Chapter 5 #2
But the truth? I’m already leaning in, already planning the next time, already chasing the sound of him like it belongs in my veins. I tell myself I’m not obsessed. And maybe that’s true. But I’m definitely not letting him slip past me either.
His blush deepens, hesitation flickering in his eyes like he’s caught between two worlds. But he doesn’t say no. That’s enough to make every nerve in my body spark.
I push, casual but deliberate. “Sunday afternoon, I’m free. You?”
He swallows, gaze darting to the guitar in his lap, then back to me. After a beat, he nods. “Yeah. Sunday works.”
Something inside me grins wider than my face ever could. “Good. We’ll figure out where. No pressure, just music.”
I pull my phone from my pocket and hold it out. “Number?”
He hesitates only a second before taking it, his thumb moving quick, efficient, typing in digits before passing it back. My screen now has Ollie Marshall staring at me in black and white. Fuck if that doesn’t look good there. I save it before I can overthink.
He stands, gently sets the guitar back on its hook, and grabs the pack of strings he’d abandoned on the counter. Frank rings him up without comment, though the smirk he shoots me says he noticed everything.
I’m about to toss out a parting shot, something cocky enough to cover the fact that my pulse hasn’t calmed since the first note, when Ollie clears his throat.
“Coffee?” he asks, voice steady but quiet.
It’s so unexpected I blink. “Yeah,” I say before he can take it back. “Coffee sounds perfect.”
We step out into the December air together, side by side.
The shop’s door jingles closed behind us, Frank’s smirk still clinging to my shoulders.
Ollie has the strings in one hand, his jacket zipped tight, gaze forward.
My phone in my pocket is warm from where his number just landed, like that little string of digits is radioactive.
A few doors down, there’s a café I duck into sometimes between classes.
Nothing fancy—no chalkboard menus with impossible latte flavors, no pack of stressed-out students hogging the tables with laptops.
Just a narrow place that smells like roasted beans and sugar, mismatched mugs stacked behind the counter, and coffee that actually tastes like coffee.
“Here,” I say, jerking my chin toward it.
Ollie glances at the sign, then at me. His expression is unreadable, but he follows. Inside it’s dimmer, warmer, the walls lined with framed records and faded photos. A few older locals are scattered around, reading newspapers or just staring out the window. Not a single college kid in sight.
“This is different,” Ollie says.
“Different good or different bad?”
He studies the chalkboard menu with its four simple options: coffee, espresso, cappuccino, tea. “Good,” he admits, and steps up to order before I can.
I try to beat him to it, but he’s faster. “I’ve got it,” he says, pulling his wallet free. His tone brooks no argument.
“Captain pays, huh? Guess that makes me team mascot.”
He almost smiles as he hands over cash.
We grab our mugs—mine dark roast, his cappuccino—and slide into a booth near the back. The cushions are cracked vinyl, the table scarred with initials and doodles carved by bored customers, but it feels tucked away, private.
“So,” I say, blowing on my coffee, “season going okay?”
His brows lift, like he didn’t expect me to ask about basketball. “We’re winning.”
“That’s it? Just ‘we’re winning’? I expected at least a TED Talk on drills and glory.”
He shrugs, but his eyes flicker with something I can’t name. “Practice is six days a week, sometimes seven if we’ve got a big game. Morning lifts, evening drills, film review, meetings. Games twice a week. Classes squeezed between.”
I let out a low whistle. “When do you breathe?”
He huffs a laugh, small but real. “Not often.”
I lean back, sip my coffee, and let the realization hit: He’s this busy, this suffocated by schedules, and yet he just agreed to meet me on Sunday.
Not a teammate, not a sponsor, not a family member.
Me.
I tuck that away like a treasure.
“What about you?” he asks, surprising me. “Your job. My teammates said you work at the coffee place by campus.”
“Wow,” I say. “Word gets around. I’m a legend.”
He smirks, faint but there. “They like your band flyers.”
That earns a laugh out of me. “Yeah, that’s me. Coffee-slinger by day, bassist by night. Glamorous life.”
“Why bass, though? You can clearly play guitar.” He nods toward the music shop.
“I started on guitar, yeah. But the band needed a bassist, so I stepped up. Somebody’s gotta be the anchor. Thing is, I’m also the one with the mic, so I get the spotlight anyway. But the bass? That’s the glue. Without it, the whole thing falls apart.”
Ollie smirks, and fuck if I don’t feel like I’ve won the lotto. “So you get to be the backbone and the center of attention? Figures. Fits your ego.”
The words should sting, but his tone is soft, almost warm, and I can’t help grinning. “Takes one to know one, Captain. You’ve got the spotlight too—whole team depending on you, whole campus watching.”
His smirk falters. He goes quiet for a beat too long, eyes fixed on the swirl of foam in his cappuccino. When he speaks, his voice is lower, almost like he’s not sure he means to say it aloud.
“It’s different,” he says. “When I’m on the court, everyone’s waiting for me to hold it together. Doesn’t matter if I’m tired, or off, or… whatever. I can’t crack. Not once. Not in front of them.”
He exhales hard, like he’s regretting sharing so much, but his words are already out. His shoulders hitch, then settle. “It’s like—if I stumble, they all stumble. And sometimes it feels like I’m not allowed to be human.”
I blink at him, surprised he even gave me that much. He looks surprised, too, like the confession slipped past his defenses before he could stop it. His jaw tightens, eyes flicking to me like he’s waiting for me to laugh or poke.
But I don’t. I lean forward, elbows on the scarred table, voice even. “Sounds like you know exactly what it feels like to be the bass.”
That earns me a startled glance, then a quick huff of air that might be a laugh, or maybe just relief. The tension in his shoulders eases, just a fraction, like admitting it out loud hasn’t broken him the way he thought it might.
For a moment, we just sit together, the hum of the café wrapping around us. Then his eyes lift again, sharper now, as if he’s turning the words over. His brows knit, his focus locked on me in a way that makes the room feel smaller.
“You make it sound bigger than just four strings.”
“That’s because it is.” I shrug casually, but there’s pride in the words. “Bass is heartbeat. Pulse. Without it, the song has no spine.”
I don’t say it out loud, but I think it: He’s the same. The bassline of his team. The one who steadies everyone else, who carries the weight even if no one outside the court sees it. They only notice when he falters, which he won’t let himself do.
No wonder he understood what I meant.
Something shifts in his expression then—like he’s weighing the comparison, maybe even recognizing a piece of himself in it. His cheeks pinken again, and I can’t stop the grin that tugs at my mouth.
We fall into a rhythm, questions traded like a game of catch.
He asks about my family; I tell him about my parents, immigrants who worked their asses off so I could even be here, and my little sister who’s sixteen and thinks I’m either the coolest guy alive or a total embarrassment, depending on the day.
“She sounds like mine,” he says quietly.
“You’ve got a little sister too?”
“Yeah. Lindy. Nineteen. She stayed back home in Wisconsin.” His mouth tightens just a fraction, like he misses her in ways he doesn’t say out loud.
The space between us feels more intimate suddenly, like we’ve closed a gap I didn’t know existed.
“Guess that makes us both big brothers,” I say, softer than my usual snark.
He nods, eyes meeting mine across the mugs.
We keep talking, the conversation weaving from sisters to professors who suck, from music to basketball, from why the weather here still feels wrong in December to which food trucks on campus are actually edible.
Every time he laughs—quiet, guarded, but real—I feel like I’ve scored a point I didn’t know we were keeping track of.
By the time our mugs are empty, the café feels warmer than when we walked in. And the thought that on Sunday, it’ll just be us and guitars? It sits in my chest like a song begging to be written.