nothing like what I expected. Kind, patient, careful in ways I didn’t think he could be. Which only makes it harder. Because if I open this drive and what’s on it is as bad as I expect, I’m not just dragging myself into it. I’m dragging him, too.
But I need answers. I need to know what’s on it before my brain melts from the speculation.
Worst-case scenarios have been on loop in my head all day—some realistic, some straight-up tinfoil.
Unfortunately, at this point, I half expect the file to open and trigger a self-destruct countdown or a voice that says, “Nice try, dweeb.”
When he drops the bags on the floor, I crouch and unzip mine. From the inside pocket, I pull out one of my shin guards, slide a finger into the slit along the padding, and tug out the USB I’ve been hiding there. I toss it to him with more force than necessary.
Mads catches it easily, dropping onto the bed with the kind of arrogant athletic grace that makes me want to both kick him in the jaw and immediately straddle him.
Unfortunately, I don’t think either of those things would help me access the drive any faster.
Or would they?
He flips the USB in his fingers, squinting at it. “If this bricks my laptop, you’re buying me a new one.”
“The fact that I’m even letting you touch it at all speaks volumes to my desperation,” I shoot back.
“Yeah?” he says, sliding the USB into the port and flashing me a grin. “You gonna punish me if I fuck it up?”
God, I hate him.
And also I want to climb him like a rope in gym class.
I have no idea how I got here.
I cross my arms and start pacing. The laptop whirs softly, screen flickering as he pulls up some recovery program that looks like something out of a spy movie.
Half a dozen file trees, blocks of code, folders with names I don’t understand, strings of numbers rolling past as if it's testing combinations.
But he moves through them with practiced ease, fingers flying.
“This is weirdly attractive.” I must be sleep deprived, because I can’t believe I just said that out loud.
Mads doesn’t look up. He keeps typing, completely unbothered by the fact that I’m hovering behind him like a lunatic, wearing a path into the floor and clearly moments away from losing it.
“You’re going to try to kiss me the second this file opens, aren’t you?” His voice is maddeningly calm. I can’t help but feel like it might be a bit forced for my benefit.
He scrolls with one hand, navigating through layers of hidden folders, and I’m ninety percent sure he’s enjoying this. The drive, the mystery, maybe even my unraveling.
“Shut up.” I move in closer, watching the screen flash between directories.
My pulse kicks every time he clicks something new.
I’m too close to him, but I can’t make myself back off.
Not when he’s this focused. Not when my brain’s short-circuiting from the combination of heightened awareness and whatever weird chemical cocktail Mads Keller stirs up inside me just by existing.
“Just want to be emotionally prepared,” he adds, still annoyingly composed. “I’ve been waiting for this day my whole life.”
He glances up, and his mouth curves. Not quite a smile, not fully teasing.
I look away first. Pretend to inspect my cuticles. The tension between us isn’t new, but it’s pressing harder now, charged in a way that makes it hard to breathe sometimes. I’m supposed to be focused on what’s on that drive. Where it came from. Why?
And I am.
But I’m also standing behind the one person who can piss me off and steady me in the same breath. And I can’t stop thinking about what would happen if I did kiss him.
Not that I would.
Unless he kissed me first.
Probably.
He shifts into something detached, focused on the screen, typing with quiet precision as he moves through directories and buried files. I try to keep my breathing even. My stomach twists with every click, and my skin won’t stop buzzing. I tell myself it’s the energy drink I had on the way here.
But it isn’t.
It’s the not knowing.
I’m back to glaring at the screen. “It should be there. One video file. It looked playable, but—”
“There it is.” He taps the trackpad.
A single file sits in the root: 0x00000013_FILE.mp4
I stop pacing.
He double-clicks it. The screen stutters, then flashes black.
A pop-up window appears: No codec found.
He frowns, tries again. A new message: Corrupted header data.
“Okay,” he mutters, already pulling up another utility. “Could just be bad encoding. I’ll try it through a partition reader, see if I can trick it open.”
I slide down the wall and sit cross-legged on the floor, heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat.
“I’ve already tried four different decryption scripts. Nothing works.”
“Yeah, well. You don’t have my magic fingers.”
I tilt my head. “You say that to every girl you try to impress with illegal software?”
He finally looks at me. And yeah, that look—lazy, cocky, like he knows exactly what he's doing to me—is exactly why I hate him.
Or one of the reasons, anyway.
“No, just you,” he says. “Is it working?”
My body answers before my mouth can. Heat flushes across my chest, crawls down my spine.
It’s a mistake. He’s a mistake. But I’m tired.
I’m wired. I’ve spent the past week convinced I was going to die or get expelled or both, and he’s sitting there like every bad decision I’ve ever wanted to make but didn’t.
And I don’t want to wait anymore.
He’s not doing anything. He’s just watching me—lips parted like he’s expecting an answer, like he’s daring me to move first. And maybe I should be smarter.
Maybe I should remember every time he’s gotten under my skin this semester and all the others, every smug comment, every intentional disruption to my sanity.
But the way he’s looking at me right now—calm and focused and a little bit wrecked—it’s undoing all the careful distance I’ve tried to keep.
I’m already too close. Already too far gone. I’m pacing without even realizing it, back and forth like I can burn off the nerves that won’t quit. Then his hand shoots out, catching my wrist, tugging me straight into his lap. His voice is low, steady, almost warning. “You need to calm down.”
“Hey—”
His hand lifts, fingers combing gently through the ends of my hair, like he’s trying to soothe me the same way you’d calm a skittish animal.
“Hey,” he says softly. “Breathe. You’re wound so tight you’re making me nervous.”
I don’t have a plan. My hands are shaking, my chest too tight, but I can’t do this halfway. Not with him. Not with everything boiling over all at once—stress, suspicion, visceral attraction that hasn’t let up since the second we were forced into this mess together.
His eyes flick to my mouth. He doesn’t lean back. Doesn’t move away.
“You plan on using me as a coping mechanism?” he asks. I think he already knows the answer.
“Maybe.”
I expect him to crack another joke, throw up some kind of defense. But instead, he grins—slow, open, sure. “Then I’m all yours.”
It doesn’t matter that we’re in the back room of Colin's house with bass rattling through the walls, half-drunk voices spilling down the hall, and a possibly-compromised drive glowing on the bed next to us. Whoever’s behind it all is still out there.
I’ve been carrying this tension in my chest for weeks, and right now, I want.
I want something to make sense.
I want something I can feel.
I want him.
I don’t know if it’s the adrenaline still draining from my system or the fact that Mads is annoyingly extra hot when he’s being useful, but the second I’m on his lap, it’s over.
His thighs are solid beneath me, the fabric of his joggers soft but stretched tight across thick muscle. My knees settle on either side of his hips, and I can feel the heat of his body through both layers of clothing.
His hands are on my waist—fingers splayed, grip unrelenting, like he’s been holding back and now he doesn’t have to. He pulls me down against him, the motion quick and decisive, his palms dragging up under the hem of my shirt just enough to press against bare skin.
I kiss him—hard, hungry, a little reckless. All the tension I’ve been choking on finally has somewhere to go.
My hands drag up his chest, feeling the heat of him under my palms, the solid press of muscle giving way to the thud of his heartbeat.
For a second, it’s mine, all mine.
Until he shifts us.