Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Stella
The entire campus knows—not suspects.
Knows.
That’s the first thing I realize when I step out of the SUV before dawn with my duffel over one shoulder, Tristan’s stupidly soft Newport hoodie on my body, and the whole impossible weekend still warm in my blood.
The athletic complex is mostly dark, but not quiet. Even before sunrise, student-athlete life has a pulse—doors opening, shoes squeaking in distant halls, the low hum of people who belong to schedules more than sleep.
And somehow, against all odds, I have become news.
I see it in the first girl who passes me outside the side entrance and does a full double take.
In the second who glances from my face to the hoodie to my wrist and then immediately down to her phone.
In the fact that when I check mine on the way into the locker room, I have three texts from teammates, two from unknown numbers, and one from Lila that just says:
#S&T??????
I close my eyes briefly, pinch the bridge of my nose—people have already named us, after years of silence and almosts and buried history, the second Tristan and I finally step into the light together, it turns into content.
Fine.
Let them choke on it.
I walk into the locker room and the entire team goes dead silent.
Fourteen girls.
One trainer.
Half-open lockers.
Tape, shoes, water bottles, the smell of menthol and damp cotton and too-early effort.
And every single one of them looking at me.
Then Lila, because she is incapable of not kicking the hornet’s nest, slowly lowers her phone and says, “Well, well, well.”
Mari leans back against her locker, eyes wide.
“Is it true?”
I drop my bag onto the bench.
“That depends.”
“That you disappeared all weekend with basketball royalty and came back looking like a postgame perfume ad,” Lila says.
My face goes hot.
Which is the worst possible reaction, because the entire room explodes instantly.
“Oh my God.”
“Look at her face.”
“It’s true.”
“No, because the hoodie—”
“Wait, is that his?”
“Stella!”
I laugh despite myself, which only makes it worse.
Lila lunges for my wrist.
“What is this?”
I let her look.
The bracelet catches the fluorescent light—slim gold chain, dark blue enamel, tiny compass rose.
Mari makes a small wounded sound.
“He got you jewelry?”
“It’s not—” I stop because apparently I do not have a useful lie ready for yes, and he fastened it on my wrist in a cliffside hotel suite after introducing me to his parents.
Lila squints at the bracelet, then at me.
“That is not random-boy jewelry.”
“No,” Mari agrees. “That is deeply intentional jewelry.”
One of the freshmen across the room blurts, “Wait, are you and Tristan Vale actually together?”
I look up.
And because I am too tired and too happy and too done hiding to perform coyness before six a.m., I just say, “Yes.”
Silence.
Then bedlam.
Half the room screams.
The other half starts laughing.
Someone actually claps.
Lila points at me like I’ve personally betrayed women’s sports by not telling her sooner.
“I knew it.”
“You absolutely did not.”
“I spiritually knew it.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It is now.”
Mari, more observant and therefore more dangerous, studies my face for one long second and says quietly, “You’re different.”
That lands.
Because she’s right.
Not softened.
Not floaty.
Not distracted in the way people assume girls in love become.
Different in the way sharpened steel is different from raw metal.
Before I can answer, Coach walks in wearing her signature tracksuit, coffee and clipboard in hand.
The kind of competent female authority that can freeze a room with one glance and still somehow make you want her approval more than oxygen.
She stops just inside the doorway, takes in the noise, the phones, me, the hoodie tossed half over my bench, and the fact that approximately ten seconds of disciplined playoff energy have evaporated into gossip.
Then she says, deadpan, “I’m glad Cinderella had a nice weekend. Now everybody move.”
The room explodes again.
I actually choke on a laugh.
Coach points at me with her coffee.
“Don’t smile at me, Cortez. You’re first on serve receive.”
“Yes, Coach.”
“And if one more person says ‘S and T’ in my gym before nine a.m., I’m assigning suicides until graduation.”
That buys us twelve whole seconds of peace. Just because my team was told to shut up—doesn’t mean the rest of the athletic complex isn’t buzzing. From field hockey—soccer—to the football weight room. I feel badly for Isa… whispers about her trickle to my ears.
Half the campus is already losing its mind over the new golden pairing of Stanford sports.
By the time we hit warm-ups, I’ve heard some variation of basketball royalty, East Coast prince, the Newport photos, and S&T is insane enough times that I want to throw myself into an ice bath face first.
Instead, I stretch.
Tape.
Band work.
Dynamic warm-up.
Normal things.
Athlete things.
Things that have nothing to do with the fact that my body still remembers Tristan’s mouth, his hands, the private jet, the dance, the hotel, the way he looked at me like love and heat had somehow learned to share a face.
Coach Alvarez stalks the sideline with a whistle and a tablet, watching all of us, but especially me.
That part I notice immediately.
Not because she’s glaring.
Because she’s assessing.
By the first live-ball drill, it becomes obvious she’s decided something.
She’s going to push me until she knows exactly where my head is.
Not punishment.
Verification.
The first hard rep, she blows the whistle and points.
“Again.”
I reset.
Serve.
Pass.
Transition.
Hit.
“Again.”
Sweat starts running down my spine before the rest of the team is even fully warm.
I jump for another kill.
Land.
Rotate.
“Again, Cortez.”
Lila shoots me a glance over the net that says you are so screwed.
I shoot one back that says shut up and block.
The next half hour is just me and the floor and Coach refusing to let me drift one millimeter off center.
She makes me run extra transition reps.
Extra serve-target drills.
Extra block-and-close footwork until my legs are burning hard enough to sing.
Not meanly.
Not vindictively.
Relentlessly.
Finally, after she has me hit out of system for the fourth time in a row and I still manage to put the ball down cross-court, she blows the whistle and folds her arms.
“You done being famous?”
The whole gym goes quiet.
I wipe my forearm across my face and look at her.
“I was famous for exactly zero seconds.”
A couple girls snort.
Coach’s mouth twitches.
Doesn’t quite become a smile.
“Good,” she says. “Because I do not care if you’re dating basketball royalty, a senator’s son, or the second coming of Jesus in Nike slides. If it costs me one ounce of your edge, I will make your life deeply educational.”
That gets a full laugh out of the team.
Even me.
“Yes, Coach.”
Her gaze sharpens.
“Locked in?”
I glance down at the floor.
At the sweat.
At my taped fingers.
At the bracelet I took off and tucked safely in my bag before practice because I am not stupid enough to wear meaningful jewelry during live reps.
Then back at her.
“More than ever.”
That’s the truth.
And maybe she hears it, because something in her face settles.
“Good,” she says. “Then prove it.”
I do.
The next hour is vicious.
Not because I’m angry.
Because I’m awake.
Every serve lands harder.
Every read comes cleaner.
Every swing feels like my body has finally stopped splitting itself into pieces.
Tristan didn’t make me soft.
He didn’t pull me off my game.
He didn’t turn me into some dreamy idiot drifting through drills on the memory of a boy’s mouth.
He made me stop wasting energy fighting myself.
That’s different.
That’s dangerous.
By the time scrimmage starts, Lila backs off after one rally and points at me.
“This is what I’m talking about.”
Mari nods.
“She’s worse.”
Coach, from the sideline, says, “Better. The word you’re looking for is better.”
That one puts a smile in my chest that stays there for the rest of the set.
When practice finally ends, I’m drenched, breathing hard, and more certain than ever that this thing between Tristan and me is not some sweet little side plot threatening my season.
It is fuel.
The girls know it too.
As we cool down, Mari stretches beside me and says, “So the romance made you even more terrifying.”
I smile without opening my eyes.
“Apparently.”
Lila flops dramatically onto the floor mat.
“This is horrible news for the rest of the NCAA.”
Coach Alvarez walks past us with her clipboard, hears that, and says, “Correct.”
I don’t see the missed calls until I’m half dressed and toweling out my hair in the locker room.
Two from Emmanuel.
One text.
Llámame. Ahora.
Call me. Now.
Well.
That is never attached to anything soothing.
I stare at the screen for one second while the room blurs around me.
He saw the photos. A man like Emmanuel Cortez does not casually discover his newly acknowledged daughter flew across the country with a boy, attended a high-profile dance, and appeared on half the East Coast internet in a designer dress and not immediately go full Spanish warlord.
Fine.
I can do warlord.
I step out into the hallway, still damp-haired and warm from practice, and hit call.
He answers on the first ring.
“Estrella.”
Flat.
Controlled.
Dangerous.
“Hola, Papá.”
A pause.
Then, in Spanish, clipped and sharp enough to slice straight through the morning:
“Tell me you did not disappear to Newport with that boy and let the whole world photograph it. I told you not to leave campus without your bodyguard.”
There it is.
I lean against the cool cinder-block wall and close my eyes for one second.
Not because I’m intimidated. Because I need patience. “I was safe. I was with Tristan. And he isn’t.. ‘that boy’. He’s everything to me.”
“That’s new.”
“No, really it isn’t.”
“I loved him before I even knew you.”