Chapter 69 Adela
I'm in the library when my phone buzzes.
I’m not at our carrel. I’m at a different one on the second floor with worse light and a view of the parking lot instead of the quad. I haven't gone back to our carrel yet. I'm not sure I will because I’m not that na?ve girl anymore.
Theo: Come to practice right now.
Not a question. Not a request.
Very Theo.
I stare at the message for a long time.
Then I pack up my books and go because I would do almost anything if he asked me to.
The practice rink is colder than I expected.
I've never seen him play. Never wanted to, if I'm being honest. There was a time — during my recovery, when I was still angry about everything — when the fact that he played hockey and never told me felt like another manipulation. Another secret in a relationship built on too many of them.
But I'm here now.
I climb the empty stands and sit near the top, pulling my jacket tighter against the cold.
The team is already on the ice.
I spot Beckett first. He’s moving through drills, and when he sees me in the stands, he waves. I wave back with a touch of a smile.
Then I see Theo.
Number 4. Skating with a such ease that it makes everyone else look slightly off-rhythm by comparison.
I watch him move.
The control I've been trying to crack since the library — the composure, the certainty, the confident arrogance of him in every space he occupies — it comes from this.
He's beautiful out there.
Not in the way people usually mean when they talk about athletes. Beautiful in the way an equation is beautiful when it solves cleanly.
I think about margin notes.
I think about I don't think I can stop.
I understand him differently after this. More completely.
The rink is the key to Theo that the library and the park and the lake house couldn't fully give me.
After practice, he finds me in the stands. His face is flushed from exertion.
Beckett waves again as he heads toward the locker room. Theo climbs the stands and sits beside me.
I look at him with his hair damp and his breathing still slightly elevated, and it makes me warm on the inside. This is the version of him that exists when the control goes.
"You came," he says.
"You told me to."
"You could've said no."
"I could have." I pull my jacket tighter. "But I wanted to see."
He watches me.
I continue, "You're good. How long have you been playing?"
"Since I was six."
"That's a long time."
"Yeah." He leans back against the seat behind him, stretching his legs out. "It's the only thing I've ever been consistent at."
We sit in comfortable silence for a moment, watching the Zamboni make its slow rounds across the ice.
"Is Cody a good player?" I ask.
He chuckles, and the sound is so unexpected that I turn to look at him.
"He's decent," Theo says. "Good hands. Weak defensive game. Gets in his own head too much."
"That sounds like him."
"Yeah." He glances at me. "You've never watched him play?"
"I did sometimes, but I was usually with Maeve and Elena and Penelope, so…” I shrug. "He stopped inviting me, and I always assumed hockey was separate from me. Like I wasn't allowed in that part of his life."
"You're allowed in mine."
I meet his eyes, and they’re focused on me. The simplicity of his words makes my chest tighten. Somehow things are looser now between us. Not as tight. Not as full of tension.
But I look away because that reminds of the little rift between us.
"Can I ask you something?" I say after a moment.
"Shoot."
"OnlyFans."
He doesn't hesitate as he pulls out his phone and scrolls through his messages, then he hands it to me.
I read the text conversation between him and Serena.
The business is yours now. All accounts, all contacts, everything. I'm out.
You sure about this?
Completely.
Okay. Thanks, Theo.
I hand the phone back. "You gave the business to Serena?"
"Yeah." He pockets it. "I'm done with it. All of it."
I look at him for a long moment, searching his face for any sign that he's holding something back.
I don't find any.
"Okay," I say finally.
We're leaving the rink when he stops me.
I'm pulling my coat on, and he reaches into his jacket pocket and steps behind me.
I feel his hands at the back of my neck, and I feel the cold of a chain.
I go completely still.
He fastens the clasp carefully, his fingers brushing against my skin, then steps back.
I reach up and touch it at my collarbone.
The pendant.
Neither of us says anything.
We just look at each other, and I understand.
This isn't about ownership. It's not about claiming me or marking territory.
It's about respect.
"Thank you," I whisper.
He nods once.
Then we walk out of the rink together — the pendant at my throat, Theo beside me, the Tuesday morning cold hitting us both as we step outside.
I think about a girl who chose a carrel on the third floor because it had good light.
He found her for revenge.
And instead, this bloomed out of it.
Something real and chosen and entirely ours.
I reach for his hand.
He takes it.
And we walk across campus like that — just two people who found each other in the worst possible way and decided to stay anyway.