Wrong door !!!
Chapter 2
A male figure stands several feet behind me suddenly stepping out from the back of the room.
My heart launches it self directly into my throat.
Only then do I truly take in the room around me all the uniforms hanging near the entrance, the darker design, the layout, the showers. The horrifying realization arrives all at once.
More specifically, judging by the uniforms hanging nearby, it belongs to Weststar's football team.
For one long, painful second, I simply stand there.
How have I not noticed?
How have I managed to walk into the wrong bathroom on my second week at a new school?
Unfortunately, embarrassment quickly becomes the least of my concerns.
Because the guy standing in front of me is moving.
And somehow, without me even registering it, the distance between us has disappeared. One moment he had been across the room. The next he is standing close enough that I step backward instinctively until the edge of the sink presses against my lower back.
My breath catches.
He wears nothing except a white towel secured extremely low around his hips, and the casual way he carries himself suggests he genuinely couldn't care less whether it stays there or not.
Water still clings to his skin from the shower, tracing slow paths across defined muscle before disappearing beneath the towel, while dark hair falls messily across his forehead in a way that looks completely effortless.
That is the first word that enters my mind.
Because nobody should be allowed to look that well put together.
His face is just as dangerous. Sharp jawline.
Dark eyes carrying the kind of calm confidence that only exists in people who have spent their entire lives being looked at and have eventually grown bored of it.
And judging by the way his gaze moves over me now slow, unhurried, entirely aware of itself he knows exactly what effect he has on people.
Which is irritating.
My breath stops somewhere in my chest.
For a second longer neither of us moves. Then something shifts in his expression.
"Is this a joke?"
His voice comes out low and sharp, and underneath it is a barely there but unmistakably present the warm curl of an Italian accent that somehow makes everything even worse.
"I'm so sorry, I..."
"You think that trick works on me?" He cuts across my apology without even glancing at it, his dark eyes moving over me with a coldness if never seen before.
"You're the stalker, aren't you." Not a question."Want a Picture ? A signature? What is it this time... a dick pic, or what?"
I react immediately when I see his hand move toward the towel. My hand flies to my eyes so fast it actually hurts ,palm pressed flat against my face like that will somehow undo the last three seconds of my life. And I feel the heat rushing through my body.
What pic?
But when I see his hand moves to his verry low to my heart drops and the heat is flashing through my body.
"What the hell are you doing?" I choke out.
"What am I doing?" His voice is entirely too calm. "Isn't that what you came for?"
I can't see his face, but I don't need to. I can feel the smirk. I can feel him moving closer too and I am in no position to be okay with that.
"Okay. Wow. Wait." I throw my other hand out like a stop sign, eyes still covered. "I'm going to lower my hand now. And when I do, I need you to have some basic human manners and put that damn towel back on. Please."
A beat of silence follows.
"So why the camera?"His tone has shifted from arrogant to lethal. I drop my hand, tracking his line of sight down to the floor.
Oh boy.
My camera has slipped out of my bag at some point during the chaos of finding the sink. It is now lying on the tile right at my feet, lens pointed directly at him.
Of course it is.
I say, a sharp, breathless laugh slipping out as the sheer absurdity of the misunderstanding hits me.
"You think this is funny, stalker?" he grinds out, his features darkening.
And my smiles freeze instantly .
"No, it's not funny... I mean... I came in here to clean my blouse. I mixed up the bathrooms. I'm new, I don't know the building layout yet, and I definitely did not come here with the intention of photographing you in a towel."
A nervous, reckless impulse takes over my tongue before I can stop it.
"But hey, I think the pictures would look great... shit. No. Not that I... I should probably just shut up."
I want the floor to open up and swallow me whole. Why does my brain completely short-circuit under pressure? It's either his suffocating presence making me entirely reckless, or the sheer claustrophobia of being alone with him.
Or both.
"Your blouse?" His voice drops an octave.
His gaze shifts down to my chest. And stays there. One beat too long.
Shit.
Then, the corner of his mouth twitches into a slow, mocking smirk.
Following his line of sight, the horrifying reality hits me.
The wet fabric is completely transparent, clinging to my skin.
Worse, my top buttons are undone. I have been standing here this entire time, arguing, explaining, and defending my innocence, utterly oblivious to the fact that I am practically naked.
"I'm new here," I say again, yanking the edges of my blouse together with one hand.
My voice has lost approximately thirty percent of it's earlier composure. "I mixed up the bathrooms. The signs aren't ...ther was no sign"
"There is a sign." He looks at me for a long moment. His jaw tightens slightly
Then he steps forward even closer.
I have nowhere to go. My back is already against the basin, and when his hands come down hard on either side of me his palms flat against the porcelain, arms bracketing me completely the world contracts to the few inches of space between us.
He isn't touching me. He isn't even close to touching me.
But It doesn't change anything .
I can feel the heat radiating off his skin through my soaked shirt. I can see the water still clinging to the line of his jaw. I can see the exact moment his eyes drop briefly to the camera still lying on the floor and then come back to my face, slower than strictly necessary.
Up close, he is somehow more unsettling than he had been from across the room. There is a quality to his stillness that feels deliberate. He studies me in a way as if he is unsure what to do with me next .And in that moment I fell like being trapped in a nightmare.
"You don't look like the type," he mutters, almost to himself.
"The type of what?"
"Girls here don't get lost," he says quietly. "Especially not around me."
There it is.
That particular brand of arrogance not loud, not performed, but completely and utterly settled into his bones.
The arrogance of someone who has never once needed to raise his voice to get a room's attention, who moves through the world as though it has been arranged specifically for his convenience, and who has probably never considered, not even for a second, that someone might simply not know who he is.
Something inside me goes very still.
I can feel my anger building up.
"Well, congratulations," I snap, lifting my chin. "I clearly didn't get the memo." His eyes narrow just a fraction at the edges. The silence stretches between us, taut and electric. Neither of us breaks eye contact.
"Get out of here," he says finally. His Italian accent is thicker now, wrapping like a warning around the words. "Before you regret it," he adds, the smirk returning to his lips.
I hold his gaze for exactly one second longer than is wise, refusing to let him see me tremble.
"Nothing I would rather do," I mutter and reach down to pick up my stuff without breaking eye contact.Even with my back turned to him, I can feel his stare tracking me like a trail of burning fire against my skin.
"Next time," his voice drifts after me, quiet and infuriatingly lazy. "Read the damn sign."
"Don't worry snob ," I snap, shoving the door open without giving him the satisfaction of a backward glance. Showing him my finger instead.
"There won't be a next time."
And I'm out,back in the light finally breathing again and press my back against the cold wall.
Why?
Why is this always happening to me?
He had looked at me like I was either a nuisance or a joke. Like the idea of me being there accidentally hadn't entirely convinced him. Like he was used to people arranging themselves around him and had simply added me to that category without asking whether I wanted to be in it.
Stalker ? Kiss my ass .
I stare at the ceiling for a moment longer.
Who was that?
Well. I know one thing for certain.