Chapter 5 #2
I take the hit in the shoulder and keep running. Xander cuts left. I sling the ball cross-field without even looking. The crowd roars. X catches it clean and dodges past his defender.
Iz breaks through midfield like a freight train. The Pleasant Hill defense collapses inward. Perfect.
X feeds Iz. Iz gets absolutely demolished by a check that would flatten most people. He still manages to dump the ball off to Danny before hitting the turf.
Danny’s already moving. He’s the fastest bastard on the team—long, lean, and built like someone engineered him specifically to ruin defenders’ lives. He cuts past two guys like they’re cones. Then rockets the ball straight toward the crease. Toward me.
I catch it without thinking. Muscle memory. Instinct. The goalie barely has time to blink before the ball snaps into the top corner of the net.
Goal.
The stadium detonates. The boys slam into me from all directions. Helmet slaps. Chest bumps. Danny yelling something incoherent into my ear. Iz laughing like a maniac even though he just got flattened.
The ritual. The celebration. The loud, chaotic proof that we are exactly what everyone here thinks we are.
Untouchable.
I pull my helmet off for a second and glance toward the stands. Catherine is still watching. Still not cheering. Still not clapping. But she’s leaning forward now. Her elbows rest on her knees. Her attention completely locked on the field. On the game.
On me.
Xander notices immediately. “Don’t do it,” he mutters.
“Do what.”
“The look.”
“What look.”
“The ‘I’m about to try way too hard because a girl is watching’ look.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
He laughs. “Dude, you’re going to hurt someone.”
“I always hurt someone.”
“Yeah but tonight you’re going to do it with feelings.”
“Keep talking and you’re next.”
The whistle blows again. We reset. And the next forty minutes are a blur of controlled brutality. Checks that rattle ribs. Hits that echo across the field.
Pleasant Hill starts playing dirty halfway through the second quarter. Which is a mistake. Because if there’s one thing I’m better at than lacrosse—
It’s being fucking mean.
I drive through their defense like I’m trying to break something. Maybe I am. Every goal feels sharper. Every hit lands harder. The crowd gets louder with every play. And somewhere in the back of my mind, a small, irritating voice keeps whispering the same thing.
She’s watching.
I hate that it pushes me harder. I hate that some part of me wants her to see it. The speed. The control. The violence. The moment when the crowd explodes and everyone looks at me like I’m the center of the universe.
By halftime we’re up four to nothing. By the end of the third quarter it’s six. Pleasant Hill stops pretending they can win. They just try to survive.
The final whistle blows with the scoreboard reading 7–0.
Not even close.
The boys pile into each other again. Coach is yelling something proud and aggressive from the sidelines. The crowd is losing its mind. And I’m already looking back toward the stands.
Catherine is still there. Still watching. Still unreadable. But when our eyes meet across the field—For a split second—Her mouth almost curves. And that tiny almost-smile hits me harder than any tackle tonight.
Which is fucking ridiculous. Because I didn’t win that game for her. I won it because I always win.…right?
Xander’s house. The post-game party. A tradition as entrenched as the games themselves.
X’s father travels for work—or that’s the story.
The truth is more complicated and darker, involving a woman who isn’t X’s mother and a house in Connecticut that X isn’t supposed to know about.
The result is that X has a six-thousand-square-foot colonial to himself most weekends, and we’ve turned it into the venue for every post-game celebration since sophomore year.
By ten, the house is full.
Music rattling the windows. Bodies in every room. Beer bottles sweating on marble countertops and girls perched on every available surface like they grew there. The kind of chaos that only exists when a group of wealthy teenagers decides the rules don’t apply to them.
I move through it the way I always do—present but slightly apart, drink in hand, cataloging the room out of habit.
Who’s drunk. Who’s about to start something. Who’s watching who.
That’s when I see her. Cat is in the kitchen with Penny, leaning against the counter, holding a red cup she hasn’t sipped from.
She’s wearing a black dress tonight. Leather Jacket over it.
Clean lines, fitted through the waist, the skirt split just high enough that when she shifts her weight I catch a flash of thigh above a pair of black Vans.
Her hair is down. Wine-dark waves falling over her shoulders and halfway down her back. She’s laughing at something Penny said—not the polite version she gives teachers or parents. This one is real. Sudden. It hits her like she didn’t expect it. And for a second the ice princess disappears.
I’m already moving before I realize I’ve decided to. The crowd parts around me without thinking. I stop behind her. Close. Close enough that she’ll feel the heat of me before she hears my voice.
My hand lands on the counter beside her hip. “Thought you didn’t do parties, Kitty Cat.”
She turns slowly. The laughter fades instantly. Her expression sharpens into that cool, controlled version of herself she shows the rest of the world.
“I’m having a good time with my friend,” she says evenly. “What do you want, Kaiden?”
I lean a little closer, lowering my voice so it brushes the edge of her ear. “Just curious how Jonathan feels about you being here.”
Penny snorts into her cup.
“Wasn’t he fairly explicit about his position on that?”
Cat’s chin lifts slightly. “Jonathan doesn’t dictate my schedule. Or my friendships. Or anything else about my life.”
“Doesn’t he.”
Her eyes narrow.
There it is.
That tiny flash of temper. The spring tightening under the surface.
I like it.
I slide my hand off the counter and rest it briefly against the edge of her waist as I move around to face her. Not grabbing. Just enough contact to make the point.
“Careful,” I murmur. “People might think you’re rebelling.”
She doesn’t move away.
“If you’re trying to provoke me,” she says calmly, “you’re doing a remarkably lazy job.”
“Lazy?” I grin. “You noticed though.”
Penny looks between us like she’s watching a tennis match played with knives.
“Oh my God,” she says delightedly. “You two are flirting.”
“We are not,” Cat says immediately.
I raise an eyebrow.
“That’s not what it looks like from here.”
Her gaze flicks down to where my hand is still resting lightly against her waist. Then back up to my eyes.
“If that’s flirting,” she says sweetly, “your standards are embarrassing.”
I laugh quietly. “You’re still standing here.”
That earns me a look. Sharp. Curious. Then I remember why I came over.
“Actually,” I say, “I came to give you a heads-up.”
Her expression shifts slightly. “About what.”
“Your mother invited my family to her launch party tomorrow.”
For the first time since I met her, Catherine O’Farrell looks genuinely caught off guard. It’s quick. A crack in the ice. But I see it.
“She—why would she—”
“Charm,” I say. “Turns out I have some. When I choose to use it.”
Her composure slides back into place. “If you do anything to ruin this for my mother—”
“I won’t.” And I mean it. “This matters to her. I can see that. Your family’s been nothing but kind to mine.”
Something shifts in her expression. Not softness. More like recalibration. Like she’s updating the mental file she has on me.
Then Penny leans forward dramatically. “Okay, first of all,” she says, pointing between us, “this sexual tension is becoming a public hazard.”
Cat exhales. “Penny.”
“What? I’m just saying if you two start making out on the counter I need warning.”
I laugh and step back. “Relax,” I say. “I’ll save the scandal for tomorrow night.”
Cat’s eyes flicker. I turn and walk away before the moment can stretch any further.
Behind me Penny says loudly, “Well. That was almost human of him.”
I drop onto the couch beside the boys. X tosses me a joint without looking.
Danny’s sprawled across the floor with two girls hanging off his shoulders. Ryan is arguing about music with someone near the speakers. Iz sits back against the armrest, watching everything with that quiet, calculating expression he always has.
I take a drag and lean back. My gaze drifts back to the kitchen. Cat’s still there. Still holding that red cup she hasn’t touched.
A girl from the lacrosse booster club slides onto the armrest beside me. Her thigh presses against my shoulder as she leans down.
“You played amazing tonight,” she murmurs.
“Yeah,” Danny mutters. “He tends to do that.”
She laughs softly and runs her fingers through my hair. Her nails drag lightly along the back of my neck. I barely register it. Because Catherine O’Farrell is looking at me across the room.
The girl leans closer. “You want a reward for that goal?” she whispers.
I don’t answer. My attention stays fixed on the kitchen. Cat glances down at her cup. Then back at me. Her fingers tighten slightly around the plastic.
I smirk. The girl shifts onto my lap without asking. Her legs slide across mine as she settles in comfortably, clearly used to this arrangement.
“You’re distracted,” she says teasingly.
“Am I.”
Her hand slides along my jaw. “Maybe I should fix that.”
She tilts her head slightly, exposing her neck. I lean in. My mouth brushes the side of her throat. Soft. Slow. Her breath catches immediately.
But my eyes are still locked across the room. On Catherine.
She freezes. Just for a moment. Then—Slowly— She shrugs her leather jacket off her shoulders and sets it on the counter. The black dress clings closer now.
Some guy beside Penny says something to her. Cat smiles at him. Bright. Flirtatious. All while staring directly at me.
X groans beside me. “Oh for fuck’s sake.”