Chapter 8
GRAYSON
You’d think my weekend would be used as a recovery period. A reset. A breath. A chance to pretend our bodies aren’t held together by athletic tape, caffeine, and pure spite. But mornings in my world don’t seem to care about what you think you deserve. And neither does my internal clock.
My phone buzzes.
I tell myself I’m not going to look.
I look immediately because my self-control has been pathetic lately.
It’s the team group chat.
Weston: why is monday even real
Weston: who approved this
Asher: It happens every week.
Weston: that feels aggressive
A second later—
Kai: lift at 10. film at 12. be on time.
Weston replies with a skull emoji, which is honestly his most honest form of communication.
I let the phone drop back onto the mattress and drag a hand over my face.
From the kitchen, I hear a soft clink.
I swear, Kai never takes a breather.
He doesn’t sleep in. He wakes up like he’s already behind schedule, like rest is a luxury he doesn’t trust. Even on light days, he moves with that same quiet urgency he has on the ice—contained, controlled, always prepared for contact.
I push myself out of bed and shuffle into the kitchen.
Kai’s at the counter in a hoodie and sweats, pouring coffee with the focus of a man preparing for war. The overhead light cuts sharp lines across his face, throwing shadows under his eyes he’ll deny exist if anyone points them out.
He glances at me without turning his head. “Good morning.”
“It’s not that good,” I mutter.
He slides a mug toward me before I even reach the counter, like he anticipated my misery. He did. He always does. I take a sip and feel my soul reboot by half a percent. Not enough to be happy. Enough to be functional and slightly less likely to commit a felony.
Kai watches me over the rim of his own mug. “You sleep?”
“Define sleep.”
His mouth twitches. “Two hours?”
“Two and change,” I admit.
Kai’s eyes narrow—not judgment, not anger. Concern, disguised as assessment. He nods once like he’s filing it away. Kai collects information. Catalogs. Remembers. He’ll bring it up later like a slow, inevitable penalty you can see coming but can’t avoid.
He scrolls on his phone again, thumb flicking. “Harlow texted.”
My grip tightens around the mug before I can stop it.
“She okay?” I ask, and I hate that it comes out too fast.
Kai’s gaze sharpens—not angry. Reading me.
“She’s fine,” he says.
Fine means nothing.
“What’d she say?” I ask, forcing casual into my voice like I can trick my body into cooperating.
Kai looks down at his phone. “She went to the rink yesterday. Sat for a bit.”
My stomach does a stupid little drop.
I keep my face neutral. “Yeah?”
Kai’s eyes flick to me. “She didn’t mention running into you.”
My heart kicks once, too hard, like it’s pissed at me.
I shrug. “It was early. I barely saw her.”
Kai’s stare tells me he knows I noticed more than I’m letting on, but he doesn’t push the issue. He just nods.
“She seemed okay?” I ask, and I hate that I ask again.
Kai studies me for a beat. “Why do you ask?”
Because she doesn’t look okay.
She looks like someone who’s been carrying a heavy backpack for too long and keeps telling everyone it’s nothing. She flinched when he called her name, and now I can’t stop seeing it. She laughs like she’s checking whether she’s allowed to. She’s quiet in a world that demands volume.
I don’t say any of that.
I take another sip and shrug. “Just…curious. She just seems like she’s adjusting.”
Kai’s jaw tightens. “Yeah.” He finishes his coffee and sets the mug in the sink. “Lift at ten.”
“I know. I got your text,” I say, because if I don’t, he’ll repeat it like a dad.
Kai’s mouth twitches. “Good.”
He heads toward his room to change, moving with that steady purpose that makes you feel lazy just by existing near him.
I stare into my coffee and try not to think about the rink.
Try not to think about Harlow on the ice, the way she looked like she belonged there more than she belonged anywhere else.
I try even harder not to think about the fact that I noticed.
Because thinking about her is a slippery slope, and I’ve got enough slopes in my life already.
The weight room smells like metal and sweat and the kind of ambition that makes you hate yourself a little.
While Sundays are left up to each player, Monday lifts are mandatory.
Coach Graves believes rest days are for weak people and the devil.
He says things like maintenance is a mindset, and if you’re not building, you’re breaking, which is probably why none of us know how to relax like normal human beings.
The team filters in one by one—some half awake, some coming after their first classes, all complaining. Weston arrives with a smoothie and the aura of a man who has personally been wronged by existence.
Asher is already there, of course—calm, controlled, stretching like someone who treats his body like a temple he respects. There’s a steady discipline in him that makes the rest of us look feral by comparison.
Kai spots me and jerks his chin toward the squat rack. Partner up.
We lift in rhythm. Spot. Rack. Swap. Minimal talking and efficient misery. That’s our language.
Weston drifts over between sets, eyes bright with chaos. “So, Bennett. How’s your late-night mystery friend today?”
I glare at him. “Don’t start.”
He grins wider. “That’s not an answer.”
Asher wipes his hands on his towel and looks at Weston like he’s a puzzle piece from the wrong box. “Cooper. Leave him alone.”
Weston puts a hand on his chest. “I am leaving him alone. I’m just speaking near him.”
“That’s still annoying,” Asher says.
Kai loads another plate onto the bar like he’s trying to load the subject out of existence. “Focus.”
Weston pouts. “Mercer hates romance.”
Kai’s eyes cut to him. “Mercer hates stupidity.”
Weston spreads his arms. “Then you hate me.”
Kai doesn’t deny it, and Weston’s mouth drops open like he’s been wounded. I laugh under my breath, which is exactly how Weston wins, by making you forget you’re exhausted for half a second.
That’s the thing about our team. The loudness, the chirping, the constant nonsense.
It’s annoying.
It’s also…home.
Found family isn’t a metaphor when you spend every day bleeding and sweating with the same guys.
When you learn their tells on the ice and off it.
When you can tell by the way Asher goes quiet that he’s locked in, or by the way Weston gets louder when he’s hiding a bad day, or by the way Kai’s voice turns sharp when he’s scared.
They’re my people.
Which makes what I’m doing—talking every night to a stranger—feel like a betrayal.
And also like relief.
Both things can be true.
After lift, we hit the dining hall like a pack of wolves.
Weston insists on narrating the buffet line like he’s hosting a cooking show.
“And here we have…chicken that tastes like heartbreak.” Asher ignores him.
Kai eats like he’s fueling a machine—protein, carbs, water.
Efficient. I sit across from them, stabbing at my food, trying to be normal.
My phone buzzes on the table.
I don’t look immediately. I look two seconds later, because again, no self-control.
Forum notification.
My chest does that stupid warm thing, like my body reacts before my brain can tell it not to.
Weston’s eyes lock onto my phone like he’s a predator. “Oh? Is that your—”
“No,” I snap, flipping the phone over. “Eat your chicken and mind your own business.”
Asher’s mouth twitches. “He’s not going to.”
Weston glares. “Traitor.”
Kai keeps eating, but I catch the flick of his gaze—quick, knowing. He won’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.
After lunch, Asher breaks off for the library because he’s a freak of nature who does homework like he’s trying to earn extra credit in adulthood. Weston announces he’s going to “rot,” then disappears. Kai and I walk back to the apartment.
The sun is bright. Campus is alive—students in hoodies, couples holding iced coffees, someone tossing a frisbee with no regard for the people trying to walk by.
Normal life.
I’m not sure what it would feel like to have one.
In the hallway outside our place, Kai pauses. “Harlow’s coming by later.”
I blink. “Why?”
Kai gives me a look, brow raised. “Because she can.”
Right.
Kai Mercer’s idea of supporting independence is offering safe places within his orbit.
I nod like it doesn’t matter, like my brain doesn’t immediately start inventorying what this apartment looks like when it’s quiet versus when it’s full of guys.
We step inside. Kai tosses his keys into the bowl and starts doing two dishes that don’t need to be done right now. Stress-cleaning, again. He scrubs a mug, jaw getting tighter by the second as if the mug is the target of his built-up tension.
I head toward my room, but before I can disappear, Kai says, low, “Just…keep it easy today.”
I stop and turn. “I’m always easy.”
Kai’s stare is deadpan. “That’s the funniest thing you’ve ever said.”
I flip him off and retreat.
In my room, I flop onto my bed and stare at the ceiling. My phone is beside me, face down, like that changes anything or makes my mind stop thinking about it.
I shouldn’t care, but I do.
My brain tries to build a person from fragments: a girl who hates loud places, who calls her brain loud, who jokes about tea being a scam, who says she missed the manual for being normal.
I shut it down before it can spiral.
Too convenient. Too messy. There are thousands of students at PCU. The odds are—
My phone buzzes with a text from Kai.
Kai: she’ll be here in 20.
I stare at it, then toss my phone onto the bed and groan.
So much for hiding.
Harlow shows up with a tote bag and that cautious expression, like she’s prepared to flee if the apartment feels wrong. Kai opens the door, and his whole vibe shifts. Still stern, still intense—but softer around the edges, like he’s trying to be gentle and doesn’t always know how.
“Harlow,” he says.
“Hi,” she replies.