Chapter 12 Declan #2
It’s mandatory for the whole team this year—Coach’s new rule to keep Adrian from being singled out while Clara tutors him—but usually, I dread it. Usually, I sit in the back and endure the two hours of enforced quiet.
Tonight, the mandate feels like a gift.
I scan the crosswalk.
There.
Under the streetlamp at the corner.
Talia.
She’s walking beside Clara, backpack over one shoulder, hands deep in the pockets of her coat. Her hood’s up, but I’d know her anywhere by the way she moves—economical, shoulders slightly rounded like she’s always expecting impact.
I ease off the gas. Let a car length open between us and the group ahead so my headlights don’t spotlight them.
At the curb, she pauses. Looks left, right, then—quick, precise scan—back over her shoulder into the shadows. It’s not dramatic. Not paranoid. Just… efficient.
Checking exits.
Checking threats.
And checking them alone.
She steps off the curb only when she’s satisfied. When a group of guys laughs too loud on the opposite side of the street, she angles herself closer to Clara, turning them into a two-person wall.
My grip tightens on the wheel until the tape on my fingers creaks.
She isn’t chaos. She’s a pattern I didn’t build. A variable that dropped into my world and somehow fits the equation better than half the shit I’ve been clinging to for years.
My breathing, which has been clipped and shallow since I left the ice, evens out as I watch her head toward the academic center doors.
Talia’s upright. She’s with someone who would burn the world down for her. She’s walking a well-lit route I now know by heart.
Safe.
Safer than she was in the parking lot Monday. And not because of me.
I let the knot in my chest loosen half a fraction and turn into the lot behind the building. Park. Kill the engine.
My phone buzzes on the seat beside me.
Father: Dinner tomorrow. Bring Beatrice.
Buzz.
Beatrice: Don’t keep me waiting, baby. ??
The word drips off the screen like oil. Baby. Like I’m some dangerous thing she thinks she bought with a ring and a last name.
My jaw locks.
I don’t open either message. I don’t answer. My thumb hovers for a second, then hits delete on one. Then the other.
I wish deleting the obligation was as easy as deleting the notification. I wish I could swipe left on the merger, on the wedding, on the whole suffocating future they planned without asking me.
It’s small and it won’t hold, but the spark of choosing something for myself instead of for them lands sharp and real under my ribs.
Small. Petty. Fleeting.
But it’s something I chose.
The cab is very quiet after that.
I grab my bag and get out. The night air is sharp in my lungs. The lights over the back entrance to the academic center buzz faintly. Through the glass, I can see a few guys already inside, slumped over tables, laptops open.
Adrian is waiting just outside the doors, scrolling his phone. He looks up when he hears my footsteps.
“Thought you bailed,” he says.
“Mandatory,” I answer, keeping my face blank. “I like having a jersey.”
He huffs a laugh. “Yeah, well, Coach will have my ass if anyone skips. He’s still in penance mode. Everyone sits, everyone studies, nobody fails.”
“Because of culture,” I say, the word tasting like chalk.
“Because of a lot of things,” Adrian says quietly. He studies me for a second, like he’s checking for cracks. “You alright?”
Always.
The word hovers on my tongue, automatic. Ready.
“Fine,” I say instead.
His mouth twitches. “That your version of ‘I’m good’ or the real one?”
Before I have to answer, Clara’s voice floats across the lot. “You two better not be talking shit about me before I get there.”
We both look up.
Clara and Talia are crossing from the main path toward the doors. Clara’s juggling a stack of books, her ponytail bouncing. Talia walks beside her, hood down now, hair mussed from the wind, fingers hooked in her backpack strap.
Clara’s face lights when she sees Adrian. It’s bright and open and so obnoxiously soft I can feel Dante’s future teasing from here. She speeds up the last few steps, bumping her shoulder against his.
“Hey, Hale.” She tilts her head up, grin sharp and fond. “Ready to be humbled by basic algebra?”
“Never,” he says, but his voice warms in a way it doesn’t for anyone else.
Talia hangs back half a pace, eyes on the door.
Then on me.
Everything in the space between us tightens.
No hood, no streetlamp, no cold truck glass between us now. Just flat campus lighting and a concrete sidewalk.
“Addison,” I say.
“Reid.”
Her tone isn’t hostile. It isn’t soft. It’s… aware. Like she’s carefully placing my name somewhere in the middle of a shelf, between danger and defense.
And something in my chest answers it.
Talia doesn’t check the parking lot behind her. She doesn’t glance at the exit door. She just looks at me.
Our eyes hold for a beat. The almost-kiss from the truck hangs there, unspoken and electric. The memory of my hand on her wrist in class fits into the same tight space.
Clara glances between us, something sharp and assessing in her gaze for half a second before she turns back to Adrian. “Study dungeon awaits. Let’s go, boys. I have color-coded flashcards and no mercy.”
Adrian groans. “Pray for me,” he mutters to me as he pulls the door open.
We fall into a loose line without talking about it. Adrian and Clara in front, shoulder to shoulder. Talia and I a step behind, not touching, not close enough to brush, but close enough that if I reached out I could tap my fingers against the edge of her backpack.
I don’t.
The door swings wide. The warm, stale air of the academic center washes over us—highlighters, old carpet, burnt coffee.
Adrian holds it open with one hand, nodding us through. Clara ducks under his arm, chattering about some professor. Talia slips in after her, spine straight, chin up, awareness tilting back toward me like a compass needle.
I follow them inside.
It feels like a line change. Four players stepping over the boards together, new formation. Captain, goalie, and two variables nobody else on this team realizes are about to shift the whole season.
Knowing her routes, knowing which doors she uses, which corners make her shoulders tense—
Knowing her pattern isn’t obsession.
It’s defense.
And the first thing all defense needs is clarity. On her. On the threat. On what I’m already willing to burn for her.