23. Colton
TWENTY-THREE
COLTON
Micah is avoiding me. Completely and utterly.
He doesn’t reply to my messages on Prism—hell, I’m not even sure he reads them.
At practice, he gives me just enough to keep Coach off our backs.
No more. And after? He grabs his duffel and ghosts, skipping the locker room entirely as if being in the same room as me might burn him alive.
I throw my bag over my shoulder and head for the bus for our six-hour drive across the state. Overnight trips are rare, and part of me’s been clinging to this one like a life raft. He can’t avoid me on a bus. Not really.
Caleb’s already sprawled in the aisle seat, earbuds dangling around his neck. He glances up when I approach. “Ready for this?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I mutter, sliding past him into the window seat.
The bus smells of sweat, turf, and that faint rubber scent that clings to every football trip. My duffel is heavier than it should be when I sling it into the overhead.
Across the aisle, Micah already has his hood up, duffel under his legs, as if he boarded early just to avoid me. His face is turned toward the window, watching raindrops chase each other down the glass. Headphones in. Shoulders tense.
Not a glance my way.
My chest tightens in that familiar, frustrated way. He’s been the same for weeks, talking only when Coach forces us to run drills together, never meeting my eyes longer than necessary, and definitely ignoring every notification I’ve sent on Prism.
He knows it’s me. He just doesn’t care. He's still pissed. And that kiss we shared didn’t change a thing.
Caleb glances over at me, long legs sprawled. “You look like somebody kicked your puppy.”
“Yeah, well,” I mutter, tugging my hoodie string, “maybe they did.”
He tilts his head. “This about Micah?” he asks, lowering his voice.
My jaw ticks. “…Yeah.”
Caleb’s quiet for a beat, then says, “You ever think maybe you deserve the cold shoulder?”
I huff a laugh. “Every day.”
“I mean, look, I like you, man. You’re still my quarterback and friend. But what you did?” He whistles low. “Brutal. He didn’t do any of the crap the rumors said, did he?”
“No,” I say, voice rougher than I want. “None of it was him. It was me—panicking. Protecting my image. Protecting my parents from knowing who I really am. My dad…he’d lose his mind. And my mom—” I swallow. “She wants grandkids like yesterday. White picket fence. All that.”
Caleb nods slowly. “So you blew up your best friend’s life instead. ”
I rub my neck. “Yeah. I know. I’ve been living with that for two years.”
He’s quiet again, then leans back with a sigh. “Well, I’m still your friend. But an apology isn’t gonna cut it with him. You’re gonna have to…hell, I dunno. Prove it somehow.”
“I know,” I murmur.
Caleb’s face softens. He hesitates, then claps a hand on my shoulder. “For what it’s worth? I don’t care that you like guys. Just…don’t hit on me in the showers and we’re good.”
I roll my eyes, tension breaking for just a second. “Relax. You’re not my type.”
He snorts. “Rude. I’ve got great abs.”
“Still no.”
His laughter rumbles as he settles back, but I can’t even pretend to relax. Across the aisle, Micah doesn’t move. He doesn’t glance at me. It’s like I’m nothing but empty air.
The bus ride passes in a haze. The team talks, eats, jokes, but all I hear is the constant pulse of my own frustration.
I try to focus on the game ahead, try to drown out everything else, but Micah’s presence looms across the aisle.
He hasn’t said a word to me the entire trip.
Just the occasional grunt when one of the other guys calls out something that needs a response.
We arrive at the hotel, a small, outdated place where the smell of chlorine lingers in the air from the pool, and the carpet looks as though it’s never been properly cleaned. The team scatters to check in, and I’m barely listening as the coaches hand out room keys.
Then it happens. The moment that makes the pit in my stomach go cold.
“Colton, Micah,” Coach barks, pulling the last two names from his clipboard. “You two are sharing a room tonight. Keep it professional.”
Of course we are, because the universe wants to punish me. Now he can murder me in my sleep. I bet he’s going to be thrilled.
I don’t look at Micah when I grab my key, but I feel his eyes on me, a heat-seeking missile finding its target. The walk to the room feels as if it lasts forever, feet dragging, muscles tense, the air thick with everything we don’t say to each other.
When we get to the door, he holds his key up against the reader, the sound of the lock clicking open like a fucking death sentence. He steps inside first, not waiting for me. The door swings shut behind us with a finality that hits harder than any tackle.
The air feels heavier than the bus ride ever did. Six hours of him avoiding me, six hours of pretending we’re fine for the team, and now…this.
Micah drops his duffel with a dull thud, his gaze sweeping the room once. His shoulders go rigid.
One bed.
A single queen bed in the center of the room, with crisp white sheets and a floral runner that suddenly feels like a trap.
Not two doubles. Not even a sad pullout couch. A single, queen-sized bed with crisp white sheets and a lumpy hotel comforter that appears as though it’s the most dangerous thing I’ve ever seen.
Micah sees it, too. I can tell from the way his jaw ticks, the way his hands curl into fists at his sides. His eyes cut to mine, sharp and accusing, as if I personally arranged this to torture him .
The air gets heavier. Thicker. My pulse kicks up, heat crawling up my neck, because suddenly I can see it. The way his body would look tangled in those sheets. The way his scent would cling to the pillows.
He exhales through his nose, a short, sharp sound. “Of course,” he mutters, voice rough. “Of fucking course.”
He’s not talking directly to me, but the current between us crackles, alive and electric, and all I can think about is that bed. That there’s nowhere else for him to go. Nowhere to run.
I clear my throat. “I’ll…uh, I’ll take the floor.”
Micah finally turns, and the look in his eyes could burn straight through me. His curls are flattened on one side from the bus window, his t-shirt rumpled, his jaw tight. He looks exhausted—and furious—and still so stupidly magnetic it makes my chest ache.
“You can’t sleep on the floor the night before a game,” he says flatly, voice low and hard. “You’re the quarterback. Coach will have my ass if you can’t throw because you’re stiff and sore tomorrow.”
“I’ll be fine,” I mutter, bending to grab my duffel.
Micah’s laugh is sharp and humorless. “You’re not sleeping on the damn floor, Taylor. We’ll deal. Figure it out. It’s one night.”
The way he says it—clipped, final—hits something in me I can’t name.
I nod once and drop my bag by the window, trying to shake off the weight pressing down on my chest. I shouldn’t notice the way his shoulders move as he digs into his bag.
I shouldn’t notice the defined line of his arms or the way his t-shirt clings across his back when he leans over.
But I do. My stomac h knots with something I don’t want to admit out loud.
He finally straightens and spins to face me, his jaw tight, eyes sharp. “You think I wanted this?” His voice is raw, angry in a way that thrums in my bones. “To get stuck in a room with you? After everything?”
The words knock the air out of me.
“Micah—”
“Don’t.” His fists clench at his sides, his chest rising and falling fast, and I can feel the anger radiating off him in waves. There’s no mistaking the line between us now—one step closer and I’ll cross it, and I don’t even know what waits on the other side.
The silence stretches, thick with things we’ve never said. I can’t tell if he wants to punch me…or if he’s daring me to make the next mistake.
Micah’s chest rises and falls, his hands flexing as if he’s trying to keep from throwing a punch.
“You don’t get to say my name like that,” he spits. “You don’t get to look at me like we’re still those kids who stayed up all night playing Xbox in your basement. Like you didn’t rip my whole life out from under me and walk away smiling for the cameras.”
The words hit harder than a three-hundred-pound linebacker. I flinch, but I don’t look away.
“I—”
“You what?” He steps closer, closing the gap between us, his presence all heat and fury.
“You’re sorry? Congrats, Colton. Sorry doesn’t give me back two years of my life.
Sorry doesn’t fix the whispers or the bench or the fact that I almost lost everything I worked for because my best friend couldn’t pick me over his own ego. ”
Each word is a hit I take willingly. I deserve all of it.
My back brushes the wall, and I realize I’ve let him push me without even touching me. His eyes are dark, jaw tight, a muscle ticking in his cheek.
“I—” My voice cracks. I swallow hard. “I thought I was protecting myself. My family?—”
He barks out a laugh, bitter and sharp. “Yeah, well, your family wasn’t the one eating shit for something he didn’t do.”
We’re inches apart now. I can smell the faint scent of his cologne and bus-worn sweat, sharp and familiar, the past I can’t seem to kill.
“I know,” I whisper. “And I hate myself for it.”
Micah’s nostrils flare. His gaze flicks over my face, slow and deliberate, cataloging the guilt, the shame, the want I can’t hide anymore. His anger is a live wire, but underneath it, there’s heat.
The kind that makes my stomach twist and my pulse hammer.
“Good,” he finally mutters. “Hate yourself. Because I sure as hell did.”
The air between us snaps. I don’t even see him move—one second he’s glaring at me like he wants to put me through the wall, and the next his mouth is on mine.
It’s not soft. It’s not careful. It’s a collision. A crash of teeth and heat and two years of rage and want boiling over scalding us both.