Chapter 18
eighteen
. . .
CONNOR
I can’t take my eyes off Whitney.
Twenty minutes ago, she walked in wearing a silky, blue dress.
The thin straps show off her toned arms and shoulders, while the slit up the side accentuates her long legs.
And the slate-blue color makes her look like the ocean right before a storm—beautiful, unpredictable, and fully capable of wrecking me.
Since the moment she landed on my radar, I’ve been a terrible conversationalist—smiling at people, nodding at sentences I don’t absorb, pretending I’m not tracking the exact note of her laugh from across the room like it’s a race split.
I’m standing with a donor—mid-fifties, pearls, elegant, the kind of woman who says philanthropy like it’s a verb—and she’s paused her monologue to wait for my response.
She’s been talking for ten minutes. I caught maybe four words. None of them were useful.
I nod anyway, polite and practiced. Like I’m Connor Fisk 2.0, boring and well-mannered in a tux.
“That sounds great.”
Her brows lift. “So, I can put you down for it?”
For what? A table? A silent auction basket? My first-born child?
I open my mouth to commit to something wildly expensive when Coach Owens appears at my shoulder like a lifeline.
“Connor,” he says, friendly but firm. “We’ve got a short media panel I want you to join.”
Relief hits so fast I almost thank him out loud.
The donor gives me a knowing smile. “I’ll send you the details.”
“Perfect,” I say, because that’s what you say when you have no idea what you just agreed to.
I follow Coach toward the far wall where a small stage has been set up—four stools, branded backdrop, microphones already live. Rory’s there, Logan and Eli flanking him, all of them looking annoyingly composed. Like they were born knowing where to stand when cameras come out.
I take the empty stool at the end and adjust the mic, trying not to think about the fact that the last time I sat under a camera, it didn’t end well.
Rory glances my way. Quick. Neutral. The kind of look that pretends history isn’t sitting between us with a pulse.
A moderator with a polished smile leans into the mic. “Thanks for joining us tonight. The Carolina Current has had a lot of buzz this season—new faces, big expectations. Rory, let’s start with you. How’s training been going?”
Rory answers easily. He always does. Talks about culture, trust, building something sustainable. The words land clean, practiced, safe.
Then the mic shifts.
“Connor,” the moderator says, turning toward me. “You’re one of the most talked-about additions this year. What’s it been like stepping into an established group?”
There it is.
I feel Rory’s attention without looking at him.
“It’s different,” I say. Honest. “They’ve built something that works. My job is to earn my place in it.”
The moderator nods, satisfied.
But media never knows when to stop.
“Rory,” she adds, “how does Connor fit into the team dynamic so far?”
Rory smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes.
“He’s fast,” Rory says. “That’s never been in question. We’ll see how everything else shakes out.”
A polite answer. A careful one.
It still lands like a shove to the ribs.
Something old and sharp rises in me—muscle memory from a lifetime of being underestimated, misjudged, written off. The instinct to strike first. To protect myself by acting like I don’t care.
My mouth moves before my brain catches up.
“I’m not here to be managed,” I say, voice even but edged in a way I know too well. “I’m here to contribute. Same as everyone else.”
The air tightens, and Rory turns to me.
“No one said otherwise,” he replies, calm as a surgeon. “Trust takes time.”
I nod once.
“Yeah,” I say. “It does.”
Coach clears his throat and smoothly redirects like he’s done this before. Logan cracks a joke. Eli adds something neutral and team-friendly. The room exhales. The moment passes.
But it doesn’t disappear.
I sit there with my hands folded, face neutral, while the rest of the panel wraps up. Cameras flash. Applause follows. And all I can think is how easily I slipped back into the version of myself I promised I was done being.
When we stand, Rory pauses beside me.
“Not the place,” he murmurs. It doesn’t come out angry, just final. Like he’s the teacher and I’m the screw-up kid who keeps testing the rules.
“I know,” I say.
He doesn’t respond. Just walks away.
I watch him go, jaw tight, chest buzzing with that familiar mix of regret and defiance. I told myself I was here to do this differently.
Five minutes in front of a mic, and I already feel like I’ve made it worse.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I don’t check it. It’s either Leo or Nico. In my mind the two men have become the angel and devil sitting on my shoulders. Whichever one it is, I don’t want that version of reality right now.
I start moving, weaving through the room with as much composure as I can fake. The gala is a blur of champagne and donor smiles and people who want to tell me about their niece who swam summer league in 2009.
I smile. I nod. I survive.
My attention keeps snapping back to Whitney anyway.
She’s with Winnie near the edge of the room, laughing at something Dani says.
Then the lights dim.
A hush falls over crowd and heads turn toward the auction area where two staff members wheel out a covered easel.
The cloth lifts to reveal a painting—boardwalk lights, ocean sheen, brushstrokes you can feel even from here.
Excited whispers roll through the room.
“It looks like a Covey.” An older woman to my left gasps. “Do you think it’s real?”
The auctioneer announces it is indeed a Covey.
Since I arrived in Coral Cove, I’ve heard discussion of the anonymous artist. They randomly leave paintings around town. People find one, post about it in a social media group, lose their minds, and the artist stays a ghost.
With all eyes on the painting, I slip through the crowd and end up beside Whitney.
“Hey,” I say, low.
She turns, and whatever she’s holding behind her smile stays behind it—polished, bright, like she’s not giving anyone a front-row seat to her thoughts.
“Hey, yourself,” she says, eyes flicking over my suit and back up to my face. Her grin turns faintly wicked. “You survive your panel without committing a felony on a microphone?”
I huff a quick laugh. “Barely.”
“Mm. Sounds on brand.”
I glance at her properly—because from across the room I could only see the shape of her, the shimmer of her dress, the way she moved.
Up close, it’s worse.
“You look…” I stop, because pretty feels too small, and hot might get me murdered. “You look really beautiful.”
Her expression stills for half a beat, like my sincerity caught her off guard, but she recovers instantly.
“Oh,” she says, breezy. “So you do have manners.”
“On special occasions,” I say. “Don’t get used to it.”
Whitney’s smile lingers, softer now, like she’s filing the compliment away and pretending she isn’t.
Around us, people clap and gasp and wave paddles at the auctioneer like they’re at a sporting event. The Covey painting is front and center, the crowd obsessed with the mystery of it, and the amount of money bidders are willing to pay to own it.
Her arm brushes mine, accidental but also not, and my whole body goes on alert like I’m on the blocks.
Her perfume hits me—clean, coastal, warm.
But then I remember, I came over here for a reason.
I’m supposed to tell her the truth. I’m supposed to say the thing I’ve been putting off and has now turned into a landmine.
But standing this close to her, with her perfume in my lungs and her eyes on my mouth like she remembers exactly what it felt like, my brain keeps trying to file the conversation under later.
Because the truth isn’t going to feel like this.
The truth is going to ruin the ease between us.
Whitney leans closer, voice pitched low just for me. “Everyone is losing their minds over a painting.”
“Mm,” I say, because the only thing I’m losing my mind over is the fact that she’s standing this close.
Her gaze lifts to mine, and for a second the rest of the room falls away and there’s just the electric hum under my skin and the memory of her in my lap.
I open my mouth to start—we need to talk—but Whitney beats me to it.
“Well,” she says lightly, like she didn’t just make my pulse spike, “if you’re going to stand here and look at me like that, you might as well buy me tacos.”
I blink. “Tacos?”
“Yes,” she says, and her smile turns sweet like she’s offering an out. “Come on. Tacos in formalwear is a must. Then we can go see Pussy.”
My brain stutters at the name.
Whitney’s grin goes wicked. “What? You don’t want me to see your cat?”
“She’s not—” I start, then stop because arguing with Whitney is like arguing with the ocean. You’ll lose and you’ll look ridiculous doing it.
I should say no.
I should keep the plan. The responsible plan. Talk first. Be honest. Do the hard thing before I let myself have more of the easy thing.
But Whitney is offering me a night that feels light—tacos, a cat visit, her laugh in my passenger seat—like we can pretend for another hour that nothing complicated is waiting.
And that’s the problem.
I want that time.
I want more moments with her that don’t feel like a test I’m failing.
Because the conversation I need to have with her isn’t going to be easy.
Whitney’s eyes flick to my face, reading me like she always seems to.
“You’re thinking too hard,” she says, like it’s an accusation.
“Maybe,” I admit.
She steps closer—just enough that her shoulder brushes mine again—and my brain goes beautifully blank for a second.
“Come on,” she says, soft but firm.
I exhale and nod once.
“Fine,” I say. “Tacos.”
Whitney beams like she just won an Olympic medal.
“And Pussy,” she adds.
I grimace. “Don’t say it like that.”
“I’m going to say it exactly like that,” she promises, already turning to steer us out of the crowd like she’s in charge of my entire evening.
And I follow—because for the next few minutes, I want to let it be easy.
Even if I know what’s coming after won’t be.