Chapter 38 #2
From him, somehow, it feels… uncomplicated.
Infuriatingly uncomplicated.
No pity.
No tiptoeing.
No treating me like I’m breakable because another guy chose someone else.
Just interest.
Direct.
Persistent.
A little stupid.
And maybe that’s why, when I turn to go toward the table, I toss one last glance over my shoulder and say, “You’re impossible.”
He leans back in the chair and watches me walk away like he has absolutely no intention of going anywhere.
“Nah,” he says. “I’m patient.”
That line follows me all the way to treatment.
Which is deeply annoying.
Almost as annoying as the fact that when I lie back on the table and the trainer starts working on my hamstring, I can still feel Drew’s eyes on me from across the room—not heavy, not gross, not pushy.
Just there.
Waiting.
And for the first time all morning, the ache in my chest shifts.
Not gone.
Not even close.
But changed.
Less like humiliation.
More like anger finally looking around for somewhere useful to go.
Across the room, Drew catches me looking.
His mouth curves.
And like the giant, smelly, aggravating menace he is, he taps two fingers to his temple and mouths:
‘Texas.”
I roll my eyes so hard it practically counts as cardio.
But when I look away, I’m smiling.
Just a little.
And that feels like something too.
I survive the training room.
Technically.
Emotionally, I leave half my dignity in a roll of pre-wrap and the other half somewhere between the ice machine and Drew Travers calling me Texas like he invented the state.
But I survive.
That should count for something.
Apparently it does not.
Because the second I step back into the athletic complex, the looks start again.
Not cruel.
Worse.
Pity is always worse.
Cruel I can spar with.
Cruel I can slice up and send back to the kitchen.
Pity just sits there in someone’s eyes like a wet paper towel and expects you to thank them for it.
A girl from soccer gives me a soft smile in the hallway.
A baseball trainer suddenly becomes fascinated by the wall when I pass.
Two swimmers stop talking the second I come around the corner and then overcorrect by being too loud about literally anything else.
I keep walking.
Head high.
Spine straight.
Lip gloss perfect.
Because if this campus wants me to be the fallen girl in someone else’s power-couple launch story, they are going to have to work a hell of a lot harder for it.
By lunch, S&T is everywhere.
Screens.
Whispers.
A photo collage on some ridiculous student-run athletics page with fire emojis in the caption.
A grainy TikTok edit set to a song about obsession.
An ESPN college sports repost of Stella’s playoff clip right next to a still of Tristan’s road-game highlights like the internet collectively decided they’re now some kind of cross-platform athletic monarchy.
Cool.
Love that for me.
I carry my salad and iced coffee to a table outside the student center and spend exactly six minutes pretending I do not know why three girls at the next table keep glancing over.
Then one of them says, not quietly enough, “She’s still so pretty, though.”
I stand up with my tray and leave before I commit a felony with a compostable fork.
By the time the afternoon rolls around, I am hanging on by dry shampoo, eyeliner, and pure southern pageant violence.
I tell myself it will fade.
Campus always finds a new fixation.
Someone will cheat on a finance exam.
A pitcher will break a hand punching drywall.
Some fraternity will get caught doing something embarrassing with a live chicken.
Something will replace me.
I believe that right up until the exact moment I see them.
That’s the real punch.
Not the posts.
Not the whispering.
Not the pity.
Them.
I’m cutting across the quad on the way back from treatment, earbuds in, sunglasses on, phone in hand, fully committed to the fiction that I am alone in the world and unbothered by all men everywhere.
Then I look up.
And there they are.
Halfway across the brick path under a row of sycamores gone gold at the edges.
Stella and Tristan.
Standing close.
Too close for ambiguity.
Too close for denial.
Too close for any of the old lies I used to tell myself about timing and possibility and how maybe if I was patient enough, polished enough, appropriate enough, he would finally look at me like that.
Because that’s what hits hardest.
Not that he’s with her.
How he’s with her.
He’s standing over her in that big, controlled, alpha-male way men like Tristan do when they’re claiming space around a woman they care about without even realizing it.
One hand low at her waist. His shoulders angled slightly toward her, body making a barrier against the passing crowd like instinct already appointed him her personal line of defense.
Then Stella says something.
I can’t hear it.
But I see his face change.
I see him look down at her, eyes softening in a way I used to dream about like a stupid girl in lip gloss and optimism.
His fingers lift and cup her cheek.
Not careless.
Not flirtatious.
Tender.
Devastatingly tender.
Then he kisses her.
Slow.
Brief.
Private somehow, even in the middle of campus.
And I swear for one vicious second my whole ribcage caves inward.
Because I wanted that look.
That softness.
That certainty.
I wanted to be the girl who made Tristan Vale forget he was scared of being seen.
Instead I was just the bridge.
The interim chapter.
The girl who looked right on paper while his heart stayed written in another language.
Stella lifts her face after the kiss.
And then she sees me.
Our eyes lock across the quad.
It isn’t mean.
That’s the unbearable part.
No triumph.
No smugness.
No feminine little satisfaction at winning the impossible boy.
Just truth.
Clean and quiet and final.
It was always him and me.
Not in words.
Like a bell struck somewhere deep.
And because I am apparently not humiliated enough for one day, my eyes sting.
I break the stare first.
Obviously.
I look down.
Keep walking.
Tell myself my spine is still straight and nobody can see the crack in it.
Then a huge shadow falls into step beside me.
I don’t even have to look.
Only one man on this campus moves like a building learned how to flirt.
“What’s up, baby?”
I turn fast, already armed with a reply sharp enough to draw blood.
“Do not—”
And before I can finish it, Drew Travers hooks one broad hand lightly around my elbow, leans down, and kisses the corner of my mouth.
Not deep.
Not invasive.
Not some gross tongue-first stunt that gets men slapped and rightfully so.
Just quick.
Warm.
Possessive enough to be seen.
It happens so fast I don’t even have time to react before he’s already pulling back, one arm settling across my shoulders like this is the most natural thing in the world and he has, in fact, been on boyfriend duty since birth.
I stop walking.
“What the hell was that?”
He keeps us moving.
His voice stays easy.
Too easy.
“Good afternoon to you too, Texas.”
I twist to glare at him.
He’s in football sweats and a gray Stanford hoodie cut over shoulders that should require zoning permits, carrying his helmet bag like he just wandered out of a testosterone commercial and decided to improvise.
“Did you just kiss me?”
He glances down at me.
“Tiny one.”
“You cannot do that!”
“Seemed useful.”
I jerk my arm free and stop dead in the middle of the path.
Students flow around us, bikes blur past, the whole campus keeps moving while I stand there trying to process the fact that Drew Travers just used my face as a tactical decision.
“You giant, smelly neanderthal—”
“That’s still my favorite one.”
“—what is wrong with you?”
He plants his feet in front of me, all six-foot-a-lot of him blocking half the foot traffic without even trying. Then, for once, the grin fades a little. Just enough that I realize there may have been an actual thought under all that muscle.
“You looked like you were about to bleed out in public,” he says.
I blink.
The words hit harder than they should.
Maybe because they’re blunt.
Maybe because they’re not pity.
I cross my arms.
“So your solution was to maul my face?”
His mouth twitches.
“That was not mauling.”
“Drew.”
“Isa.”
I stare at him.
He stares right back like this is a fair fight, which is laughable considering he is roughly the size of a refrigerated truck and I am one bad day away from using a thumbnail as a weapon.
Then his gaze flicks over my shoulder.
Toward wherever Stella and Tristan still are.
When he looks back at me, something in his expression sharpens.
Not jealousy.
Not protectiveness either.
Opportunity.
And that should worry me more than it does.
“What?” I ask.
He shifts his helmet bag higher on his shoulder.
“Fake date me.”
I actually laugh.
Not because it’s funny.
Because my brain rejects it on impact.
“What?”
He says it slower, like I’m the one having trouble keeping up.
“Fake. Date. Me.”
I stare.
He shrugs one shoulder.
“You need people to stop looking at you like you just got run over by a love story.”
My jaw tightens.
“And your idea is…”
“You date me.” He gestures vaguely between us. “For show.”
I blink at him twice.
“You cannot be serious.”
“I’m completely serious.”
“You are literally the last man on earth I would choose.”
He grins again.
“Perfect. That’s how you know it’ll work.”
I look around, just to check whether I am perhaps being filmed for some new hidden-camera trauma series.
Nope.
Still my life.
“Drew.”
“Isa.”
“Why would I fake date you?”
He counts off on his fingers.
“One, people stop pitying you.”
“I do not need pity management.”
“Clearly.”
I ignore that.
“Two,” he goes on, “everybody loves a rebound arc.”
“I am not having a rebound arc.”
“Fine. A revenge arc.”
That actually gives me pause.
He sees it and smiles like a man who enjoys watching doors crack open.
“Three,” he says, “you make Vale twitch.”
I straighten.
“I do not care if Tristan twitches.”
“Sure.”
“I don’t.”
He leans down slightly, lowering his voice just enough to make the moment feel conspiratorial.
“But you care if the whole campus stops acting like you’re the sad girl in the background.”
That lands.
Clean.
Annoyingly clean.
Because yes.
I do care about that.
I care about not being looked at like a cautionary tale.
I care about walking into a room without people softening their mouths in sympathy.
I care about being Isa Calloway again instead of the almost-girl who got edged out by a better love story.
Drew sees me thinking and presses his advantage immediately.
“Also,” he adds, “I’m fun.”
I look him up and down.
“No, you’re not. You’re a human head injury.”
He puts a hand over his heart.
“You know exactly how to flirt with me.”
“I am not flirting with you.”
“Yet.”
My eyes narrow to slits.
He grins wider.
God, he’s unbearable.
Big.
Loud.
Ball-hogging.
Confident like the world has never once failed to bounce in his favor.
Exactly the kind of man I should avoid.
Exactly the kind of man who, at this particular moment, is not looking at me with pity.
Just interest.
Just challenge.
Just the kind of maddening male certainty that says he has already decided this is a good idea and is merely waiting for me to catch up.
“What’s in it for you?” I ask.
There.
That’s the real question.
Because no man that big and smug and campus-visible offers fake dating to a girl fresh off public heartbreak just out of civic duty.
He doesn’t even blink.
“You.”
I roll my eyes so hard it almost strains something.
“That is the worst answer in the world.”
“It’s still true.”
“Try again.”
He shifts his jaw once, like maybe this is the first time today someone has made him work for a sentence.
Then:
“You’re interesting when you’re mad.”
I stare.
He keeps going.
“And I think you’d be real pretty on my arm.”
My mouth falls open a little in spite of myself.
Not because that’s smooth.
It isn’t.
Because he says it like a fact.
Not a line.
Not a tactic.
Just a deeply Drew observation he sees no reason to pretty up.
I recover enough to say, “That was somehow worse and better at the same time.”
He smiles.
“Story of my life.”
I should walk away.
I know I should.
Tell him no.
Tell him to go fake date a mirror.
Tell him I would rather be publicly pitied forever than voluntarily become part of whatever giant football-player scheme he’s building in that suspiciously underused brain.
Instead I hear myself ask, “And what exactly would fake dating you involve?”
His whole face changes.
Victory.
Warm and immediate.
Not smug.
Worse.
Pleased.
“Well,” he says, like we’re discussing a joint business venture, “you’d have to stop looking at me like I personally invented mosquitoes.”
“No promises.”
“Some public lunches. A couple games. Maybe let me walk you places so people stop offering you emotional casseroles with their eyes.”
I bite back a laugh and fail.
He notices. “And,” he adds, “you’d have to call me when the internet gets annoying.”
I look at him for one long second.
Because beneath all the dumb jock swagger and the giant shoulders and the outrageous audacity of kissing the corner of my mouth in the middle of campus like a caveman with a strategy, there it is.
The actual offer.
A way out.
Not from heartbreak, exactly.
Nothing gets you out of that except time and ego reconstruction and maybe excellent mascara.
But a way out of humiliation.
A way to change the story before it calcifies around me.
He waits.
No push.
No fake charm offensive.
Just that big body planted in front of me and those steady eyes saying he’s serious.
Infuriating.
I exhale slowly.
“You are a terrible idea.”
His grin flashes like sunlight off a helmet.
“Absolutely.”
I point at him.
“That is not persuasive.”
“It’s honest.”
There’s that word again.
Honest.
The last few days have been disgusting with honesty.
Maybe that’s why I don’t immediately run.
I shift my bag higher on my shoulder and give him my most skeptical pageant-queen death stare.
“I’m not saying yes.”
“Yet.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
I narrow my eyes harder.
He starts walking backward, still facing me, still grinning like the overgrown menace he is.
“Think about it, Texas.”
I should let him go.
Instead I call after him, “If I say yes, you are never calling me baby again.”
He keeps walking.
“Deal.”
A beat.
Then, over his shoulder:
“Sweetheart.”
I actually laugh.
I hate that I do.
I hate even more that when I start walking again, the ache in my chest feels different.
Still there.
Still real.
But no longer like the whole story.
And somewhere behind me, because the universe apparently enjoys theatrical timing, I hear Drew shout to one of his teammates:
“Tell everybody I’m busy. I’m negotiating.”
I keep walking without turning around.
But I’m smiling.
Just a little.
Which, under the circumstances, feels like the beginning of something dangerous.