Chapter 4 #2
I try to make myself small, to press into the vinyl. There’s nowhere to go. He is an immovable object. He doesn’t shift. He doesn’t pull away to give me space. He doesn’t acknowledge the contact at all.
He just sits. A wall of heat, burning me alive.
His silence has a temperature, and I can feel it on my skin.
I keep my body rigid, hands fisted in my lap. Every breath feels like it’s stealing his air. The bar’s noise spikes, the walls closing in. But it’s a dull roar compared to the screaming silence of the man beside me.
Conversation becomes a wall of sound I can’t parse. I nod and pretend to follow, fingers tracing the slick condensation on my glass, the cold an inadequate anchor.
When I set the glass back down, his hand shifts too, knuckles brushing mine as he moves his beer bottle closer. It’s nothing—barely contact at all—but the jolt that shoots up my arm feels anything but accidental.
Adrian leans in to whisper something in Clara’s ear. She throws her head back and laughs, a pure, happy sound—his expression morphs, softening, possessive. That’s what it looks like to be safe with someone. To be someone’s territory.
I have to look away. My eyes snag on Declan.
He’s not talking; he just listens. And I am agonizingly aware of him. My nerves hyper-focus on his thigh, solid and unmoving against mine. He’s taking up his space, and in doing so, he’s claiming the space I’m in.
This isn’t neutral. It’s a statement.
I am here. I will not move.
It’s a strange, terrifying kind of control. He’s not touching me, not quite—just letting the closeness stand, forcing me to be the one rattled by it.
And my body… my traitorous body isn’t screaming danger in the way I expected. It’s not the cold, sick panic of him. It’s a hot, throbbing, different kind of panic.
Why does the solidness of his leg against mine feel… anchoring?
Our eyes meet. The noisy bar fades to a dull, distant roar.
His eyes are green—a sharp, startling green that cuts through the dim light. It’s the same look from the tunnel. Not flirtation—dissection.
I should look away, but curiosity pins me open. The world tilts; noise drops out; I'm caught.
My heart stutters into a frantic, sick rhythm, and I wrench my gaze down to my water.
A few minutes later, the conversation ramps up. The noise presses in, a physical force. My shoulders lock tighter, breath shallow. I’m right on the edge of making an excuse, of bolting for the door, when a low voice slices through my panic.
“You don’t like crowds.”
His voice slides under the noise, direct and impossible to ignore. It’s so close. A low rumble I feel more than hear, vibrating through the bench and his thigh into mine.
The contact point between us turns molten.
I swallow, my throat suddenly dry. “That obvious?”
“Only to people who hate them too.”
The admission feels like a secret he shouldn’t share with me. He tips his beer bottle slightly toward the door, a subtle, almost invisible gesture. “You keep checking the exits.”
My grip tightens on my glass, knuckles white. Of course he noticed. Of course he would.
“Just making a fire escape plan,” I say, aiming for dry and detached, landing somewhere breathier. “It’s a loud, sticky fire hazard in here.”
A corner of his mouth twitches. Not a full smile, but something more honest. “Good plan. Always know your way out.”
For the first time all night, I breathe easier—and that terrifies me. The way he says it, the quiet understanding in those green eyes, robs the air from my lungs. He’s not mocking me; he’s agreeing with me.
“You too?” The question escapes before I can stop it.
“Goalie mentality,” he says, voice dropping even lower, creating a pocket of quiet just for us amid the chaos. “Always know your angles. On and off the ice.”
His gaze intensifies, dropping briefly to my hands, then back to my face.
“You transferred.”
It’s not a question. It’s a statement. Flat. Final.
The directness catches me off guard.
“How did you know that?”
He shrugs, broad shoulders shifting against mine. The rough cotton of his hoodie brushes my jacket, sending a ripple of awareness all the way to my toes. “This town is small. You notice when someone new shows up.”
He takes a slow sip of his beer, eyes never leaving mine. “Especially when they’re the coach’s daughter.”
And there it is. The label. The reason I’m noticed at all.
My shoulders tighten. “Right.”
He nods, as if he sees straight through the title and back to the girl counting exits. His gaze sharpens, cutting deeper.
“That’s why you left,” he deduces.
Again, not a question. A statement.
He sees the exits I’m looking for because he’s looking for them too, and he knows—I’m running from something.
“I needed a change,” I say, the words clipped. The sterile answer I give everyone.
He nods slowly, and I can feel him not buying it. “Big change, coming here.”
“You could say that.”
The air between us thickens with everything unspoken. Under the table, my heel taps against the scuffed floor, an involuntary motion I force to stop.
I will not telegraph shaking.
An hour later, my social battery isn’t just dead; it’s a pile of ashes. The group is louder, looser.
That’s my cue. I did it. I came. I stayed. Now I get to go.
“I think I’m gonna head out,” I tell Clara, my voice tight, almost a whisper.
Her face falls. “Already?”
As I answer, I feel a shift beside me. A weight. His gaze. I don't look, but I know he's listening.
“Long day,” I say. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Okay,” she says, giving my arm a quick squeeze that I barely manage not to recoil from. “Want me to walk you out?”
“I’m good.”
I need to be alone. I need the quiet.
I have to leave the booth.
I turn to him. “Excuse me.”
Declan doesn’t move at first. He looks at me, his expression heavy and unreadable. He is sitting on the aisle. He could stand up. He could step out and give me a wide berth.
He doesn’t.
Slowly, deliberately, he turns his knees to the side.
He’s blocking the exit. He’s making me do it again.
My stomach flips, but I have no other route. I grab my bag and rise. I have to turn sideways to fit between the table and him.
It’s agony.
My body presses against the hard edge of the table, and my back drags across the solid line of his chest. I feel the zipper of his hoodie through my jacket, the heat of his breath spilling over me.
He could have made this easy. He chose to make it felt.
It’s over in a second, but the friction burns. As I slip free, his breath ghosts over the shell of my ear—cooler than the bar air, steady—and my knees threaten to buckle. I don’t let them.
I don’t look back. I bolt.
Outside, the cold air hits like a blade, a clean cut against my lungs. It feels like breaking the surface after being held underwater. The street is quiet, the bar’s chaos now a muffled thump behind me.
My breath fogs in pale ribbons. I count them helplessly—one, two—until my pulse finally calms.
The door swings open behind me. Boots thunk against the concrete, unhurried but heavy enough that I feel them. I don’t have to turn to know.
I do anyway.
Declan steps out of The Penalty Box, hood up now, shoulders broad against the dim orange wash of the parking lot lights. For a second, he just stands there, taking in the lot, the shadows. Then his gaze lands on me.
Two instincts war inside me—run, or stay long enough to understand why I don’t want to.
He doesn’t call out, just falls into step a few paces behind and slightly to the side as I head toward my car. He matches my pace perfectly. The lot is mostly empty. Our footsteps sound too loud.
My hand is still in my pocket, fingers clenched white-knuckle tight around the canister of pepper spray.
Declan’s eyes drop. He looks right at my pocket. He sees the tension in my wrist, the defensive angle of my arm. He knows exactly what I’m holding.
He doesn't say a word about it. He doesn't tell me to relax. He just lifts his gaze back to the perimeter of the lot, scanning the dark spaces I can’t see. Acknowledging the threat. Validating my right to be ready for it.
When we reach my car, I stop at the driver’s side door, and he stops with me.
“You good getting home?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say. Too thin. “It’s close.”
He nods once, then steps a fraction closer—not crowding, just… there. Declan lifts a hand and rests it lightly on the roof of my car, fingers splayed, close enough that I feel the weight of it over my head. A casual pose that doesn’t feel casual at all.
“Lock your doors,” he says.
The command lands low in my chest, steadying and dangerous at once.
It’s not a suggestion. Not a line. It’s a blunt, practical order.
“I will,” I breathe.
His hand stays on the roof until I open the door and slide into the driver’s seat. My fingers fumble with the keys; the engine turns over.
My hand goes straight to the lock, and I press it.
Thunk.
The mechanical sound is deafening in the silence.
The second it cuts through the air, Declan drops his hand from the roof and steps back. He waited for the sound.
He turns away, heading for a dark truck a few spots over. Headlights flare to life a moment later—a short, deliberate pulse—before he pulls out of the lot, the red of his taillights disappearing into the dark.
He waited. Stayed until he knew I was locked in. Safe.
I sit there for a long moment, the echo of that thought hanging in the air. My heart is pounding a strange, unsteady rhythm.
Maybe I should have stayed home. It would have been safer.
And this—this terrifying, electric hum under my skin from the drag of his chest and the solid line of his thigh and the ghost of his hand over my head…
It’s the first thing that’s felt like living.
I grip the wheel, breathe to four, and stare at my reflection in the windshield—cheeks flushed, eyes bright, still here.
Then I put the car in gear and drive myself home.