Chapter 9 Talia #2
“You came tonight,” he says finally. “To Genny’s.”
My cheeks heat. “Girls’ night is different.”
“How?”
“It’s… softer,” I say, hating how exposed the word feels. “Slamming doors aside.”
His hands tighten on the wheel. The tape on his knuckles creaks.
We pass the lit expanse of the arena. The big banner with his face on it glares down at us—helmet off, eyes sharp, jaw locked.
My father’s name sits under COACH in neat, bold type.
“You really dented a locker for me,” I say, the words coming out before I can stop them.
He doesn’t swerve. Doesn’t slam on the brakes. His shoulders go very, very still.
“Maya talks too much,” he mutters.
“That’s not a denial,” I say quietly.
We’re the only car on the road. The campus glows faint and distant ahead of us.
He breathes once. Twice. The tape on his hand flexes against the gear shift.
“He was talking about you,” Declan says, voice low and controlled, like he’s walking a blade. “Loud. In the middle of my locker room.” A pause. “He shouldn’t have been.”
“What did he say?” My throat is tight.
“Doesn’t matter.” His jaw locks. “I handled it.”
“By putting your hand on his throat.”
“By making sure he remembers there are lines,” he corrects, heat finally bleeding into his tone. “He can run his mouth about me. About my game. Not about you.”
The cab suddenly feels smaller. The air thicker.
“That’s not your job,” I whisper.
He glances at me, eyes stark and green in the passing light. “Maybe it is,” he says. “Maybe it’s the only part I’m good at.”
“Being violent?”
“Being a wall.”
The answer lodges under my ribs, sharp and unwanted.
We pull into the lot behind my dorm. It’s quieter than Genny’s—fewer cars, more dark patches. The building looms, a block of brick and cheap windows. My window is dark. I didn’t leave a light on.
Declan eases the truck into an empty space near the door, throws it into park, and kills the engine. The sudden silence roars.
For a second, neither of us moves.
“You don’t have to walk me in,” I say, voice hushed like the truck is a church.
“I’m not walking you in,” he says.
I exhale, some small, stupid disappointment pricking at me.
Then he unbuckles his seatbelt.
“I’m walking the same direction,” he adds, and pushes his door open.
My heart trips over itself.
We climb out. The night closes in around us, colder now that we’ve left the cocoon of the cab. He falls into step half a pace behind me, a solid presence at my shoulder as we cross the short stretch of asphalt to the entrance.
The motion sensor above the door flicks on, bathing the concrete in harsh white.
I fish my keycard out of my pocket with fumbling fingers. It’s stupid, how aware I am of him so close behind me. Of his heat, his size, the quiet way he waits without crowding. Dad’s voice from the phone call ghosts through my head: If you ever feel off, call me.
I am literally standing here with the human live wire he warned me about, and my phone stays in my pocket.
I swipe the card. The lock clicks, a clean, mechanical sound.
“You lock your door?” he asks, same words as the parking lot, same steady tone.
I huff out a breath that’s not quite a laugh. “Religiously,” I say. “Coach-approved.”
His mouth twitches. He steps closer, just enough that his shadow merges with mine on the cinderblock wall. His taped hand lifts, bracing on the doorframe above my head as he leans in.
Not pinning. Not caging.
Just… there.
Heat rolls off him in waves. The cotton of his hoodie brushes the back of my shoulder, barely, and every nerve I have lights up.
“Good,” he says quietly.
The word lands low in my chest again, heavy and dangerous and grounding all at once.
I tilt my head up, because he’s too close not to. The movement brings my face a breath closer to his, my hood slipping back just enough that cold air kisses my neck.
His eyes are right there. Sharp, green, focused entirely on me.
The world narrows—buzzing light, cold concrete, his breath ghosting warm over my mouth.
I don’t mean to, but my gaze drops to his lips.
His jaw tightens. His fingers curl against the metal above my head, tape scraping faintly.
“Addison,” he says, my name rough around the edges.
It feels like a warning and a question.
My pulse is a roar in my ears. I don’t step back. I don’t step forward. I just… hover. Suspended in the inch of space between us, in the possibility of what would happen if I closed it.
Every instinct I’ve grown out of trauma screams at me to move away from danger. Every echo of my dad’s voice says live wire, blast radius, don’t stand this close when it arcs.
But looking at him—at the bruise on his lip, the tape on his hand, the way he’s holding up the doorframe so I don’t have to—I realize something terrifying.
I feel safer here, in the radius of his danger, than I do anywhere else.
“Declan,” I breathe.
His eyes shut for half a second, like the sound hurts. When they open again, they’re darker. Hotter. Torn.
He leans in that last inch—
—and stops.
The muscles in his jaw jump. He drags in a breath like it tastes bad.
“I can’t,” he mutters. The word scrapes out of him. “Your father said I’d burn you. He wasn’t wrong.”
The confession hits me harder than a rejection. He isn’t stopping because he doesn’t want me. He’s stopping because he thinks he’s the contamination.
He’s a collection of damage and discipline. A live wire with a hand on the doorframe and my name in his mouth.
“Then maybe stop starting wars in my name,” I say, because it’s easier than saying I almost wanted the burn.
A real ghost of a smile flickers across his mouth. Gone almost instantly.
“Working on it,” he says.
His hand drops from the frame, leaving the metal cold. The absence of his body heat hits me like a gust of winter air.
“Go inside, Addison,” he says, voice back to rough and steady. “Lock your door.”
My fingers tighten on the handle. “You going to wait until you hear it click?” I ask softly.
He holds my gaze. “Yeah.”
The honesty of it punches the air out of my lungs.
I slip inside the building. The door is heavier than it looks; it closes with a solid, echoing thunk.
I turn the deadbolt on instinct. The mechanism slides home with a clean, final sound.
Through the narrow pane of glass, I see him.
He’s standing there under the harsh light, hood up, hands in his pockets, like a sentry posted at my door. The second the lock engages, he exhales. His shoulders drop half an inch.
The truck’s headlights flare a moment later—a brief, short flash in the night.
Then they cut, and he disappears down the drive, swallowed by the dark.
He tracked me. He waited for me. He stalked me across town just to make sure I got inside a locked door.
He’s the last person I should want anywhere near my walk home.
Which is exactly why my heart is pounding because he almost kissed me.