Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Stella
The gym tonight isn’t just loud.
It’s alive.
A living current runs under the floorboards, vibrating up through my soles, coiling around my calves like a second heartbeat.
Bass throbs through the speakers—low, relentless, sinking into my bones.
Sneakers shriek against polished wood. Volleyballs detonate off open palms with wet, cracking slaps.
Overhead lights burn white-hot, bleaching every edge razor-sharp, turning sweat into liquid diamonds on skin.
The stands are jammed. Overflowing.
Every seat claimed, every breath collective.
This crowd doesn’t watch volleyball.
It devours it.
I step onto the court and the atmosphere shifts—thicker, hotter, pressing against my ribs like a hand.
Game night.
Home floor.
This one matters.
I roll my shoulders, feel the jersey tug damp against the small of my back. My bubble braid whips once against my spine, navy ribbon snapping like a tiny flag of surrender I refuse to wave.
I flick my gaze upward—casual, practiced—and find him instantly.
Front row.
My father.
He doesn’t sit; he occupies. Tailored even in casual, shoulders broad enough to block out lesser men, dark hair swept back with silver at the temples like deliberate accent lighting. Power radiates off him the way heat rolls off asphalt in summer.
His eyes lock on mine.
The pride that floods his face is so raw, so unguarded, it almost hurts to hold. Like I’m not just his daughter—I’m proof of something he helped forge.
My spine lengthens without permission. Chest lifts.
For him. For the version of me I clawed into existence.
“Cortez! Lock in.”
“I’m locked, Coach.”
Mostly.
Because beneath the focus, there’s another awareness.
Heavy.
Insistent.
A pressure at the nape of my neck like someone’s thumb is tracing slow, deliberate circles there.
I don’t look for him.
I don’t have to.
I feel him.
First set—we own it.
I leap, swing, land. The ball rockets off my palm with a sound like a gunshot, burying itself in the far court.
Point.
The bench erupts. Teammates slam into me—sweaty limbs, shouted hype, pure electricity.
But every rotation back to the end line, my eyes lift.
Quick.
Discreet.
Scanning rows, faces, shadows.
Nothing.
He’s not there.
Relief should follow.
It doesn’t.
Second set.
Still no sign.
My father rises when I kill the next one—single sharp clap, not loud, but commanding. Heads turn. Phones rise. Whispers ripple outward like dropped stones in water.
I meet his eyes again.
He’s looking at me like I personally hung every star in the sky tonight.
For one breath, it’s enough to drown everything else.
Third set.
We’re up.
Game point.
The gym is standing now—roaring, chanting, music slicing in and out like a blade. Energy crests, crackling.
I step to the service line. Ball in my palm.
I roll it once.
Twice.
Then the ritual:
tap
tap
tap
tap
tap
Five.
Always five.
My lungs fill. Empty.
Noise recedes to a dull throb at the edges of my skull.
And then I look up.
There.
Higher in the stands.
Half swallowed by shadow, like he chose the darkest corner on purpose.
Tristan.
Our eyes collide.
The world collapses to a single taut wire stretched between us.
His jaw clenches—once, hard. I see the muscle jump from thirty feet away.
He wasn’t expecting me to look.
Wasn’t expecting me to see him.
Wasn’t expecting the wall I’ve kept up for months to simply… dissolve.
I don’t drop my gaze.
For the first time since I told him no—since I said I needed to be alone, needed to focus, needed space—I let him look straight into the furnace I’ve been hiding.
The hunger-the ache that’s lived under my skin since the night I walked away. The way my body remembers his hands, his mouth, the exact pressure of his weight pinning me to sheets I can still smell in my dreams.
I let it blaze across my face.
No filter.
No ice.
Just raw, reckless want.
His body answers before his mind can catch up.
He leans forward—half a heartbeat from rising, from crossing the distance, from coming down here and dragging me off this court regardless of the crowd, the score, the consequences.
Then he freezes.
Catches himself.
But the damage is done.
I saw it.
The flinch of need. The flare of something primal and possessive in those dark eyes.
Heat explodes across my cheekbones, races down my throat, pools low in my belly. My thighs clench involuntarily.
Because that look he’s giving me now?
It isn’t polite.
It isn’t patient.
It’s starvation wearing a thin veneer of control.
The space between us hums—electric, violent, alive.
Like the air itself is strung with copper wire and someone just flipped the switch.
“Cortez!”
Ref’s bark slices through.
Now.
I drag in a breath that feels like swallowing fire.
Rip my eyes away.
Toss the ball.
Explode upward.
Arm whips down.
The serve detonates over the net—clean, vicious, untouchable.
Whistle shrieks.
Game.
The gym detonates.
Teammates crash into me—screaming, jumping, grabbing.
“STELLA!”
“HELL YES!”
“YOU’RE A DEMON!”
I’m laughing, gasping, heart slamming against my ribs, every nerve singing.
But even in the chaos, I look up.
My father is standing—clapping, proud, immovable, the picture of certainty.
Higher up—
Tristan hasn’t moved.
Still locked on me.
Still burning.
Like that single heartbeat of unguarded want is still looping inside him, replaying, refusing to fade.
And now there’s no more hiding.
He saw it—the silent, screaming invitation I flung across the gym like a lit match into dry grass.
I saw the answering inferno ignite behind his eyes.
The unspoken promise that roared back: I feel it too. And I’m done pretending I don’t.
This thing between us?
It never died.
It was only waiting for one of us to stop lying.
And tonight—we both stopped.
The gym is still detonating around me—cheers crashing like thunder, bodies slamming into mine, the sweet sting of victory in every high-five. But my pulse is no longer just from the game.
It’s from him.
I force my eyes down, let my teammates drag me into the team huddle.
Coach’s voice cuts through the roar—sharp commands, quick corrections, the usual post-win fire.
I nod at all the right places, mutter “yes, Coach,” but my skin is still buzzing with that one look from the stands.
The one that said Tristan is one second away from burning the entire rulebook for me.
Huddle breaks. Sweat cools on my neck. My jersey clings heavier now.
And there he is—my father—already waiting at the edge of the court, arms crossed, that rare, quiet smile carving lines at the corners of his eyes.
I jog over before I can talk myself out of it.
The second I’m close enough, he pulls me into one of those crushing hugs that still feel like coming home even after all these years.
“You hung the moon tonight, Stella.” His voice is low, just for me. “Proud doesn’t even cover it.”
My throat tightens. I let myself lean into him for three full seconds—letting the pride, the safety, the everything-I-fought-for wash over me. This is why I said no to Tristan in the first place. This focus. This version of me. But tonight that version feels cracked open, raw at the edges.
I pull back, grinning up at him. “Told you I had it.”
He laughs once, short and warm, thumb brushing my cheek like he used to when I was ten and skinned my knee. For one perfect heartbeat, it’s just us.
Then my gaze betrays me. It lifts past his shoulder, straight back to the shadowed row high in the stands.
Tristan is no longer alone.
Isa is there—watching the whole time—I remember spotting her earlier, glossy dark hair, red lipstick sharp enough to cut glass, designer jacket draped over her shoulders like a trophy.
Now she’s sliding into the seat beside him, close enough that her thigh presses deliberately against his.
One manicured hand lands on his forearm, fingers tracing slow, possessive circles.
She leans in, lips brushing his ear as she says something that makes his jaw flex again—this time in a completely different way.
He doesn’t pull away. But he doesn’t lean in either. His eyes flick once—fast, almost guilty—down toward the court. Toward me.
Our stares collide again.
Even from here I feel it: the snap of electricity, the silent scream of everything we just admitted.
His body is still angled toward me, like the rest of him never left that moment.
But Issa notices. Her smile sharpens, predatory and perfect.
She turns his face back to hers with two fingers under his chin, then rises on her toes and kisses him—slow, deliberate, right on the corner of his mouth.
Not quite innocent. Not quite scandalous.
Just enough to stake a claim in front of the entire gym.
My stomach drops like I just missed a block.
Heat floods my face again, but this time it’s mixed with something vicious and green.
I know that kiss. I know exactly how his mouth feels when a woman does that.
And I know he’s letting her because he still has to “deal with Issa”—whatever tangled mess that is.
I told him to focus on himself too. I pushed him away.
Now I’m watching the consequence play out in real time while my father is still talking about my stats like the world isn’t currently on fire.
“—media in five, Cortez,” one of the assistants calls from behind me, breaking the spell.
Dad squeezes my shoulder once more. “Go handle your business. I’ll be right here when you’re done.”
I nod, force a smile, but my eyes are already drifting back up one last time.