Chapter 24 Launch Sequence （Kieran）
LAUNCH SEQUENCE (KIERAN)
Feldman’s office is small—three of us crammed in front of his desk, a whiteboard covered in equations, a bookcase packed with binders.
Or maybe it just feels small because Wren’s knee keeps brushing mine under the table, and I’m trying very hard not to think about the last time her legs were near me.
Specifically, wrapped around my waist while she chanted my name like a prayer.
Focus. Meeting. Professor talking.
I try to fix my eyes on Feldman’s laptop screen, but every time Wren shifts, I catch the faint scent of her shampoo, and my brain derails completely.
“Overall?” Feldman leans back, fingertips steepled. “I’m impressed.”
Theo straightens. Wren’s posture doesn’t change, but something in the air brightens.
“You took a messy problem,” Feldman continues, tapping the printed plots, “and got from theory to prototype faster than most grad teams. Your stress-strain data matches simulations to within—what—three percent?”
“Three point one, on average,” Theo says automatically. “We can get closer with the revised mesh.”
He looks like he hasn’t slept much—dark circles, hair sticking up. But there’s quiet pride in his voice I haven’t heard before.
“We can tighten tolerances on the next round,” Wren adds. Her voice is calm. The same mouth that had been anything but calm last night, gasping my name.
Stop. Brain: off. Pants: behave.
My fingers tighten on the armrests.
Feldman glances over, catches me staring at Wren like a man in a desert looking at the last glass of water on earth, and raises one eyebrow. He doesn’t comment.
“I think you’re missing something,” Feldman says, still looking at me as if ordering me to pull myself together.
I breathe in deeply and nod. Wren’s and Theo’s heads snap toward him.
“You’re treating this like a class project,” Feldman continues. “The data, the write-up, the presentation—fine. But this?” He taps the CAD render pinned to his bulletin board. “This is more than fine. If you keep going, this could become real.”
“Real how?” I ask, even though my chest has already gone tight.
“Patent. Licensing. Maybe a startup down the line. Something that outlives your grade.”
Startup.
The word doesn’t land clean. It hits sideways—unexpected, destabilizing—like taking a check you didn’t see coming.
The room seems to tilt. The whiteboard blurs at the edges. Even the warmth of Wren’s knee against mine feels suddenly out of place, as if I’m standing in the wrong life for half a second.
This isn’t a plan clicking into place.
It’s an interruption.
My whole life, people have seen one thing when they look at me: a hockey player. O’Connor bloodline. Captain’s little brother. Future draft pick.
End of story.
Coaches see my shot. Scouts see my speed. Teammates see the highlight reel.
Feldman looks at a prototype I built in a machine shop and sees something that doesn’t care about my season.
A company.
Not a dream—an intrusion.
The unsettling realization isn’t that I want it. It’s that it exists at all. That there’s a version of me I’ve never had to account for—and don’t have time for now.
MIT’s acceptance email flickers through my head, uninvited, and I shove it away just as fast.
Not now.
Not this season.
Hockey is real. The draft is real. Everything else is noise I don’t have the luxury to listen to. The Defenders offer sits in my future, an open door with my name already engraved on it.
That’s the life I’ve been training for. That’s the one that counts. And then, crawling up the back of all that certainty:
The bet.
Rotting behind every good thing that’s happened since the cabin.
If this explodes, it won’t just cost me Wren. It’ll cost me the version of myself the league already believes in.
It’s been a week since the holiday weekend. A week of being wrapped up in her—her bed or mine, her laugh, her quiet concentration, her hands on me.
A week of knowing I should’ve told her by now.
I haven’t.
Isabelle hasn’t texted since last Friday. No veiled threats. No games. The silence is its own kind of danger.
For half a second, a stupid hope sparks—maybe she’s letting it die.
I crush that thought before it can settle. Hope like that gets people hurt.
Because if this becomes real, there’s no version of it where I don’t have to tell Wren everything.
No version where the truth stays buried.
It won’t stop with her.
Liam. My mother. My coach.
Once it’s said out loud, it touches everything.
I don’t let myself think past that. I can’t.
Beside me, Wren shifts.
“Isn’t that a little premature?” she asks. One ankle crosses over the other, her heel bouncing once, her version of nerves. “We still need to improve durability. The control circuitry is—”
“Messy,” I jump in. “But it’s getting there.”
She flicks me a sideways glance. Don’t oversell, it says.
I nearly grin. Even her disapproval turns me on.
“Premature?” Feldman shrugs. “Sure. But you’re undergrads. That’s when the good ideas show up, before you’ve collected enough caution to smother them.”
Theo already has his pen out. “What would we need to do if we kept going?”
“First step,” Feldman says, swiveling to his computer. “Talk to the IP office. I’ll send the contact. They’ll walk you through disclosures, university cut, timelines—the glamorous side of innovation.”
“Fun,” Wren mutters.
Feldman smiles faintly. “Welcome to engineering, Ms. Marin. Second step—if the tech holds up—you get it in front of people. Competitions. Demo days. Investors like hardware that solves real problems.”
“It’s not going to explode,” I say automatically.
“Good,” he deadpans. “That’s the baseline.”
A brief silence settles.
Then Feldman looks at me. “You play hockey,” he says, matter-of-fact.
“Yeah. Winger.”
“Right.” His fingers snap once. “O’Connor. New York Defenders’ pipeline.” The way he says it makes it sound official. Prewritten. “You going pro?”
The question I’ve spent my whole life answering before anyone finishes asking it.
Yes. Obviously.
“That’s the plan,” I say, keeping my voice even.
Theo nods like this aligns everything back into place.
Wren doesn’t move, but I feel the smallest shift beside me.
Feldman studies me for a beat longer than necessary.
“Then you need to be careful,” he says, not unkind. “Because projects like this don’t stay small. And divided attention shows.”
My jaw tightens.
“This doesn’t have to become anything,” he continues. “But if you keep pushing it, it will. Whether you’re ready or not.”
He turns back to his computer.
“Short term,” he says, typing. “Run more tests. Refine the model. Keep it clean. We’ll talk again after midterms.”
Theo exhales quietly. Wren’s fingers lace together, then still. As for me…
I sit there, heartbeat loud in my ears, with the uncomfortable certainty that I’ve just been warned.
We fall into step without talking, and suddenly I’m aware of every inch of space between us. The memory of her skin under my hands. The way she fit against me. The sounds she made falling apart on my tongue.
The hallway curves toward the main atrium. I’ve walked this stretch a thousand times thinking about drills and line changes, next games, next shifts.
Now my brain keeps snagging on things I don’t have time for.
Feldman’s voice.
The word startup.
A future I didn’t ask to picture.
I shake it off and clear my throat. “So. How does it feel having a professor tell you your homework might be worth millions?”
“Terrifying,” she says instantly.
I huff a laugh. “Terrifying good or terrifying bad?”
“Both.” She tucks a loose strand behind her ear. “IP offices. Investors. Pitch decks. That’s…a lot.”
“You handled Feldman fine.”
“That was academic.” She glances up. “A professor grilling me is survivable. Venture-capital bros in Patagonia vests? Hard pass.”
“Theo and I can buffer you,” I joke. “You handle the brain part. We’ll handle the bros.”
Her mouth twitches. “That’s a horrifying sentence.”
I hook my fingers through her backpack strap and slide the bag onto my shoulder. “We did agree on the boyfriend perk. I carry your books.”
She stops mid-step, staring at me. “You have that elementary-school, pigtail-pulling, book-carrying game down, don’t you?”
“I’m very good at my assignments,” I say mildly, tugging her back into motion, fingers finding hers and lacing tight.
“I follow through. I pay attention.” I glance at her, voice dropping just enough.
“And if we’re talking performance metrics—were you not in the room when I had you coming apart three times last night? ”
Her pulse jumps at her throat. Color floods her cheeks.
She’s flustered, searching for words, and it’s adorable.
“It’s called a hat trick, by the way,” I add, grinning.
“What?” Her brow furrows.
“Three goals in one game.” I wiggle my eyebrows as red creeps up her throat.
She nudges my arm but recovers fast. “Three outputs on one input cycle. Acceptable for preliminary testing. But I’ll need more data before I sign off.”
“I can do that,” I say, tightening my grip on her backpack strap and steering us toward a quieter wing of the building.
“Kieran.” She digs her heels in, then stumbles after me. “Where are you going?”
“Quality control,” I say lightly.
Halfway down, a small room sits open, lights off, chairs pushed in around a scarred table. Whiteboard full of half-erased equations. No one inside. Perfect.
I nudge her through the doorway, reach back to pull the door almost shut, and turn her so her back meets the wood.
Her eyes narrow, but she’s smiling. “This does not feel like a sanctioned test.”
“Live environment,” I counter. “Post-meeting conditions. High stakes.”
She wraps her arms around my neck, and I lift her without thinking, her legs tightening around my hips as her mouth finds mine. My hand slides into her hair, guiding her, deepening the kiss until thought burns off at the edges.