Chapter 18
Zoe
The tunnel is colder than the bowl, the kind of cold that feels like a warning instead of air. Above me, the crowd is still roaring—victory or loss, I can’t tell from here—but down in this concrete throat, the sound turns into a muffled animal. Distant. Impatient.
My boots scuff the painted floor. The white line that says AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY sits under my toes like it’s daring me to pretend I can’t read.
I can.
I’m here anyway.
My pulse stays steady when I start. It fractures once I’ve been alone long enough to hear my own breathing echo back at me. A door bangs somewhere deeper in. Metal on metal. The scent hits a beat later—ice, sweat, rubber, adrenaline. My stomach tightens like it recognizes him before he’s even here.
“Ma’am.”
A voice. Male. Official.
I turn my head slowly. A security guard stands at the mouth of the tunnel, arms crossed, eyes doing that sweep people do when they’re deciding if you’re worth the paperwork.
“You’re in a restricted area.”
“I’m on the public side,” I say, nodding toward the other end. “I’m right here.”
“That line is the rule.”
“It is when I’m invited.”
He blinks. “By who?”
I hold his stare. “Gio Rossi.”
He snorts like that’s supposed to mean nothing, but his eyes shift—quick, involuntary. Recognition. “Rossi’s in the locker room.”
“I know.”
“So you’re waiting.”
“Yes.”
He takes a step closer. “And if I tell you to leave?”
“I’ll leave,” I say, because I’m keeping this clean. Then, quieter, because I’m not stupid, “He’ll still come looking.”
Security’s mouth opens—ready to argue—then stops when another door slams and the air changes again, sharp with motion. His radio crackles.
“Keep the corridor clear—”
“I’m standing clear,” I cut in before the instruction turns into an order.
The guard watches me a beat too long, then jerks his chin toward the stairs. “Two minutes. If he’s not here—”
“I heard you.”
He backs off, but the rule doesn’t. It presses in around me, tightening with every second I choose to stay.
Footsteps hit the concrete from the far corridor—heavy, fast, uncontained. Staff move with measured strides. Security drifts with bored shuffles. Players. The guard straightens like he’s bracing for impact, radio lifting toward his mouth.
“Hold,” I say before he can speak.
He gives me a look like I’m insane.
Then Gio Rossi rounds the corner, and the word hold turns into a joke my body tells on me.
He’s still in full gear minus the helmet, hair damp and flattened at the sides, sweat shining along his throat where the collar of his undershirt sticks.
His jersey is half unlaced like he got impatient halfway through stripping it and decided friction was a better idea.
There’s a red mark on his jaw that looks like someone tried to rearrange his face and failed.
His eyes lock on mine.
Everything else in the tunnel goes optional.
He slows—barely—like restraint is a muscle he has to clench on purpose. His chest rises once, deep, and I feel it in my own lungs like I’m the one coming down off violence.
“Zoe.”
His voice is rough. Worn down. Used up.
“Rossi.”
I keep mine level, and it costs me. “You’re late.”
He huffs a short laugh, pressure leaking through it. “Yeah?”
“You promised.” Not an accusation. A fact. A line item that gets honored.
His eyes flick to the guard, then back to me. “We have a problem?”
The guard shifts. “This area is restricted.”
Gio’s jaw tightens. “She’s with me.”
I see him doing the math—how much he wants this to be simple—and he still chooses it.
“Sir, protocol—”
Gio takes one step closer to me, not the guard. A choice. A statement. “Then protocol can write me up.”
The guard’s eyes narrow. “Coach will—”
“Coach can talk to me.” Gio’s voice doesn’t rise. It drops. “She’s here because I told her to be.”
His teammates spill past behind him—laughing, shoving, loud in the way men get loud when they’re trying to outrun adrenaline. One of them glances at me, does a double take, then keeps moving.
Visibility. Immediate. Dangerous.
Gio’s eyes don’t leave mine when he says, quieter, “You good?”
It’s an assessment. A check. Agency. Consent, in his language.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Your friend here was giving me two minutes.”
Gio’s eyes sharpen. “Were you going to make her leave?”
The guard holds his ground. “I’m doing my job.”
Gio nods once, like he respects the concept while resenting the execution. “Cool. Do it somewhere else.”
A beat—long enough for the air to tighten.
Then the guard exhales hard and steps back toward the stairs, radio pressed to his chest like a shield. “Five minutes,” he mutters. “That’s it.”
“Appreciate you,” Gio says, and the politeness sounds like a threat because it’s too controlled.
He leaves.
Silence drops into the space he vacates—thick, private, wrong.
Gio turns fully to me. Up close, the heat coming off him is obscene against the cold concrete. Sweat, ice, clean soap, and something metallic like he bled without letting it show. My body reacts before my brain can file it under bad idea.
Pulse jumps. Skin goes alert. Attention narrows until the only thing in the tunnel is the distance between us and the fact that neither of us closes it.
His eyes track my face like he’s checking for damage he’d have to answer for.
“Don’t,” I say, sharp enough to cut. Because I want it. Because I do.
His mouth twitches like he almost smiles and refuses himself. “Don’t what?”
“Look at me like you’re about to—” I stop. Finishing it would be a confession.
His eyes darken anyway. He shifts his weight, boots scraping. The lace at his collar bounces with the movement, stupidly intimate.
“This corridor is dangerous for you.”
“I know.” My voice holds. My body doesn’t. “I chose it.”
That lands. I see it in the small pause he can’t hide. The way his shoulders drop a fraction like something unclenches. Choice. Growth.
He exhales. “You said tunnel.”
“I’m here.”
He steps in—one pace, controlled—and stops again like there’s an invisible line he won’t cross without permission. His hands hang at his sides, flexing once like they want a job.
The near-break is the way my fingers itch to fist his jersey and drag him into me like rules aren’t real. It’s the half-second his eyes drop to my mouth, then snap back up like he caught himself stealing.
“Sweat’s on me,” he says, like it’s a warning.
“I can take it,” I shoot back automatically.
“I know.” His voice turns lower. Rougher. “That’s beside my point.”
My throat tightens. Because if his point is you’ll make me forget myself, then we’re already standing on the wrong side of a rule neither of us wants to be first to break.
He holds my stare like he’s deciding whether he can say it without making it a weakness. Then he does what he always does when the room tries to manage him.
He chooses the terms.
“You want the meeting?” he asks.
“I came down here for the meeting,” I say.
A rough exhale leaves him—almost a laugh, killed in his throat. “Okay.”
He reaches up, tugs at the lace at his collar like it’s choking him, then stills when his fingers brush his own skin and he remembers what hands do when they’re free.
“Elena Moretti,” he says.
The name hits hard. Business. Ambition. Transaction. The kind of name that stays guarded.
I don’t blink. “When?”
“Tomorrow. Eight.” His gaze cuts past my shoulder, already mapping sightlines and timing. “Her office.”
“That’s a time,” I say. “A door is what I need.”
“It’s a door,” he replies, “because I’m walking you through it.”
A beat.
“You bring your portfolio.”
Something tightens low in my chest. Focus. Pure focus. “Of course I do.”
His jaw works once. “Everything. The work you’d defend. What you’d defend.”
“She’ll tear it apart,” I say.
“Yes,” he agrees immediately. “If she doesn’t, it wasn’t worth bringing.”
Pressure flares hot and clean through me, and I keep my face flat anyway. “You’re spending your name for this.”
“I’m using it,” he says. “For you.”
That lands harder than anything else he could’ve offered.
I tilt my head. “And what does that buy me?”
“A real look,” he says. “A serious meeting. A decision.” His eyes lock on mine. “She listens because I’m standing there. She decides because of what you put on the table.”
“Meaning,” I say.
“You stand by your work,” he continues. “Keep its edges. You let her questions set the pace.”
“I keep it tight.”
“I know,” he says, precise. “You also let the work impress her.”
My brow lifts. “You think I’m going to perform.”
“I think you’re going to want to win,” he says. “Tomorrow, you don’t.”
That hits—not as a challenge. As a boundary. “So what am I doing?”
“Standing there,” he says. “Letting her see what you built without permission. Letting her hear me say the recommendation is mine and the talent isn’t.”
“Your recommendation,” I repeat.
“My choice,” he says. “My accountability.”
Footsteps echo down the corridor. A trainer rounds the corner and freezes when he clocks us.
“Rossi—Coach wants you in the—” He stalls, eyes flicking to me. “Now.”
“I’m coming,” Gio says, never breaking eye contact.
The trainer backs off fast, like he stepped into something volatile.
Gio lowers his voice. “Eight tomorrow. You show up with your materials.”
I nod once. “I will.”
“And Zoe—” He cuts himself off, breath catching like he almost says something else. Something that isn’t leverage. He resets. Hard. Controlled. “Wear something that makes it impossible for her to pretend you’re a mistake.”
My pulse jumps—annoyed at itself. “You’re giving me wardrobe notes now?” I tilt my head. “Careful, Rossi. That sounds like—”
“Optics,” he interrupts, too fast. Too sharp. “It’s optics.”
I hold him there with my eyes. Not trapping, not forcing—just present. Letting him own what he offered.
“Fine,” I say. “Optics.”
His stare stays on me a beat too long, like the word tastes different in this tunnel than it will in her office. Then he nods once—transaction complete.
“Eight,” he repeats, like a vow he refuses to call one. “Don’t be late.”
The word eight still hums between us like a held note neither of us releases.
Gio stays close.
He also doesn’t step closer.
Which is worse.
The tunnel breathes around us—concrete cold, distant echoes, the ghost of the crowd vibrating through the bones of the building. My body hasn’t caught up to the decision my mouth already made. My pulse keeps trying to renegotiate.
He tilts his head a fraction, studying me the way he does right before a faceoff. Calculating angles. Reading tells.
“This is the part where you walk away,” I say, because naming the rule feels safer than breaking it.
“Yeah,” he answers.
He doesn’t move.
“I know.”
Silence stretches. Dense. Loaded.
I’m suddenly aware of how close his chest is—heat, damp cotton, the faint metallic edge of blood dried somewhere I can’t see. My fingers curl at my sides, useless and aching.
“Zoe,” he says, lower now. Careful. Like the word itself has weight.
I look up.
That’s the mistake.
His gaze drops—just once—to my mouth. Involuntary. Immediate. Gone. But my body clocks it like a flare.
I inhale too sharp.
“If you—” he starts, then stops. Jaw tight. Resetting. “If I touch you right now—”
“You keep your hands to yourself,” I say, even as my skin argues.
He exhales through his nose, slow and controlled. “No.”
The answer shouldn’t do this to me.
It does.
I take a half-step closer before I realize I’ve moved. Not enough to collide. Enough to matter. Enough that the air between us thins.
“This is stupid,” I mutter. Not retreating.
“Yes,” he agrees immediately. “It is.”
Another pause. Longer. My heartbeat climbs my throat.
“If we kiss,” I say quietly, “it stops being leverage.”
His eyes darken. “It stops being choice.”
The word lands clean. True. No heat. No softness. Just accuracy.
I nod once. Active. Decisive.
It hurts anyway.
Footsteps echo at the far end—voices, laughter, a stick clattering against concrete. Reality pushing back in.
Gio shifts first. He stays close, then angles sideways, creating space without severing the line between us.
“Tomorrow,” he says, rough again. “You walk in like you belong.”
“I do belong.”
“I know.” A beat. “That’s why this is hard.”
The footsteps get closer. He holds my gaze for one last second—too long, too intimate, too much—then turns, restraint snapping back into place like armor locking.
I stay where I am. Breathing. Because wanting him didn’t disappear. It just learned gravity.
The corridor opens into light and noise like a trapdoor. The bowl still buzzes—players spilling out, staff shouting names, the low electric churn of people deciding what matters now. Phones are already up. I clock them before I feel them.
Gio doesn’t hesitate. His arm comes around my shoulders, easy and unannounced, like it belongs there. The contact is firm. Deliberate. Possessive enough to read.
My body stiffens on instinct. I kill it just as fast. Because it affects me. Because I promised.
We step forward together.
The shift is immediate. Conversations dip. Heads turn. A camera flash pops from the corner like a spark testing dry air.
“Hey, Rossi,” someone calls. “Good game.”
He doesn’t look. “Thanks.”
Another phone lifts. Then another.
I lean in just enough that my mouth is near his collar, voice low. “So this starts now.”
“Yeah,” he says, just as quietly. “It already did.”
His thumb presses once against my shoulder. Pure signal. A marker.
Hold.
We move.
A girl I recognize from design looks between us, surprise cracking her expression before she schools it into something sharp. A guy in a Titans jacket grins like he just won a bet.
“Zoe Barnes,” someone says behind us. Not asking.
Gio answers without slowing. “Mine.”
The word lands heavy—strategy, alignment, lockstep. A claim the crowd can screenshot.
A reporter edges closer, mic half-raised. “Gio—are you—”
“Not tonight,” he cuts in, smooth as glass. He angles his body, shielding me without adding contact. “Game just ended.”
The mic drops. The cameras don’t.
We hit the exit doors. Cold air rushes in, flashes firing as they swing wide. My pulse is loud now. Consequence.
I glance up at him. “You good?”
A corner of his mouth twitches. “You still standing?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’re fine.”
Outside, the night swallows us whole—lights, noise, attention snapping into place behind our backs like a lock.
His arm stays where it is.
And I don’t step away.