Chapter 16
Declan
I’m taping the same hands she had under her shirt last night.
The thought hits halfway through the second wrap—a hard, stupid punch to the ribs.
White athletic tape winds over bruised knuckles, around fingers that were digging into cold metal and then into the warm skin of her back.
Inching under her T-shirt while she was straddling my lap, mouth on mine like she was starving for it.
Now I bind them up like a problem that needs containing.
Pull. Wrap. Smooth.
The tape bites my skin, tight enough that my fingers tingle. I flex once. Not much give. Good. They look almost civilized like this. Neutral. Not like the hands that had her pressed against me in the players’ box, her knees framing my hips, her breath breaking against my tongue.
My phone rattles across the counter.
Beatrice: 8 o’clock sharp. Board wants to meet you before dinner. Don’t make your father wait.
I stare at the words until the screen goes dark, her text burning in the afterimage.
Last night, Talia’s text had been two letters: In.
It settled something in me. Quieted it.
This does the opposite. The knot that’s been sitting under my sternum since the rink pulls tighter.
I finish the tape and stand, the cheap apartment bulbs buzzing overhead.
The bathroom mirror throws back a washed-out version of me—hair damp from the shower, jaw dark with stubble I didn’t bother to shave close enough for a gala, shadows under my eyes.
I look like I’ve gone a few rounds with a heavyweight.
I look like the guy she climbed into in the shadows last night, fingers curled in my hoodie, whispering, “I don’t want to run anymore.”
By the time I’m buttoning the white dress shirt, that version of me is gone. The suit swallows me. The navy jacket is tailored, expensive. It feels like someone else’s armor. My father’s. Beatrice’s. Anyone’s but mine.
I knot the tie by muscle memory. Over, under, through. Tighten. The silk slides smooth under my taped fingers. The loop closes around my throat—a soft noose.
Less than a day ago, her hands were in the back of my hoodie, nails scraping my neck as I deepened a kiss that had been building for weeks. Now I’m adjusting a tie for people who think they own every part of me the contract didn’t spell out.
I look up.
The man in the mirror isn’t the one who walked her to her dorm door and kissed her softer, slower, like he was afraid of breaking the moment. He’s the one my father parades. Clean-cut. Polished. Contained. A brand asset in a suit.
I hate him.
My phone buzzes again.
Father: Don’t embarrass us tonight. This is the launch.
I almost laugh. As if I ever forget.
Keys. Wallet. Phone. I grab them all and head for the door before I talk myself out of it and drive to the rink instead. To the only place that’s ever felt more like mine than his.
The night outside is cold and clear, stars pinpricked above campus. My truck engine rumbles to life, steady and familiar under my hands. For a second, I just sit there with my forehead pressed to the steering wheel, eyes closed.
Talia’s weight in my lap. Her breath in my mouth. The way she’d whispered, “I need a second,” and I’d backed off like it physically hurt, because her no—even a soft, shaky one—was law.
I hang onto that feeling as long as I can.
Then I put the truck in gear and drive in the opposite direction of everything that feels like mine.
The Haverford Country Club looks like money tried to build heaven and overshot into something uglier.
White stone. Columns. Black glass. Trees wrapped in white lights so tight they look strangled. Valets in matching jackets move like an assembly line, all polished smiles and efficient hands.
I pull up, step out, and hand a kid who can’t be more than nineteen the keys to a truck I paid for with bruises and blocked shots.
“Nice ride,” he says.
I nod like I didn’t bleed for it and walk inside.
The noise hits first. Not the honest roar of a crowd. A different kind of loud. High, brittle laughter; the clink of glass; the low drone of people bragging in polite tones. A jazz quartet plays in the corner, notes smooth and slippery as oil.
“Declan.”
I smell her before I see her—perfume heavy and sweet, coating the back of my throat. Then Beatrice steps into my path like she’s hitting a mark.
Ice-blonde hair twisted into something complicated and sharp. Silver dress molded to her body like foil over a knife. Diamonds at her throat. Her smile is perfect. So are her nails as she slides a manicured hand up my chest to my tie.
“There’s my golden boy,” she croons, adjusting the knot by a millimeter. To the left. Her thumb lingers under my jaw, tilting my face toward her. “Your father will be pleased. You clean up very well.”
I hold still. Enduring is easier than fighting. Fighting means collateral damage. Fighting means giving him another excuse to say I’m ungrateful.
“You’re late,” she adds lightly, though her grip on my tie tightens enough that the silk bites into my neck.
“Practice ran long,” I say. My voice comes out flat.
Her gaze flicks to my hand where the cuff rides up, exposing the tape around my knuckles. Her mouth twists in distaste.
“For God’s sake,” she murmurs. “You couldn’t keep those covered?” Her fingers trap my wrist for a second, turning it so the tape flashes white against the dark fabric. “It looks brutal. We’re trying to sell a partnership, Declan, not a cage fight.”
She looks at the tape like it’s trash. Like it’s a flaw in the product.
I think of Talia’s hand covering mine on the bench. I think of her mouth pressing against these same taped knuckles, accepting the violence and the protection all at once. Talia kissed the tape. Beatrice wants to hide it.
Like I’m a prop. An accessory.
Before I can pull away, she lifts her hand in a little flutter toward the photographer hovering nearby. “We should get a picture before your father steals you. The board wants to see the happy couple.”
Happy couple.
The words sit in my stomach like a swallowed puck.
Beatrice steps in closer, pressing her side against mine, hand curling possessively over my chest. I can feel eyes on us—the board, the donors, my father somewhere across the room.
“Smile, Declan,” she murmurs, teeth barely moving. “Try to look like you like the future we bought you.”
I bare my teeth. It probably passes.
The flash pops. White wipes out the room for a second. I blink spots away and see Talia’s face instead—flushed, open, eyes heavy as she whispered against my mouth, “I don’t want to pretend I don’t see you anymore.”
My father waits near the bar, a glass of something dark in his hand. His suit is a shade darker than mine, his smile a polished, practiced thing that never reaches his eyes. He’s talking to two trustees, but as Beatrice steers me toward him, his gaze flicks over and rakes down my frame.
Assessing. Grading.
The corner of his mouth ticks up. Barely. Approval.
I used to scrape for that look. Bleed for it. Now it hits like a punch.
“Declan,” he says when we’re close enough, clapping a hand on my shoulder. His grip is firm but not affectionate. “Trustees wanted to meet the man behind the stats.”
“The myth, the legend,” one of them jokes, extending a hand. His cufflinks probably cost more than my truck. “Heard you’re the reason we’ve got a shot at the Frozen Four this year, son.”
Son.
It grates differently coming from him than it does from my father.
I shake his hand anyway, the tape on my knuckles pulling tight. “Just doing my job,” I say. The line is automatic. Rehearsed. Safe.
Donors laugh. Glasses clink. My father nods along, playing the proud parent. Nobody here cares that they’re talking about the same hands that dented a locker door around a kid’s head.
For the next hour, I’m a puppet with a drink I don’t touch.
I listen, nod, endure. Beatrice stays attached to my arm like she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she lets go.
Her fingers tap patterns against my sleeve when she’s bored—which is always.
Her laugh tilts higher when she wants something. It never touches her eyes.
The entire room is mirrors and glass and polished lies.
And then, through all that glitter, something real.
I spot her without meaning to. My gaze breezes past the terrace doors—and stops.
Talia stands near the glass, next to Coach Addison.
She’s in a simple dark blue dress that hits her knees, nothing like the sequined, screaming gowns around her. Her hair is pinned up in a way that looks like she did it herself in a hurry, wisps escaping already.
She’s… wrong for this place. Too unvarnished. Too honest.
And I know, just by the set of her shoulders, how much she hates it. The noise, the crowd, the trapped feeling of a room with too many people and not enough air.
Why is she here?
Coach Addison leans down to say something to her, rubbing a hand over his face like he’s exhausted. He looks as trapped as she does. And then it clicks. He needed a buffer too. He brought her as a shield against the donors, the same way I use silence.
She came to save him. She’s standing in the middle of her nightmare just to support her dad.
Addison’s hand rests lightly on her shoulder in a way that’s protective, not possessive. She gives him a small smile, soft at the edges, and nods. It hits me harder than any puck ever has.
Colorful glass, polished stone, donors, money, noise—all of it goes a shade dimmer. My chest tightens.
Last night she was in my hoodie, thighs bracketing my hips, mouth swollen from kissing me. Tonight she’s in a dress and flats, standing beside her father in a room where I’m pretending to be someone else.
Her gaze sweeps the crowd. She’s ticking off exits, threats, patterns—I know that look now.
Then her eyes catch mine.
There’s a moment where everything just… stops.
Her face doesn’t change much. Her eyes widen the smallest bit, pupils darkening. Her lips part. That’s it. That’s all.
But inside, something tips.