Chapter 17 Liam
We burst through the door of my dorm room still riding the high—adrenaline and victory and the taste of Alex still on my lips.
“What happened? The line went dead.” Noah spun around in his chair.
“Not sure. But we did it.” I was grinning like an idiot, couldn’t stop grinning, my whole body still buzzing from the closet. The kiss, the way Alex pressed against me, and the relief of being back in his arms. Not to mention the fact that he blew me in the most risky place.
Fucking hot.
Alex was smiling too—that rare, genuine smile I’d only seen a handful of times, the one that made him look younger, lighter, like he’d finally stopped carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Noah gave us a strange look, but I didn’t care. Not in that moment.
“Anyway,” he shook his head and pulled out his phone. “Let me just verify it worked—I told my guy to run a trace after you executed the script.” He typed rapidly, then waited, staring at the screen.
A few seconds passed.
Then his phone buzzed.
Noah read the message, and his grin widened. “It’s gone. Completely wiped. No trace of it anywhere on the server.”
“Yes!” Alex laughed—actually laughed—and the sound did something to my chest. Happy to see him happy.
We celebrated for maybe ten minutes. Noah recounting how he’d almost had a heart attack listening to us through the earpieces, Alex and I filling in the details about the security guard, all of us high on the impossible thing we’d just accomplished.
But then Alex checked his phone and his expression shifted.
“I should go. It’s late, practice,” he said.
I wanted to tell him to stay and pull him back to finish the conversation we’d started in that closet.
The scene flooded into my mind—the way he’d kissed me back like he’d been starving for it, like he’d wanted it just as badly as I had. Then the sound he’d made when I’d pinned him against the wall. His hand on me, gripping me through my jeans in a way that had made my brain short-circuit.
I felt alive.
More alive than I’d felt in over a year—since that summer at Brackett Lake when everything had felt possible before it all went to shit.
And God, I’d wanted it. I wanted him. I’d been wanting him for so long that finally giving in to it had felt like breaking through the surface after drowning.
“I’ll walk you out,” I said.
“You don’t have to—”
“I know.”
We stepped into the hallway. The fluorescent lights were harsh after the dim warmth of the dorm. A few doors down, someone’s music thumped through the walls—bass-heavy, muffled.
Alex turned to face me.
We just looked at each other.
No words. Just... looking.
His eyes were so blue. Even under the shitty dorm lighting, even with shadows under them from exhaustion and adrenaline crash, they were impossibly blue, the same blue that had haunted me for the last year.
My chest felt tight.
His lips were slightly parted. Still red and swollen, from kissing, from being on his knees, from having me in his mouth.
The closet scene flashed through my mind—Alex dropping to his knees, his mouth on me, those blue eyes looking up at me like I was everything he wanted. The way he’d rearranged my brain with his mouth, the sounds he’d made, the way my hand had fisted in his hair while I came in his mouth.
Holy shit.
We’d actually done that. That had actually happened. The air between us hummed, and then we tried to talk at the same time.
“I—” I said.
“We should—” he said.
We stopped and smiled at each other.
The truth was... neither of us knew what to say. Didn’t know how to name what had just happened in that closet. And I didn’t know if I was supposed to pretend it meant nothing or admit it meant everything.
So I didn’t try and say anything again.
Neither did he.
We just stood there in the hallway, three feet apart, looking at each other like we were trying to memorize this moment. Like we knew it might be the last time we got to be honest about what we wanted.
My hand moved before I could think about it.
Reached out. Found his chest.
His heartbeat hammered under my palm. Fast. Frantic. Matching mine.
His breath hitched.
The heat of him seeped through his shirt. Solid. Real. Here.
God, I wanted—
“Liam?”
Emily’s voice cut through the moment like a knife.
I jerked my hand back. Took a step away from Alex.
She was at the end of the hallway, coming from the direction of the stairs. Curly hair pulled into a messy bun, wearing one of my hoodies and leggings. She had her backpack over one shoulder—probably coming from the library.
Soon she was next to us and her eyes moved from me to Alex. Back to me.
Confusion flickered across her face, and guilt slammed into me like a freight train.
I just cheated on her.
The thought hit so hard I almost couldn’t breathe.
Not just kissed someone else. Not just some drunk mistake at a party. Alex had gotten on his knees, I let him suck me off, and came in his mouth. And then walked out here like nothing happened.
What the fuck did I just do?
“Hey,” I said. My voice sounded wrong.
“Hi.” She walked closer, her gaze lingering on Alex. “I didn’t know you had company.”
“This is Alex.” The introduction felt surreal. “From Kingswell. We were just—“
“Leaving,” Alex finished. His voice was steady. Controlled. Nothing like the gasping way he’d said my name in the closet. “I was just leaving.”
Emily’s eyes narrowed slightly. She was reading the room. Reading us. And she was smart—too smart not to notice the tension hanging in the air like smoke.
“Alex Harrington?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Alex’s jaw tightened.
She turned to me and raised her eyebrows. I could see the question forming in her eyes: What is he doing here? Why were you standing so close? Why do you look like that?
“We had a... group project thing,” I said.
What did I just say? I just lied... badly. He goes to Kingswell—there’s no world where we would have a project together.
And I was still lying. Still covering up what I’d done.
“Okay...” Emily said, but her voice had an edge to it.
Fuck. She’s going to be pissed.
Silence stretched.
Alex cleared his throat. “I should go. Thanks for... the help. With the project.”
He didn’t look at me. Couldn’t. Or wouldn’t.
He just walked past Emily, past me, toward the stairs. I watched him disappear around the corner without looking back.
When I turned back to Emily, she was staring at me.
“Group project?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“With Kingswell?”
“Well, not group... it was just—“
“Liam.” She stepped closer. “What’s going on?”
My throat felt tight. I couldn’t keep lying to her. Not after everything. She deserved better than that.
Better than me.
“Okay.” I ran my hand through my hair. “We deleted the video of the race tonight.”
Emily’s eyebrows drew together. “How?”
“It was on the Kingswell server. So we—“ I stopped. Swallowed. “We broke into Kingswell tonight. To delete it.”
The hallway went quiet and Emily just stared at me.
“You what?”
“We had to delete it before—”
“You broke into Kingswell?” Her voice rose slightly. “You broke into another school’s server?”
“Noah helped us. He had this whole plan—“
“Noah?” She stepped back. “You involved Noah in this?”
“It wasn’t like that. It was Noah’s—”
“You had to break the law?” Her voice was sharp now. Angry. “You had to commit actual crimes? Do you understand what could’ve happened if you got caught?”
“We didn’t get caught—”
“That’s not the point!” She pressed her hands to her face. Took a breath. Looked at me like she didn’t recognize me. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking Alex needed help.”
Why did I say that? Too late.
“Alex needed help.” She repeated it slowly. “So you risked everything. Your scholarship. Your spot on the team. Your entire future. For him.”
“It wasn’t just for him. The video was going to ruin me too. You said it yourself, someone was blackmailing us.”
“Then you go to the police, Liam!” Her eyes were bright with anger now. With hurt. “You don’t do something illegal and dangerous. You didn’t tell me. You lied to my face. You said it was a group project.”
Guilt twisted in my gut. “I couldn’t tell you before. It was too risky—”
“For who? For you? Or for Alex?”
“For everyone. If you knew, it would’ve put you in a bad position—”
“Don’t.” She held up her hand. “Don’t act like you were protecting me. You were protecting yourself. You didn’t want me to talk you out of it. You didn’t want me to tell you how stupid and reckless it was.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“Em—”
“And the way you looked at him.” Her voice dropped. Quieter now but somehow worse. “When he was leaving. The way you were standing in the hallway before I got here. That wasn’t just... helping someone with a video.”
My chest tightened.
Tell her. Just fucking tell her.
But I couldn’t. The words stuck in my throat.
“We were just—”
“Just what?” She searched my face. “Because from where I’m standing, you just told me you committed a crime for this guy. You brought Noah into it. You risked everything you’ve worked for. And you lied to me about it.”
“I’m sorry—“
“Are you?” Her voice cracked. “Because it doesn’t feel like you’re sorry. It feels like you’re sorry you got caught.”
The words hit me hard… truth.
We stood there in the hallway. Someone laughed down the hall. A door slammed. Normal sounds. But nothing felt normal.
“I’ve felt you pulling away for weeks,” Emily said finally. Her voice was quieter now. Tired. “And I kept telling myself I was imagining it. That you were just stressed about rowing or classes or whatever. But tonight...”
She shook her head.
“Tonight you showed me exactly where your priorities are. And it’s not with me. It’s with him. With Alex. With whatever this is that you won’t talk to me about.”
“That's not true. I needed to deal with this. This was risky but it was the right thing to do.”
“You won’t let me in. You never let me in. Not about anything real. And now you’re breaking into schools and lying to me and I don’t—” Her voice caught. “I don’t even know who you are right now.”