Chapter 6 #2
She usually came back by 6:00 for the dinner routine. It was part of the deal.
I checked my watch. 8:15.
I checked her location. I shouldn't have. It was stalking. But I had access to the security logs of the building, and she hadn't swiped in.
I pulled up the tracker I had—for safety purposes, obviously—put on the key fob I gave her.
She was at the Boathouse.
It was ten degrees outside. The wind chill was below zero. The Boathouse was an uninsulated wooden shack on the edge of the lake.
"Goddammit," I cursed, standing up.
She was going to freeze to death. Or get caught by campus security. Or both.
I grabbed my keys, my heavy winter coat, and a thermos of soup I had made (and told myself was leftovers, not specifically for her).
I drove to the edge of campus, parked the Rover in the shadowed lot near the maintenance sheds, and walked the trail to the lake.
The wind coming off Lake Superior was brutal. It cut through my jeans like knives. The snow was crunching loudly under my boots.
The Boathouse loomed in the darkness. It was a decrepit structure, peeling paint and rotting wood. But there was a faint, warm glow coming from the cracks in the shuttered windows.
I tried the door. Locked.
"Georgia," I called out over the wind, banging on the wood. "Open up."
The light inside flickered. A moment later, I heard the scrape of a heavy latch.
The door creaked open.
Georgia stood there. She was wrapped in a blanket, wearing fingerless gloves. Her nose was red. There was a smear of blue paint on her cheek.
"Toby?" She blinked, squinting into the darkness. "What are you doing here?"
"You missed dinner," I said, pushing past her into the shack before I froze. "And it's negative five degrees. Are you trying to get hypothermia?"
"I lost track of time," she mumbled, closing the door against the wind.
I looked around.
I had expected a mess. I had expected a "princess" trying to play artist.
I wasn't prepared for what I saw.
The Boathouse was transformed. She had set up three industrial space heaters (where did she even get those?) that hummed loudly, creating a pocket of bearable warmth.
But it was the walls that stopped me.
They were covered. Not in canvases, but in raw, nailed-up plywood sheets that she had dragged in from somewhere. And the art...
It wasn't pretty. It wasn't the polite, curated art her father probably bought for his investment portfolio.
It was violent.
Massive swirls of dark blue, charcoal, and blood red. It looked like a storm. It looked like a bruise blooming under skin. It looked like the feeling of being hit into the boards at full speed, the moment the air leaves your lungs.
In the center of the room, on a makeshift easel, was a new piece. It was still wet.
It was a figure. A man? No, a shape. It was encased in something clear and hard—ice? Glass? The figure was pushing against the barrier, its hands distorted by the pressure. But the barrier wasn't breaking. The figure was suffocating.
I stared at it.
My chest tightened. I knew that feeling. I felt that feeling every time I put on a suit and walked into a meeting with my father. The feeling of being trapped in a transparent box, visible to everyone but untouched by anyone.
"You hate it," Georgia said softly from behind me.
I turned. She was watching me, looking anxious. She was twisting the ring on her thumb.
"No," I said honestly. "I don't hate it. It's... heavy."
"My professors say it's 'too aggressive,'" she said, walking over to clean a brush in a jar of turpentine. "They want me to paint landscapes. Or portraits. Pretty things. They say my technique is good but my subject matter is 'disturbing.'"
"They're idiots," I said. "This is real."
I walked over to the painting of the trapped figure.
"Is this you?" I asked.
"Maybe," she shrugged. "Or maybe it's you."
I looked at her sharply.
"You think I'm trapped?"
"I know you are," she said. She put the brush down and wrapped the blanket tighter around herself.
"I see you, Toby. I watch you when you think no one is looking.
You walk around with this weight on your shoulders.
You check your phone like you're afraid of it.
You play hockey like you're trying to outrun something. "
She walked closer to me. The space heaters hummed. The smell of oil paint and turpentine was thick, intoxicating.
"Who are you running from?" she asked quietly.
I looked at the painting. Then I looked at her.
I never talked about my family. Not to Jager. Not to Coach. Definitely not to girls I slept with. It was the Kincaid way. Keep the circle tight. Never show weakness.
But standing here in this freezing shack, surrounded by her chaotic, beautiful mind, the armor felt too heavy to carry.
"My father," I said. The words tasted like ash.
Georgia didn't say anything. She just waited.
"He doesn't see me as a son," I continued, staring at the trapped figure.
"He sees me as an asset. A portfolio item.
Since I was five, my life has been a series of KPIs.
Grades. Goals. Networking. Everything is a transaction.
He calculated the ROI on my hockey career when I was twelve.
He decided it was a good 'networking tool' for future business, so he funded it. "
I laughed, a bitter sound.
"He owns everything. My trust. The apartment. My car. He holds it over my head. 'Do what I say, run the company the way I want, marry who I want, or I pull the plug.' That's why I need the draft, Georgia. The signing bonus... it's the buyout price. I'm trying to buy my own life back from him."
I stopped. My heart was pounding. I had never said it out loud.
I waited for her to tell me I was a spoiled rich kid. That I should be grateful for the billions.
She didn't.
She stepped forward and reached out. She took my hand—the gloved one—and peeled the leather off, exposing my skin to the cold air.
Then she placed her warm hand in mine.
"You're the figure in the ice," she whispered. "Everyone sees you, but no one can touch you. You're preserved. Perfect. And suffocating."
"Yeah," I choked out. "Yeah."
She looked up at me. Her blue eyes were shining with tears.
"My dad," she whispered, "told me that if I didn't marry the son of the Lions' owner, I was useless to him. He said my art was a 'cute hobby for a trophy wife,' but I needed to secure a real future. That's why he cut me off. Because I said no."
She squeezed my hand.
"We're the same, Toby. We're both just trying to buy our way out of the cages they built for us."
The connection snapped into place. It wasn't just physical anymore. It wasn't just lust.
It was recognition.
I looked at her—messy hair, paint on her face, shivering in a shack—and I didn't see a brat. I didn't see a princess.
I saw a survivor.
And for the first time in my life, the desire to protect someone didn't feel like a burden. It felt like a necessity.
"You're freezing," I said, my voice thick with emotion.
"I'm okay."
"No, you're not."
I pulled her into me. I wrapped my arms around her, blanket and all, burying her against my chest. I rested my chin on the top of her head.
She stiffened for a second, surprised by the tenderness. Then she melted. She wrapped her arms around my waist and held on tight.
We stood there for a long time, rocking slightly in the humming silence of the Boathouse.
"Come home," I whispered into her hair. "I made soup."
She let out a wet laugh against my coat. "You made soup?"
"It's high protein. Good for recovery."
"You're a robot," she sniffled.
"I'm your robot," I murmured.
The words slipped out before I could check them.
I'm your robot.
It was a joke. But as I felt her relax against me, felt her trust settling into my bones, I realized it was the most dangerous truth I had ever spoken.
I was hers.
And if her father, or my father, or anyone else tried to put her back in a cage... I would burn the world down to get her out.
"Let's go home," she whispered.
"Yeah," I said. "Let's go."
I kept my arm around her as we walked back to the car. I shielded her from the wind.
The fallout was over. The secret was out.
And as we drove back to the tower, the silence in the car wasn't empty. It was full. It was the silence of two people who had just realized that the only way to survive the cold was to burn together.