Chapter 76
LEX
Wexley University - hard as granite after watching Bella ride Cade…
Cade drops back into the seat next to me, breathless and flushed, hair a mess from Bella’s hands. He’s got that dazed, lovesick look on his face and I can’t even blame him.
I nudge his knee. “You good?”
He lets out a low laugh, still catching his breath. “Barely.”
I flash a wolfish grin. “You looked like you were thoroughly enjoying yourself.”
“Yeah, thanks for that.” His grin fades into something softer. “Lex… I think she’s back.”
That gets my attention. I turn fully toward him. “You think?”
He nods, eyes still on the court. “The way she looked at me. The way she moved. That little smirk she gave right before she climbed onto my lap. That was her, babe. That was our girl.”
I take a deep breath, watching Bella reset with the rest of Legacy for the next number. She’s laughing with Ellie, tossing her hair over her shoulder. There’s a glint in her eyes I haven’t seen in too damn long.
“I don’t know. It could just be the dancing. She always lights up when the music hits.”
“It’s more than that,” Cade says, squeezing my thigh. “She didn’t just perform. She played with me. With the crowd. She was teasing, flirting, confident as hell. That spark in her eyes, it wasn’t fake.”
I glance at him. “You really think she’s back?”
“I think she’s healing. She’s not just surviving. She’s living, babe.”
The weight of that hits me hard. For so long it’s just been about keeping her afloat, keeping her from drowning in everything she lost. But now she’s swimming on her own again. Even if just for a night.
I let out a breath and reach over, interlacing my fingers with his. “God, I hope you’re right.”
He squeezes my hand, warm and steady. “I am.”
On the court, the girls launch into a new Latin routine and Bella takes center like she was born for it.
Her body rolls with every beat, hair whipping, a smile tugging at her lips that’s wicked and real.
She looks like fire and freedom. We both sit there, hands locked, watching the girl we love burn up the floor.
“She’s back,” Cade says again, this time with quiet certainty.
Knox’s voice cuts through the gym, the music fading out behind him. “Ellie, you and Hales need to run your duet for Worlds backup. Let’s see it clean. Bella, take a damn break and go sit with your boys. I’m pretty sure after that chair routine with Cade, Lex is feelin’ a little lonely.”
Cade barks out a laugh, elbowing me. “You okay, babe? Feeling neglected?”
I smirk, eyes locked on Bella. “Neglected isn’t the word… more like starved.”
Bella walks up and sits her pretty little ass in my lap. “Hey, baby,” she says, a little breathless, a little smug.
I grab the back of her neck and pull her down, crashing my mouth against hers. There’s no teasing in this kiss, no gentle lead-in. I kiss her like she’s the surface after too long in the deep.
Her lips part for me instantly, hungry and hot. My fingers thread into her hair, and I tilt her just the way I like. Deep. Demanding. Desperate to feel her. Even more desperate to see for myself if Cade is right. When I pull back, my chest is heaving and not from the damn heat in this gym.
“You’re really back, malyshka,” I breathe, eyes wide.
She doesn’t answer with words. She grabs the front of my shirt, yanks me in, and kisses me harder. Dirtier. She sucks my bottom lip into her mouth and bites down, slow and sharp, and I groan. My cock twitches under her ass—fuck, she knows what she’s doing.
“I’m back, baby.”
She turns around and leans back against me, settling into my lap with this casual confidence like she owns the whole fucking world. Like I’m her throne and she’s finally come home to it. We sit there, locked together, her spine against my chest, watching her best friends take the floor.
In the middle of Ellie and Haley’s number she sits up, eyes flicking toward Knox at the DJ booth.
“Now?” she says quietly, like she’s confirming something. “Okay, who’s bringing it out there?”
I blink, confused as hell, until I realize she’s talking to Knox on the damn walkie.
“Okay yeah,” she nods again, then turns to me.
“I need to go change.”
I don’t move. “No.”
“Lex.”
“Baby.”
“Lex.”
I tighten my grip around her waist like she might disappear again if I let her go.
“Lex,” she says again, exasperated, but fighting a smile.
Then she turns to Cade.
“Cade. Will you please tell our brute of a boyfriend to let me go so I can go change.”
Cade chuckles and shoots me a look. “Let her go, Lex.”
My grip tightens dramatically like I’m some damn villain in a melodrama. “I’d rather die.”
Bella laughs, leans back, and presses a kiss to my jaw, then swivels to Cade and kisses him too, just as quick.
“I’ll be right back,” she says, flashing that look that always promises trouble.
As Ellie and Haley finish their number, the gym roars with applause. The Legacy boys push out this massive square stage onto the center of the court. It’s heavy, reinforced, covered in black panels, and raised just enough to feel like a pedestal. Callum and August start going crazy in their seats.
“What the hell is that?” I ask, glancing at Cade.
He shrugs. “I’ve never seen it before.”
I tilt my head. “You think this is that rain stage thing she told Ellie not to bring to her party?”
Cade’s brows lift. “Oh, shit. Maybe.”
The gym lights drop as she steps out from behind the curtain.
Barefoot and in a sheer lavender dress clinging to every perfect line of her body.
It looks like something out of a dream, short and gauzy, layered like petals.
Her skin glows under the pale lights, her hair pinned half up with soft waves spilling down her back.
She looks like a fucking ballet fairy. If that fairy was carved out of every dark craving I’ve ever had.
Josh meets her at center court and takes her hand. They walk in sync up the steps to the stage. The only lights still on are two soft blue beams hitting the square platform.
The first notes of “Midnight Rain” by Taylor Swift echo across the gym. I lean forward in my chair, elbows on my knees, eyes locked on our girl. She moves like the song is hers. Every extension of her leg, every turn of her neck, every flick of her fingers, it’s beautiful.
Josh lifts her and spins her into a dip that makes the crowd gasp. Her back arches, her arms stretch, her feet graze the surface like she’s gliding on water.
When the chorus hits, so does the rain. Water pours down from hidden slats above the stage, soaking them in seconds.
My phone is already up. Because holy shit. That’s our girl. Dancing barefoot in the rain. Drenched in lavender. Spinning and bending and swaying with this haunting kind of beauty that belongs on a stage in Paris, not a college gym. I can’t stop watching her.
“She’s unreal,” I mutter, still recording. “Like, not even real. That’s goddess-level shit.”
Cade nods beside me, just as gone. By the time the song fades, she’s soaked to the bone. Hair clinging to her back, dress plastered to her skin. Breathless and glowing. And fuck, she’s smiling. Like it wasn’t a performance. Like it was a release.
The crowd doesn’t even clap at first. They just sit there stunned. Then someone yells, and the whole place erupts. She steps down from the rain stage completely soaked, shining, fucking breathtaking, and starts walking back toward us, squeezing water from her hair.
But Knox’s voice booms over the speakers before she can even reach the edge of the court. “Uh-uh. Bella Blackwood, where you goin’? You’re not done.”
She stops mid-step, blinking up at the DJ booth like she misheard him.
“Excuse me?”
Knox grins, one hand cupping his mic, the other throwing her a challenge. “I said I’m calling you out, bitch. Lip sync battle. You and me. Right here. Right now.”
Cade laughs beside me. “Oh my God.”
I lean forward. “He’s actually lost his mind.”
Bella wipes water from her eyes. “Knox, I’m soaked.”
“And your point?” he fires back. “What, you scared?”
She lets out the most dramatic sigh I’ve ever heard, like Broadway-level dramatics, and then shrugs off her drenched lavender dress and tosses it to the floor.
My jaw drops. “What the fuck are you doing, baby?!”
“Holy shit,” Cade mutters beside me. “I knew she had Rico make her some more fight night outfits, but damn.”
Yeah. Damn is right. A Rico original—purple, glittery, and skin-tight—but it’s the word across her chest that nearly knocks the air out of me.
BARINOV. In black rhinestones. Right over her heart.
Ellie jogs out from the sideline, carrying a pair of purple and black heels and a towel. She tosses the towel at Bella’s head.
She flashes me a wink, slow, smug, and fucking lethal, like she knows she just branded my name across her chest and lit my soul on fire doing it.
Then she cracks her neck and glares up at Knox. “Okay, fucker. Let’s go.”.
Knox points to his backup DJ. “Hit it.”
“Right Thurr” by Chingy blasts through the gym like it’s 2004 again.
What follows is chaos. Glorious, ratchet, Wexley-certified chaos.
They switch off verses, each one trying to out-perform the other.
Bella goes full stripper squat during her first chorus, throwing her hair like it’s a weapon.
Knox tries to mimic it, fails spectacularly, and the whole gym loses their minds.
They do finger guns, body rolls, exaggerated air-humps. Knox even rips off his shirt halfway through and twirls it like a damn helicopter. Bella mocks him right back, throws invisible money at him, then turns around and twerks like the floor is her stage and the devil’s her hype man.
I think I black out somewhere around that part. Cade’s crying from laughter beside me.
When its over, Bella and Knox hug like the insane duo they are, arms flung, laughing, and still half-wet from the rain stage. She wipes her face with the towel one more time, cheeks flushed and glowing like she just conquered the damn world.
Knox leans back into the mic, voice echoing through the gym speakers like it’s his own personal concert. “Alright everyone, Thank you all for being here! We will see you tonight at the Pulse at the Catacombs!”