Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
The stomp hit first.
An earthquake of sneakers, fists drumming on plastic. Then the roar, riotous and throat-scraping, the kind that made every word feel stolen.
Banners in blue and silver hung from the rafters, and somewhere above, a drumline pounded out a rhythm that made her pulse sync with it.
Bea had gotten the text on the way.
NICO: Saved you a spot right behind the bench. Don’t be late.
She wasn’t late yet, just rushing from work, bag on her shoulder. She passed by rows of people in face paint and glittered jerseys, squeezed between knees and foam fingers, until she reached the baseline seats close enough to smell the polish on the hardwood.
It wasn’t like she didn’t expect it. But her heart still started galloping when she saw him.
Rafael sat, elbows on knees, eyes on the court. Laurent was next to him, ankle on his knee.
She’d known he would be here. Braced for it. But it was different to have to park herself in the narrow chair beside him and feel how completely his presence, his smell, filled the space.
“Hi, little Bea.” His voice alone was enough to bring her back to the club. His mouth at her ear. His hips, his hands, his body pressed to hers. She could feel the bloom on her cheeks.
“Hey.” One syllable was safe.
She stared a beat too long at the sharp line of his throat, the bob of his Adam’s apple. This wasn’t the time to be cataloging how beautiful a man’s neck could be.
Nico, in his warmup gear, glanced over mid-dribble, grinned, and gave her a chin-lift before turning back to his coach.
Laurent leaned forward and waved in greeting, then gestured toward the row’s mini feast: fries slathered in ketchup spilling from paper cones, hotdogs and pretzels balanced on a cardboard tray, a tub of popcorn wedged by his knee, two plastic cups of soda in the holders.
Bea grinned despite her nerves. “Are you opening a buffet?”
Laurent passed a box of fries over. “Eat before you embarrass us by fainting on the baseline.”
She accepted it gratefully; they were still warm. “This is the kind of concern I can get behind.”
“Have a hotdog too,” Rafael said, watching the players prepare for tip-off.
“I’m not planning to use that much energy.”
“Give it ten minutes,” Laurent said, grabbing a handful of fries. “The game will get you.”
After a whistle, the game burst into motion—jerseys blurring as the ball zipped end to end. Nico caught a pass mid-stride, pivoted, drove into the lane through contact. He laid it in off the glass.
“He’s still cocky,” Rafael scoffed, but she could hear the fondness in it. “Just hides it better now.”
“He doesn’t hide it from me,” Bea said around a bite of hotdog. “His essays are eighty percent competence, twenty percent humblebrag.”
“That’s a win,” Laurent said. “At fourteen it was ninety percent brag, ten percent pretending to listen.” He passed the popcorn to Rafael.
On the next possession, Nico bricked a deep three. Groans rattled the crowd. But two plays later, he kicked the ball out to the wing, and their guard nailed it from the corner.
Bea shot up along with Rafael and Laurent, yelling approval, hands cupped around her mouth. From the corner of her eye, she caught Rafael’s gaze on her. Perfect. Just what every girl wanted: to look like a deranged fan in front of the man she’d once fled from on a dancefloor.
By the final minute, everything had narrowed: scoreboard tight, crowd vibrating like one giant drum.
With twelve seconds left, Nico drew a foul.
The arena hushed.
Nico stood at the free throw line. Bea clutched the paper from her hotdog like it might help. Rafael and Laurent leaned in, tense beside her.
First shot—swish. Tie.
Second—swish. One-point lead.
The roar was instant, tidal.
No time to chase it. The buzzer split the air and the place detonated.
Bea leapt to her feet, the scrap of hotdog paper crushed in her fist. She spun without thinking, hand up, caught in the fever of it.
Rafael’s palm met hers—solid, searing, sharp against the chaos. He didn’t let go. One breath. Two. Long enough that it felt for one suspended moment it was just them.
“Good game!” She threw up at him.
His mouth barely moved, but she felt the words up her spine. “It’s only just started.”
“Friends of yours?” she asked Laurent.
Two broad-shouldered men had fallen into step behind them as they followed the team. Jeans, hoodies pulled over their foreheads.
Before he could answer, Rafael did. “No. Mine.”
It took her a second. “Bodyguards?”
He nodded once.
She’d grown accustomed to the kind in black suits. These ones hung back farther. Less shadow, more insurance. Laurent’s must be in the crowd, too.
They walked down a corridor that smelled of disinfectant, sweat, and popcorn. Players funneled toward the locker room, still hollering, while parents and guests were steered toward a double door at the far end.
Inside, the MVP lounge thrummed. Parents hugged, younger siblings darted under tables, staff and alumni from Nico’s high school traded stories like the win belonged to all of them.
Marie spotted her first. “Bea!”
She wove through the crush in five quick strides, the jasmine scent Bea always associated with her wafting as she grabbed her hands. “You made it.”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” Bea said earnestly.
Stefano, Nico’s father, tall and still built like the professional athlete he’d once been, smiled at her in greeting. Then he clapped Laurent on the back and pulled Rafael into a one-handed hug. “You saw him tonight,” he said, eyes bright.
“He did us proud,” Rafael replied. “My parents are gutted they couldn’t make it.”
Bea’s head whipped around before she could stop herself. His parents. Selene. The woman who’d been feeding her spanakopita and stories, week after week, like it hadn’t been treasonous. One day it would all spill out into the open. She knew that.
But not today.
“Knew making him do thousands of free throws would come in handy,” Laurent quipped, earning a laugh from Stefano.
The double doors banged open, and the team exploded in. Damp hair, clean jerseys, and the wild, untouchable high of a senior year championship win.
“TAKE IT DOWN, TAKE IT DOWN, TAKE IT DOWN!” They pounded on tables in rhythm with the chant as the center’s dunk flashed on screen.
“PUT IT UP, PUT IT UP, PUT IT UP!” Nico’s final free throws rolled across the screen, the swish of each shot swallowed by a wall of sound, the room vibrating.
Nico was in the middle, grin loose, cheeks flushed. “We took it!” he yelled, and the room answered with, “CHAMPIONS! CHAMPIONS!”
Arms went over shoulders, boys jumped on each other, half hugged, half tackled. A table nearly tipped when someone reenacted the dunk.
“Did you see us, El Jefe?” Antonio called.
Rafael clasped his hand. “Your jumper was clean. Teamwork was tight.”
“Laurent, we heard you balking the other team,” Jude cracked up.
“Doing what I can from the sidelines,” Laurent said with a quick grin.
“Eat, boys, you’ve earned it!” the coach yelled over the chaos. The stampede was instant.
Within minutes, the buffet was pillaged. Pizza boxes were gaping, pasta trays scraped to metal, slider buns scattered like casualties. A boy lunged past her for fries; another darted in front of her for a fistful of waffles.
Bea made it to the ice cream station, filled a bowl with vanilla, drowned it in hot fudge, nuts, and a swirl of whipped cream. Considered, then added crushed Biscoff cookies, just to be fancy. It was…chef’s kiss.
When she turned, Rafael was there, soda in hand, taking in the bowl she was absurdly proud of.
“You don’t eat enough until it’s sugar,” he said, amused.
“It’s celebration food,” she said, lifting her spoon. “I already had a hotdog earlier.”
Meal, dessert. Responsible, balanced nutrition planning.
He swigged the drink. “Always reaching for sweet. Dangerous habit, little Bea.”
Laurent slid past with a plate stacked like a leaning tower, clocked her toppings, and shook his head. “If you start bouncing off the walls, we’re not responsible.”
JAXON: There in twenty.
A shadow crossed her screen. She looked up.
“I’ll drive you home,” Rafael said.
Her pulse kicked at his nearness. “Actually…I arranged something already.”
One brow edged up. “Arranged?”
“A friend from the GEP,” she said, sliding her phone into her bag.
“Jaxon Dao?”
It was Bea’s turn to be momentarily taken aback. Rafael wasn’t on the St. Ives campus anymore, he’d graduated last year. So how did he know that? She cleared her throat. “Yes,” she said slowly.
The air between them tightened. His jaw set. “I’ll walk you outside.”
“I’ll be fine.”
But he was already moving.
The majority of the spectators had left hours ago. It was just her, Rafael, and his midnight-blue McLaren GTS gleaming under the floodlights. Of course he drove something that could drag race the laws of physics and win.
Her eyes flicked sideways before she could stop them. Unfair. His t-shirt clung just enough to betray the lean muscle underneath, every line honed and dangerous. Veins ran up and down his arms.
“If you need to go…”
The look he gave her cut the sentence clean. “Enjoy the game?”
“It was the best,” she said with a smile.
“If you like basketball,” he said, “next time we should play.”
Bea huffed. “Do I look physically built for basketball?”
The curve of his mouth, the glint in his eye, held more heat than humor. “I’m sure you can handle more than people think.”
That was not about basketball. Every cell in her body knew it. Her mind unhelpfully served up every possible image of what he might think she could handle. Spoiler: none of them belonged in a family event.
And suddenly she was back at Club Azur, his body pressed to hers, breath rough in her ear.
The silence stretched. He was going to say it. She could feel it.
So she did what she did best: deflected.
“So, random question. Hypothetically, if someone wanted to breathe Northgate air, would they need your permission or…?”
His head tilted, the corners of his eyes dipping in amusement. “Referring to something specific, little Bea?”
She folded her arms. If she didn’t, they’d betray her by shaking. “Apparently there’s a whole embargo situation I didn’t know about.”
“That’s correct.” No apology. Not even the courtesy of hesitation.
Her breath caught, outrage rising. “You sanctioned me?”
“No, I sanctioned them.”
“So what am I, then? The restricted goods list?” she demanded.
His expression shifted, calculated and cool. “That’s actually a nice way of putting it.”
Bea shifted her weight to her other leg, then back again, restless energy spilling out of her in small movements. Rafael was balanced through his center, annoyingly composed. “So when do the sanctions stop?”
“That depends. Are you better?”
Her lips scrunched sideways. “Better, how?”
“Unencumbered?”
She blinked. “Okay, this is going to sound rude but I didn’t know you knew that word.”
His eyes lingered on her face, steady. “You underestimate me.”
Her pulse gave a quick, traitorous beat. She toyed with the strap of her bag. “I might at times misunderstand you,” she said quietly, “but I’ve never underestimated you.”
Something flickered in his eyes. He let the moment sit, long enough that she felt it in her skin. Then his gaze traced around her face.
“You changed your hair.”
Her hand flew up automatically. “I wasn’t sure if I should.”
What she really wanted to ask was if he liked it. But of course she didn’t. Because that would be crazy.
And yet, somehow, he knew. “It’s beautiful.”
Her system crashed. Blush, overload, error message.
Jaxon, please, please, don’t be late.
“The dance,” he said, switching topics to the one she’d been avoiding. “You ran.”
“You didn’t follow,” she shot back. Not even sure whether that was helpful.
His smile sharpened, dark with promise. “Not then.”
“Is that supposed to scare me?”
“No. It’s supposed to prepare you.”
Her laugh came too quickly. “I’ve been prepared for months.”
That had come out sounding like a confession, not a quip. She could tell by the way Rafael stilled beside her.
Jaxon, my mouth can’t save me. Only you can.
Headlights swept the curb and she nearly wept with relief. Bea moved forward eagerly.
Jaxon stepped out, jacket collar turned up against the night air. “Bea. Ready?”
“Yes,” she blurted.
He turned to Rafael, polite but unreadable. “Griffin.”
“Dao.” Rafael’s voice was even, but his eyes were sharp. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
Jaxon gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Schedules lined up.” He didn’t elaborate.
“You’re in the program with her,” Rafael said. Not a question.
Jaxon’s mouth tipped, just enough. “Among other things.”
The silence stretched, layered. The space between the two men was its own battleground. Jaxon’s cool vagueness refused to give ground. Rafael’s shoulders were drawn tight.
“Taking her home?” Rafael asked finally.
“That’s the plan,” Jaxon replied. Then he spoke directly to her. “Unless you want to grab something first. Bubble tea place you like is still open.”
Bea’s pulse lurched like she’d been called out in class. A little jab at the bear, designed to demonstrate her agency. She appreciated it, but she also wanted to go.
Rafael’s jaw ticked, eyes narrowing. Jaxon held steady, seemingly impervious to intimidation.
“Let’s decide in the car,” she choked out. “See you, Rafael.”
Jaxon inclined his head, already moving to open the passenger door for her.
“Night, little Bea.”