Chapter 17 Luke
SEVENTEEN
LUKE
Silas is dressed again—mostly. Joggers slung low on his hips, shirt clinging to his chest in all the right ways. He looks wrecked in the best way. Relaxed. Boneless in his chair like I wrung every ounce of tension from him and left him too blissed-out to be mad about it.
I, on the other hand, am perched on the edge of his desk, still half-hard and flushed and feeling a little like running a fucking victory lap.
I swing one leg slowly, grinning down at him. “That all it takes to wear you out? One orgasm? Guess I’ll have to start pacing myself, old man.”
He lifts an eyebrow, mouth twitching at the corner. “I wasn’t aware you were holding back.”
“Oh, I wasn’t.” I stretch like a cat in a sunbeam, deliberately smug. “But next time, I’ll bring water and a towel. Maybe some ibuprofen. You know, just in case you pull a muscle or something.”
Silas snorts, but his gaze lingers—softer now. Less wrecked. More… focused.
That’s the part that makes me uneasy.
“We should probably talk about what this is,” he says after a beat, voice lower.
Shit.
There it is. The shift I have always avoided like the plague. The air thickens, tension crawling up my spine in a way that has nothing to do with desire and everything to do with panic.
“What this is?” I repeat, trying for light but hearing the edge in my own voice. “It’s a good time. With excellent…extracurriculars.”
“Luke.”
I hate the way he says my name. Gentle. Like he’s not trying to trap me, but it still feels like that.
“I’m not asking for a label right this second,” he says. “I just want to know if we’re moving toward something. Or if this is still a one-night stand that got lost and wandered into week two.”
I go still.
The weight of it settles fast. I should’ve seen this coming—hell, I probably did—but it doesn’t make it easier to swallow.
He watches me carefully, and I feel exposed in a way I’m not used to. Not even when I’m naked. Not even when I’m begging.
“I don’t really do labels,” I say finally, keeping my tone even. Distant. Safe. “Boyfriend, partner, whatever—none of it really fits.”
Silas doesn’t flinch. But I feel him shut something down. It’s subtle. A tightening behind the eyes. A shift in how he holds himself.
He nods once, slowly, then glances toward the field outside the office window. “Okay.”
Just that.
No pressure. No argument.
Which somehow makes it worse.
“I’m not saying I don’t want—” I start, then stop. Shit. “I’m not saying I don’t care. I do. I just… I’ve built my whole thing on not needing anyone. And if I start rewriting that now—if I start wanting more—what does that make me?”
His eyes meet mine again. Steady. Devastating.
“Human,” he says.
I look away, suddenly fascinated with the scuffed toe of my cleats “Boring.”
That earns me a faint smile. But it doesn’t fix the quiet that follows.
I hate quiet. Especially when it feels this loud. It makes me feel like I’m going to crawl out of my own skin.
“I should go,” I say, hopping down from the desk like the floor might save me. “Ty and Will are probably wondering where I disappeared to. And if I don’t show up to the dining hall soon, someone’s gonna assume I died. Or got kidnapped. Or ran off with a sugar daddy.”
“A sugar daddy,” he huffs, a sad smile pulling at his lips. “Is that what you want?”
It’s a joke. I know it is. But something about the way he says it—soft, tired, like he’s already bracing for me to say yes—cuts deeper than it should.
I freeze.
Just for a second.
Long enough to realize he’s not teasing and for my ribs to tighten around my heart. Too tight.
“I was kidding,” he says, trying to take it back. “Luke—”
But I’m already moving.
“I’m gonna go,” I repeat, too fast this time, not even bothering with a joke. My heart’s in my throat. My pulse a roar in my ears. He shifts like he might follow, and I throw a hand up without turning around. “Don’t.”
Silence. That awful, echoing silence.
I make it to the door in three strides, grip slipping on the handle before I wrench it open as though it might be locked forever if I don’t leave right now.
I don't look back.
If I do, I might stay. And that’s what scares me most. Because staying would mean trying. Staying would mean trusting.
And if he’s already asking what I want… what happens when he finds out I don’t even know?
I’ve been a fuck-up so long for my parents, I’m not even sure I know how not to be one anymore.
The hallway blurs as I walk. My legs move on muscle memory alone, carrying me away from his office, away from the one place I felt too seen. Too wanted. Too close to something that could actually matter.
My chest aches—not the sharp kind, but the heavy kind that sinks in and settles as though it plans to stay.
I know what I just did. I didn’t just leave. I ran.
Again.
Because when things start to feel real—when someone looks at me like I’m not a phase, not a problem, not something that needs fixing—I panic. I make myself small. I disappear before they can decide I’m too much.
Before they can realize my parents were right.
That I’m messy. Complicated. Hard to love without conditions.
I push through the doors and step out into the sunlight, blinking like it’s too bright, like it’s accusing me. My phone buzzes in my pocket. I don’t check it. I don’t need to. If it’s him, I don’t trust myself not to turn around.
And I can’t.
Because I felt it in that office—felt the shift when he stopped joking and started asking. Felt the weight of what he wanted to call us.
Whatever us even is. And I want it. God help me, I want it so bad it scares the hell out of me. But wanting something doesn’t mean you know how to keep it.
Doesn’t mean you won’t ruin it.
So I walk faster. Put distance between me and the possibility of being chosen or being good enough to be loved without a disclaimer attached.
I tell myself this is safer. That leaving hurts less than staying and failing. But the truth settles in my gut anyway, heavy and unavoidable:
I didn’t just walk away from Silas. I walked away from the version of myself that might’ve believed I deserve more. And I don’t know if I’ll ever stop running long enough to find him again.
“Luke, wake up,” Ty says, and he’s way too close.
I grumble and swat at him the best I can without fully waking up or opening my eyes. I just want to sleep.
“Dude, we’re going to be late to practice.”
Right, that. I crack open my eyes. “Not going.”
“What?”
“Leave me,” I mumble again, pulling the blanket up over my head like it can block out reality.
Ty doesn’t. He sits down hard on the edge of the bed instead, the mattress dipping under his weight. “Okay, no. That’s not a thing. You don’t just skip practice. Especially not you.”
I groan, the sound half-angry, half-exhausted. Everything feels heavy. My limbs. My chest. Even opening my eyes feels like work I didn’t sign up for.
“Head hurts,” I say. True. “Stomach hurts,” I add. Also true. “Existence hurts,” I finish quietly. Definitely true.
There’s a pause.
When Ty speaks again, his voice is different. Less teasing. More careful. “You sick, or…?”
I shrug under the covers. It’s the most effort I’ve got in me. “I dunno. I just—” My throat tightens, which pisses me off because I don’t do this. “I’m tired.”
But it’s not the good kind of tired. Not sore-muscle, earned-it tired.
It’s the hollow kind. The kind where sleep doesn’t fix anything, and even the things you love feel like obligations or tasks to get done
Ty exhales slowly. “You haven’t been right all week. Since Monday.”
That makes something twist in my chest. I don’t answer.
He nudges my shoulder. “Luke, you can’t just skip practice. Coach—”
I peek out just enough to glare at him. “If you say ‘Coach Gray,’ I will fake my own death.”
Ty snorts despite himself. “Wasn’t gonna. But… yeah. That tracks.”
I close my eyes again, the weight of that name pressing down on me even without hearing someone else say it out loud.
Practice means seeing him. Seeing him means remembering the way I ran.
The way I bolted like a coward the second things got real.
And I just don’t have the energy to do it today, or ever.
I can’t pretend today.
“I just need a day,” I say quietly. “One day where I don’t have to be on. Or charming. Or fast. Or okay.”
Silence stretches.
Then Ty sighs and stands. “I’ll tell Harris you’re sick.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I do,” he cuts in gently. “Because if you don’t show, they’ll come looking. And I don’t think you’re up for that.”
He pauses at the door. “Text me if you need anything. Food. Water. A distraction. A human sacrifice.”
I almost smile. The door closes. And just like that, the room feels too quiet.
I curl onto my side, staring at the wall, thoughts looping in slow, ugly circles. The last few days replay whether I want them to or not.
Practice has been… different. Not bad. Worse. Because bad would mean yelling, tension, friction—something. Instead, it’s been nothing. Silas—Coach Gray—has gone clinical. All business. Eyes forward. Clipboard up. Voice even.
Too even.
He corrects Peoples. Talks strategy with Colton. Claps Ty on the shoulder when he nails a block. Laughs—actually laughs—at something Micah says during water break.
I might as well be a cone on the field.
No lingering looks or simmering heat. No low-voiced corrections meant just for me. Not even irritation. Just distance. Clean and intentional, as if he took a razor to whatever spark existed between us and cut it out at the root.
It’s stupid that it hurts. It’s worse that it surprises me. I don’t know why I thought he would…push the issue.
I’ve been ignored before. By hookups who didn’t text back and guys who liked me better in the dark than in daylight. And my parents when I didn’t fit into the version of me they prayed for.
I’m supposed to be good at this. At letting it roll off. At turning absence into a joke and desire into something disposable.
So why does this feel like a bruise I keep pressing on?
I squeeze my eyes shut. He hasn’t even glanced my way.
Not when I break a run clean. Not when I fumble and recover. Not when I joke too loud, flirt too openly, act like nothing touches me.
Especially not then.
It’s like I don’t exist.
A small, traitorous piece of me keeps thinking: Good. This is what you wanted.
No labels. No expectations. No risk. It feels like I lost something anyway.
I roll onto my back, staring at the growing light on the ceiling, my chest tight and restless. It’s almost worse than the numbness that keeps trying to pull me under. At least the numbness doesn’t make me feel like I’ve left pieces of myself scattered all over someone else’s hands.
My limbs feel too heavy to move. My brain keeps spinning in slow, jagged spirals of what ifs and why did you run and what does it matter anyway. I think maybe I’ll stay here forever. Let the sun move across the sky, let the world keep turning. I’ll just be a ghost under the covers.
Eventually, sleep drags me under again—choppy and dreamless.
I don’t know how much time passes.
But the door slams open with the force of divine judgment.
“Get your princess ass out of bed!” Micah’s voice pierces through the fog in my brain like a cursed trumpet blast. “You’ve had your sad-boy nap. Now it’s time to put on something tight and go grind your issues away.”
I groan into my pillow. “Oh my God, did you float in on a cloud of chaos just to wake me up?”
He ignores me. “Club night. Riot’s waiting. I even brought back up glitter in case your sparkle has suffered from emotional damage.”
I roll to one side, squinting at him through one eye. “That’s rich coming from someone who ugly cried into my throw blanket over Colton.”
“That was different.”
“Was it?” I stretch, bones cracking, body aching in that I’ve been horizontal for too long kind of way. “Because this feels suspiciously like karma.”
Micah folds his arms, unimpressed. “You made me go out when I didn’t want to. And you were right. So now it’s your turn. I am the ghost of breakups past, and I am haunting you into a tight shirt and emotionally reckless behavior.”
I blink at him. “Did you rehearse that?”
He smirks. “A little.”
I sigh and flop back onto the bed. “Fine. But I swear to God, if anyone tries to play DJ Sad Vibes tonight, I will set the sound system on fire.”
“Deal,” he says, already yanking open my closet like he lives here. “Now pick an outfit. Something that screams I’m hot as fuck, but you can’t touch me.”
I groan again, but the corner of my mouth twitches.
Because it’s Micah. And if anyone can drag me back from the edge with glitter and attitude, it’s him.