Chapter 18
eighteen
MORGAN
The wobbly table at Pine Barren Bagels is trying to assassinate me.
Every time I shift my weight between the two elbows I've got leaning on the table, it lurches sideways with vindictive enthusiasm, threatening to dump my black coffee directly into my lap. The metal leg rocks against the uneven floor—click-scrape, click-scrape—like a countdown to disaster.
And that would honestly be a mercy at this point, because third-degree burns would give me something to focus on besides the fact that less than twelve hours ago, I had James Fitzgerald's tongue in my mouth, and his cock pressed against my stomach, hard and—
The table wobbles again, as if it's warning me to stop.
I grab my mug with both hands, steadying it like I'm defusing a bomb.
The ceramic burns against my palms, but I don't let go.
Because physical pain is simple and makes sense, unlike the electrical storm still crackling under my skin, sending random shocks through my nervous system every time I remember.
The campus's main breakfast hangout is packed with Saturday morning chaos. Students are clustered around tiny tables, their laughter bright and careless. The espresso machine hisses every thirty seconds, and someone's playing acoustic guitar in the corner.
The normalcy of it feels surreal versus the confusion swirling inside me.
The couple next to me is sharing a bagel, feeding each other bites with nauseating tenderness. She has cream cheese on her nose. He kisses it off. They're performing their own personal Hallmark movie, and I want to lean over and inform them that real relationships are pain.
But maybe I want that?
Want him?
My body won't stop vibrating. Every nerve ending feels exposed and raw.
I can still feel the ghost of his hands on my waist, those long fingers spanning my ribs.
The heat of him everywhere, overwhelming, drowning me in want I thought I'd successfully killed three years ago after he'd hammered my heart into pieces.
The bell above the door chimes, and I know it's him before I even look up. Some primitive part of my brain recognizes his presence like a tuning fork recognizing its matching pitch. And when I look up and spot him, I take a sharp inhale of breath, because he looks terrible.
Not physically terrible. Physically, he looks like he always does—unfairly attractive in worn jeans and a PBU Hockey hoodie, his hair doing that thing where it can't decide which direction to stick up.
Objectively, he'd be a catch for any woman on campus, especially since most would find his humor endearing.
But there's something different in the way he's moving through the crowded bagel joint this morning. The usual frantic, kinetic energy that radiates from him has been replaced by something quieter, more careful, like he's carrying something fragile that might break if disturbed.
He's looking for the table I promised to get us, and a second later our eyes meet across the room. For a fraction of a second, I see it all—the same want, and the same what-the-fuck-did-we-do that's been eating me alive—but then his face goes carefully neutral, and he heads to the counter.
I watch him order. The barista—a perky sophomore with a high ponytail—tries to flirt, leaning over the counter to give him a view that would require active effort to avoid. Three weeks ago, Rook would have leaned in, turned on that thousand-watt charm, and probably walked away with her number.
But today he gives her a polite but distant smile, his body angled away, and he doesn't take the invitation to look down her top. He's not performing anymore, and the sight shocks me, because it's perhaps the most unsettling thing I've seen since I got here.
When he has his coffee, James navigates through the tables carrying a cup that's definitely not just black coffee—there's whipped cream involved, possibly caramel, and definitely chocolate shavings—and it's clear to me the man orders beverages like a kindergartener let loose at Starbucks.
"Sit," I say, sharper than intended. "Before you spill that diabetes-bomb everywhere."
He sits, then pulls something from his jacket pocket, a paper bag already translucent with grease. "Got you something."
I eye it suspiciously. "What is it?"
"Glazed doughnut. Peace offering." He slides it across the wobbling table. "Or breakfast."
"Trying to fatten me up?" The joke escapes before I can stop it, an unnatural attempt at humor a reaction to this very unnatural situation.
His eyes go wide. "No! God, no. You look… I mean, you're perfect… not that I'm looking… I just meant—"
"Rook." I tear off a piece of doughnut, the sugar coating my fingers. "Lighten up."
"Right. Yeah." He blinks, like he's recalibrating, and like he's not used to me making jokes, which is fair, because neither am I.
"Thank you." I take a bite. "Even if your coffee order suggests you have the palate of a five-year-old."
"It's called joy, Morgan," he flashes that million-watt grin. "You should try it sometime."
Once the table stabilizes—relatively speaking—the silence becomes suffocating. He studies his whipped cream monstrosity, while I finish off my doughnut and then stare at a scratch in the wood that looks vaguely like a lightning bolt.
"We need ground rules," I say, finally, putting on my team captain voice. "Our teams can't keep clashing in the shared facilities."
He looks up. "Ground rules. Right."
"Separate ice times. Minimal overlap. Maximum efficiency." I finish the doughnut and then lick my fingers, then I catch him watching and blush.
"Morgan," he says, his tone quiet and serious. He drags a hand through his hair. "Can we actually talk? Not dance around it with hockey speak?"
"This is talking."
"No, this is you pretending nothing happened and scheduling things to make sure it doesn't happen again."
"Because nothing can happen," I say. "You know that."
"I know." His voice is rough. "But not because it was wrong."
"Of course it was wrong," I scoff. "We were emotional, and Galloway had just—"
"Stop." He leans forward, the table wobbling.
His knee brushes mine under the table, and even through denim, the contact burns.
"You can handle it however you need to once I'm done talking, but I need you to hear something first. I need to explain about three years ago…
and why you were right to call me a jester… "
The look on his face is completely stripped of his usual masks. This is James without the performance. It's terrifying. And it's like the whole of Pine Barren Bagels stops, as well, the guitar and the espresso machine falling silent right at the exact time he drops the bomb on me.
"OK," I say, cautiously, wishing my walls were still up, when in reality he demolished them yesterday.
"My parents…" He stops, starts again. "They should've divorced after I was born.
They go from screaming matches to days of silence and back again.
Sometimes they hit each other, too. It's horrible, but growing up, the silence was worse.
It was like living with a bomb, waiting for someone to light the fuse. "
His hands wrap around his mug, and it's clear he's not done, so I keep quiet.
"I figured out I could defuse things. Make a joke, break something, cause chaos.
Anything to interrupt the countdown. I became the family circus act, and it worked.
" He looks up, meeting my eyes. "They'd stop fighting to deal with whatever mess I'd created, and I kept the peace by being the disaster. "
The puzzle pieces of James Fitzgerald suddenly all click into place.
"It became my default setting," he continues.
"Whenever things got quiet or got real, my brain would scream 'Danger!
' and the only fix I knew was chaos. Because I figured out it was better to be a clown than wait for the inevitable explosion.
But at some point along the way, it went beyond my parents, and just became me… "
As he pauses, I realize I'm holding my breath, and I nod for him to keep going.
"That night at the summer camp…" His voice cracks slightly.
"You asked what came next, and it was the most terrifying question anyone had ever asked me.
Because the silences and heavy moments with you didn't feel like danger, and in that moment you were looking at me like I was worth something—like we were worth something—and I wanted to say yes to everything. But my brain… yeah…"
My throat feels tight. The memory of that night, which I've replayed through the lens of hurt, suddenly shifts, showing me a different angle. It shows me a boy—still a young boy—overwhelmed by the moment and resorting to his default programming. Not an excuse, or excusable, but logical.
"I watched myself destroy it," he says simply.
"And as your face changed and you shut down, I couldn't stop.
It was like being trapped outside my own body, screaming at myself to shut up, to be brave, and to be what you deserved.
But I chose the escape route over the emotions and depth and happiness I didn't trust."
The coffee shop noise filters back in—steam hissing, students chattering, someone laughing three tables over—but between us, there's suddenly a bubble of devastating honesty. It takes all my restraint to stop from reaching for his hand or punching him in the face… I'm not sure which…
"When I saw Galloway corner you," he continues, "that was the first time I chose the serious over safe.
No jokes… no diversion… just action. And then, in that stairwell, when you looked at me…
" He shakes his head. "And the kiss… well…
I never imagined it would happen because I finally did something right. "