Chapter 18 – Lena
chapter
eighteen
Lena
I had no business being here.
The smart move would have been to go home, bury my shame, let Kimmy talk me down from the ledge. Instead, I was standing on the porch of Kappa Nu at nine o’clock on a Wednesday night with my heart trying to crack through my sternum.
You are the dumbest woman alive.
The October air cut straight through my sweater and I hugged my arms around myself, the cold biting the skin Matt had grabbed earlier.
Kappa Nu sat at the end of Greek Row like it owned the block --- a renovated Victorian with a wraparound porch, freshly painted shutters, and the kind of landscaping that screamed alumni donors with deep pockets.
Two brand-new mountain bikes were locked to the railing beside a pair of Bauer skates someone had left out to dry.
A handwritten sign taped to the heavy oak door said If you don't live here, KNOCK. Underlined twice.
I knocked.
Thirty seconds. Forty-five. The porch light buzzed overhead and I could hear crickets, the distant thump of bass from somewhere on the Row, and my own stupid heartbeat.
I was about to turn around and chalk this up to temporary insanity when the door swung open and Waylon appeared in gym shorts and a backwards cap, phone in one hand, Gatorade in the other.
His eyebrows went up. Then a slow, knowing grin spread across his face.
I wanted to evaporate.
"Lena." He leaned one shoulder against the doorframe. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Shifted my weight. Tried again. "Is Trace here?"
"Upstairs." He stepped aside and swept me in with the Gatorade like a doorman at the Ritz. "Second floor, last door on the left. Big door. Can't miss it."
Waylon padded back to the couch, bare feet slapping the wood, but paused at the armrest. "He's been in his room since he got back." He tossed his phone onto the cushion and dropped into his spot. Then, quieter, under his breath, "Been expecting you."
Excuse me?
But he was already reaching for the remote. Conversation over.
I was halfway to the stairs when he added, not looking up from his phone, “He’s my best friend. Don’t break him, yeah?”
It wasn’t a threat. It was barely even a request. It was the voice of someone who’d already watched too many people he cared about get broken and didn’t have the energy to pretend it wouldn’t hurt him too.
I stood at the bottom of the stairs for a full ten seconds, one hand on the polished banister, staring up into the dim second floor.
Turn around. Go home. This is a terrible idea and you know it.
My hand tightened on the wood. I went up.
I found the last door on the left --- dark wood, slightly bigger than the others, a Loveland University Hockey sticker peeling at the corner.
I knocked.
Nothing.
I knocked again, harder. "Trace?"
Nothing. I pressed my ear to the wood. Water. The shower.
Great. Perfect. You came all the way here and he's in the shower. Just leave.
I raised my fist one more time and heard it.
My name.
Muffled through the door and the water. Low, rough. Almost pained.
Lena.
My hand was on the doorknob before my brain caught up. I let myself in and shut the door behind me.
His room was very him. An enormous California king bed with a slate-gray comforter, half-made.
Buttery leather armchair in the corner with one of his hoodies draped over the arm, a pair of Jordans kicked off beside it.
Built-in bookshelves lined one wall --- business textbooks, a few worn paperbacks.
Flat-screen mounted above a low media console.
On the nightstand, a charging dock, a Breitling watch, and a paperback with a cover that looked weirdly familiar, though I couldn't place it from here.
And there were so many photographs. On the shelves, on the dresser, tucked into the frame of the mirror. His family. His teammates. Friends I recognized, friends I didn't. Trace with his arm around his dad at what looked like a game. Trace and Waylon holding a trophy.
My chest squeezed a little knowing there wouldn't be any of me.
Isn't that how you wanted it?
The whole room smelled like him. Something woody with a musky warm undertone, and it made me immediately think of his voice in the library. Can I kiss you.
The bathroom door was cracked. Steam curled into the room, fogging the edges of the mirror on the closet door. The water shut off.
I stood in the middle of Trace Coulter’s bedroom. Full of vim, vigor, and bad decisions. My fingers curled into my hem, my lips still buzzing from the library, my wrist still aching where Matt had grabbed it.
What are you doing? What are you actually doing right now?
The bathroom door swung open and Trace walked out in a towel.
Just a towel.
White. Slung low on his hips. Water running down his chest in lines I was absolutely not following with my eyes except I was, I was absolutely doing that, I was tracking every single rivulet like it was my goddamn job.
His hair was wet, pushed back off his forehead, skin flushed from the heat.
The falcon tattoo on his right shoulder --- the one I'd only caught the edge of under his T-shirts --- was fully visible now, dark ink spreading across the cap of muscle.
Sweet baby Jesus.
He saw me and froze.
Neither of us moved. His hand was on the towel at his hip, water dripping off his jaw, his eyes wide --- not scared. Shocked. Like he was trying to blink me out of existence.
"Lena?"
"Hi."
Hi? That's what you went with? HI?
His shock hardened. Jaw set, grip tightening on the towel, knuckles going white. I clocked the split skin across two of them --- swollen, bruised, Matt's face still on them --- and my stomach flipped.
"How did you get in here?" He stepped back.
"Waylon let me in."
"Of course he did." He dragged a hand down his face and turned away from me, water still running down the groove of his spine. "You can't just walk into someone's room, Lena."
"I knocked. Twice. You didn't answer. And then I heard you say my name, so I---"
He went red. Not pink. Red. From his chest up his neck to his ears. Full-body, can't-hide-it, caught-red-handed red.
Oh.
Oh no.
Oh God. He wasn’t calling me. He was---
Mortification hit like a physical force. My heat suffused my face and I could barely get words out. "I --- shit --- I thought you were ---"
"You need to go." He cut me off, grabbed sweats from the leather chair without looking at me. "You shouldn't be here."
"I had to talk to you."
"Then text me like a normal person." He moved past me toward the dresser --- close enough that I caught soap and skin and heat rolling off him --- and didn't put the sweats on. Just white-knuckled them.
I didn't leave.
"Trace."
He braced one hand on the dresser, back to me, shoulders bunched up around his ears. "Lena, I'm serious."
"So am I." I folded my arms. "Why did you ask to kiss me?"
He went still. His head dropped between his shoulders. Then he turned, slow, and leaned back against the dresser with his arms crossed over his bare chest, still holding his sweats. Cornered.
"We're not doing this right now."
"Yes, we are." I stepped toward him. "You asked if you could kiss me. Not for the deal. Not for an audience. Nobody in those stacks but us and you asked. Why?"
His jaw worked. He was four feet away in nothing but a towel with water still caught on his shoulders, and I watched his eyes drop to my mouth before he caught himself and looked away, his thumb dragging across his split knuckles like he needed something to do with his hands that wasn't touching me.
"Why did you say yes?" His voice was low and full of gravel.
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one that matters." He pushed off the dresser. "I asked you. You said yes. You kissed me back. Why?"
"You first." My nails were digging into my own biceps hard enough to leave marks.
"No." Another step. Water caught in his collarbone. His chest moving. "You came to my house. You let yourself into my room. You tell me why."
We were two feet apart and the steam from his shower had made the room warm and close, the air thick with soap and skin and the bite of mint on his breath.
"Because I wanted you to." It came out barely a whisper, and it was the truest thing I’d ever said.
Something in his face cracked open --- not soft, not gentle, just raw, like he'd been holding a door shut and his arm finally gave out.
"I've been dying to do that for four years." His voice came out rough, scraped raw. "Four years, Lena. So I did." He tossed the sweats onto the chair without looking. "And you kissed me back, Hartwell."
Four years.
Jesus Christ. Four years.
That broke something in me. He was looking at me like a dare and my body made the decision my brain was too shattered to argue with.
I closed the distance, grabbed the sides of his face, and kissed him.
He made a sound against my mouth. Surprised. Then not.
Then it was over. Every rule, every boundary, every reason this was a bad idea. Gone.
His hands found my waist and pulled me in hard.
The kiss was open-mouthed and messy, his tongue against mine while my fingers raked through his wet hair.
He tasted like mint and smelled like soap and his skin was hot and damp under my palms as I ran my hands down his chest because I could, because he was letting me, because I'd wanted to for longer than I'd ever say out loud.
He walked me backward until my shoulders hit the wall, jarring a sound out of me that his mouth caught. One hand braced beside my head while the other gripped my hip, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. I didn't care --- I wanted the marks, wanted proof this happened.