Chapter 9 Talia
Talia
The apartment suddenly feels too small, the air too warm, the fairy lights too close.
I slip my shoes back on as quietly as I can and tug my hoodie over my head.
Clara murmurs something in her sleep and rolls over. I tuck a throw blanket around her, leave my mug in the sink, and scribble a quick note on a sticky pad from Genny’s fridge: Thanks for tonight. I’m okay. Just need my own bed. —T
The hallway outside Genny’s apartment is cooler, the lights dimmed to a sleepy yellow. Someone’s TV murmurs behind a closed door. No slams. No shouts. Just the soft hush of a building pretending to be peaceful.
I take the stairs down instead of the elevator. The concrete is cold under my soles; the metal rail is icy beneath my fingers. Each level down loosens something in my chest.
Outside, the night air hits like a clean blade. Cold and sharp and honest.
The parking lot behind Genny’s building is mostly empty, slicked in silver by the overhead lamps. My breath fogs in pale ribbons. I shove my hands into my hoodie pocket and start across the cracked asphalt toward the sidewalk that leads back to campus.
I’m halfway across when a truck door thunks shut to my right.
I freeze.
For one stupid, suspended second, my brain goes blank. Then the shape resolves in the sodium light: familiar lines, familiar dark paint, familiar way it takes up space like it belongs there.
His truck.
Declan’s leaning against the driver’s side, one boot braced on the bumper, black hoodie, hood up. Hands down at his sides. Tape bright and stark around the knuckles of his right hand, catching the light in sharp, white bands.
There’s a set to his shoulders that looks like he’s been out here longer than makes sense. He isn't coming from the building entrance. He isn't walking to his car. He’s just… waiting. Like the cold has settled into him and he didn’t care enough to move.
Declan.
Of course.
Of course the night I finally leave the safety of the girls’ nest on my own two feet, I walk straight into the storm cloud everyone can’t stop talking about.
He's already out of the truck, leaning against the open door as if he’d been waiting. When his gaze finds mine, it's that slow, careful sweep I’ve seen on the ice, but this time, it pins me, shrinking the parking lot to the stretch of cracked asphalt between us.
We just stare at each other for a beat. Two ghosts in a pool of yellow light.
“You always walk around alone at midnight?” he asks, voice low, carrying easily across the space.
It’s not a shout. It’s not a growl.
It’s… annoyed. And something else that makes my stomach knot.
“I’m not alone,” I say, chin lifting before I can stop it. “You’re here.”
The corner of his mouth shifts. Not quite a smile. Not quite not.
He pushes off the truck, straightening to his full, unfair height. The movement pulls him a step closer into the light. The tape around his hand looks tighter from here, biting into the skin. A leash.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Team meeting,” he says. “Some guys live upstairs.”
I look at the truck. The frost hasn't melted on the windshield. The exhaust pipe is cold, no vapor rising from it. He hasn't driven this thing in hours, but he didn't go inside, either.
He sees me looking. He knows I see the lie.
Declan steps closer, abandoning the excuse entirely. His gaze is heavy, darker than the shadows stretching across the pavement.
“Clara posted a photo,” he says, his voice dropping to a rough murmur. “The one of the wine bottle. I saw your shoes in the corner of the frame.”
The admission hits me in the chest.
He wasn’t visiting teammates. He saw a corner of a photo on Instagram, recognized my sneakers, and drove here to wait in a freezing parking lot.
It should terrify me. It’s obsessive. It’s stalking.
But my pulse doesn’t spike with fear. It spikes with something heavier. Heat.
He waited.
His gaze flicks past me toward the shadowed sidewalk that leads back to campus. Then back at me. His eyes drop to my hands, still stuffed in my hoodie pocket like I’m bracing for impact.
“You heading back to the dorms?” he asks.
“Yes.” The word comes out too sharp. I clear my throat. “I’m fine.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
The air between us tightens.
For a second my muscles do that awful, automatic thing—tighten, brace, wait.
Then I feel the difference.
He’s not crowding me against anything. There’s open space at my back. The exit is clear.
My jaw unclenches a fraction.
“Door slammed,” I hear myself say, like the words slipped past my guards while they were distracted. “Upstairs. Earlier.”
Something flickers in his eyes. Recognition. Anger that isn’t aimed at me.
“4C?” he asks.
The question is so specific, so casual, that a laugh slips out of me, choked and surprised. “Apparently he’s infamous.”
“Yeah.” His gaze sweeps my face like he’s checking for cracks only he can see. “Guy acts like he’s trying to put the door through the frame.”
He says it like a fact. Like he’s stood under that slam and flinched, too.
“Didn’t bolt,” I mumble, mostly to myself. “So. Progress.”
My stomach clenches. Why did I say that? Why am I telling him? He doesn't get to know that. Stupid. Exposed.
His jaw works once, like he’s biting back a reaction. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Progress.”
Silence settles over us, not quite comfortable, not quite dangerous. My breath fogs between us, mixing with his. The parking lot hums with distant traffic and the buzz of the overhead lamps.
Then he moves.
Not closer to me. Around me.
He circles the front of the truck with slow, deliberate steps, tape gleaming white against the dark as he reaches for the passenger-side handle.
The door creaks when he pulls it open. The interior light spills out—dim, golden, cutting a rectangle into the night.
“Get in,” he says.
My spine snaps straight. “Excuse me?”
His eyes meet mine over the top of the open door. Steady. Unflinching. “You shouldn’t be walking across campus alone at midnight. I’ll drive you.”
“Coach would love that,” I say, bitterness slipping out before I can catch it. “You giving his daughter a ride home.”
Something in his expression shutters. The air around him goes a degree colder.
“He doesn’t have to know,” Declan says. “And I’m not giving you—” He breaks off, jaw flexing. Tries again. “I’m driving the same direction. You’re getting in the truck either way.”
My fingers curl tighter around the little can of pepper spray in my pocket. My father’s warning from the phone call twists through my head: live wire. Blast radius. Call me or Adrian if anything feels off.
This man tracked me down from a photo of my shoes. He waited in the cold for hours just to intercept me.
My therapist would call this a red flag.
But looking at him—hood up, hand holding the door open, body turned slightly away so I have a clear path to run if I want to—I don't feel the urge to run. I feel the pull.
Hiding is his language, not mine. I am so tired of living small.
“You always this bossy?” I ask, aiming for light and landing somewhere closer to breathless.
“You always this stubborn?” he volleys back, calm on the surface, something raw burning under it. “Truck or sidewalk, Addison. I’d prefer the truck.”
He says my last name like a boundary and a claim all at once.
My heart does that traitor stutter.
“Fine,” I say. “Truck.”
I cross the distance before I can talk myself out of it. He steps back half a pace, giving me room to climb up, but his hand stays on the edge of the door. As I grab the handle inside, my knuckles brush his taped ones.
A spark jumps under my skin. Stupid. Impossible. Just bone and tape and proximity.
I snatch my hand back like I’ve been burned and pretend I didn’t.
The cab smells like him—soap and cold air and the faint ghost of the rink. Clean. Controlled.
Safe, my body insists.
Dangerous, my brain argues.
I tug the door shut. The thunk is solid, enclosing. Cutting out the night.
Declan rounds the hood and climbs in on his side. The truck dips under his weight. Suddenly there’s not a parking lot between us, just a console and a few inches of charged air.
He doesn’t turn on the radio. Doesn’t fill the silence. He just slots the key in, the engine rumbling to life beneath us, low and steady.
His right hand—taped and bruised—rests on the steering wheel. His left drops to the gear shift.
I can’t stop staring at it.
The white athletic tape is stark against the black leather knob. It’s wrapped tight, clean lines overlapping with surgical precision, but I can see the swelling underneath. I can see the violence it’s holding together.
That hand pinned a man to a locker yesterday. It bruised a throat because of my name.
Now it’s resting inches from my knee, relaxed, controlling the truck with a casual competence that makes my mouth dry.
Violence and protection, I think, the realization shivering through me. They look exactly the same on him.
“You buckled?” he asks, eyes on the rearview.
I blink, tearing my gaze away from his hand. “Yes, Dad,” I mutter.
His mouth twitches like he’s fighting a smile. “One overprotective asshole at a time, Addison,” he says under his breath, and shifts into reverse.
We roll out of the lot, tires crunching over loose gravel. The streetlights slide past in slow, measured blurs. The quiet in the cab is a different kind of loud—no crowd, no music, just the hum of the engine and the sound of my own pulse in my ears.
I stare out the passenger window, watching the dark shapes of buildings glide by.
“You skipped the game yesterday,” he says after a minute.
It’s not accusatory. Just… stated.
I shrug, the fabric of my hoodie rasping against the seat. “You’d know that how? Thought you were benched.”
“I was,” he says. “Still know who’s in the stands.”
Of course he does. Goalies watch everything.
“Too loud,” I say. “Too many people. Too many… variables.”
He doesn’t say anything for a while. The truck idles at a stop sign, turn signal ticking like a slow clock.