Chapter 15
ZANE
The drink is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.
Not making me drunk - just smoothing the edges, making the noise of the party feel farther away than it actually is. Making it easier to stand here beside her instead of overthinking every word.
She sips her drink and watches the crowd.
“Your teammates seem to be having a good night,” she says, nodding toward the corner where Mercer is attempting some kind of dance move that definitely won’t end well.
“They’ve earned it.”
“Even the one who looks like he’s having a seizure?”
I laugh. “Especially him.”
She smiles into her cup and something in my chest shifts slightly.
Easy, I tell myself. You don’t even know her name.
But that’s the thing, isn’t it? I’ve wanted to know her name since the first time she disappeared into the dark.
The music shifts - slower, heavier, the kind of beat that vibrates through the floor and into your bones. Around us, couples start drifting toward the makeshift dance floor in the center of the room.
She glances toward them, then back at me.
“Dance?” I ask.
She hesitates for half a second. Then she sets her empty cup on the bar and nods.
I take her hand.
Her fingers are cool against mine as I lead her into the crowd. The lights have dimmed slightly, beams sweeping slow across the ceiling, and the whole room feels different now - more intimate.
We find a space in the middle and I turn to face her.
The music pulses around us, her eyes catch the light in flashes of color.
Then she moves.
Not self-consciously. Not the way people dance when they’re performing. She just… moves. I match her rhythm without thinking.
I put my hands lightly on her waist, testing.
She doesn’t pull away.
Her fingers curl into the fabric of my hoodie, pulling me slightly closer, and suddenly the space between us is only a few inches. I can smell whatever she’s wearing - something both smoky and sweet.
“You never told me your name,” I say, close to her ear so she can hear me over the music.
She tilts her head back slightly, looking up at me. “Didn’t I?”
“No.”
Her mouth curves. That smile again. Like she knows something I don’t.
“Nora,” she finally says.
The song shifts again - it’s the kind of track that makes dancing feel like an excuse for something else. Couples around us press closer.
I pull her in.
Her body fits against mine like it belongs there. One of my hands rests at the small of her back, the other still loose at her waist. Her arms slide up around my neck.
We barely move now. Just sway.
Her face is close enough that I can see the glitter on her cheekbones catching the light, her eyes watching me from beneath the blonde wig. Her lips part slightly.
I want to kiss her.
I want to keep her here, in this moment, so she doesn’t disappear into the dark again.
So instead of kissing her, I ask: “Why’d you leave so fast last time?”
She holds my gaze. “Maybe I wasn’t sure you were worth staying for.”
I grin. “And now?”
“Now I’m still deciding.”
“Tough crowd.”
Her lips twitch. “You’ll survive.”
The song keeps going. The room keeps spinning around us. But none of it matters as much as the way she’s looking at me - like she’s seeing something the rest of the crowd doesn’t.
My thumb traces a small circle against her lower back.
She doesn’t move away.
Then the song ends. The lights shift brighter, the next track faster, and the moment scatters like smoke.
She steps back slightly, smoothing her jacket.
“I should find my friends.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I said I’d meet them.”
“Will you be here later?”
She looks at me for a long moment. The crowd moves around us.
“I think my friends are leaving soon. But… I’m not ready to go home yet.”
“Come back to mine,” I hear myself say.
Her eyes search my face. “We barely know each other.”
“I know I’ve been looking for you since October. And I know I don’t want tonight to end yet.”
“Okay,” she says.
The walk to my apartment is quiet.
She’s walking close enough that our shoulders brush every few steps.
“So, you live off campus,” she says.
“I’m in final year. I got sick of dorm life.”
“Must be nice. Having your own space.”
“It has its advantages.”
She glances at me sideways, that small smile playing at her lips. “Like bringing strangers home from parties?”
“I meant quiet mornings and no one stealing my coffee… but I could make exceptions.”
She laughs - a real one this time - and the sound does something dangerous to my ability to think clearly.
We reach my building and I unlock the door. The stairs are narrow and creaky, and she follows me up without hesitation, her footsteps echoing behind mine.
My apartment is small. It’s a living room with a small couch, a kitchen the size of a closet and a tiny bedroom through the door at the end. I turn on a lamp instead of the overhead light.
She stands in the middle of the room, looking around.
“Hockey stuff,” she observes, nodding at the sticks in the corner and the framed jersey on the wall.
“Guilty.”
“Figured.”
She turns in a slow circle, taking it in. The pile of textbooks on the coffee table. The Giants schedule pinned to the fridge.
Then her eyes land on me.
“You live like this?”
“I live like a person who’s busy.”
“That’s one word for it.”
I cross the room toward her. “You’re very critical for someone who’s still very mysterious.”
She looks up at me. The lamp light catches her face, soft gold across her cheekbones. I lift my hand slowly, giving her time to move away, to stop me, and brush a strand of hair from her face. She doesn’t move. The space between us feels electric, charged with something I can’t name.
Then she rises on her toes and kisses me.
It’s not tentative. Her mouth meets mine like she’s been thinking about this as long as I have, and my hands find her waist instantly, pulling her closer.
She tastes like the cocktail from the party. Her fingers curl into my hoodie again, tugging me toward her, and I walk her backward until her shoulders meet the wall.
I break the kiss just long enough to look at her.
Her lips are slightly parted. Her pupils are dark.
“Still want to know all about me?” she whispers.
“I want everything.”
She pulls me back in.
The bedroom is dark except for the streetlight filtering through the blinds.
Her jacket hits the floor first. Then my hoodie. Then the careful layers between us until there’s nothing left but skin and breath and the quiet sounds she makes when I touch her.
She’s beautiful.
Not the polished kind of beautiful you see on magazine covers. Something realer. There’s a bruise fading along her ribs - yellow and purple, the kind you get from hockey, and I trace it with my thumb without thinking.
She tenses slightly.
“What’s this from?” I ask.
A pause. “I’m ultra clumsy.”
I lean down and kiss it softly and she makes a sound that’s almost a laugh. “That’s a weird thing to do.”
“You’re a weird person to do it to.”
Her hand finds the back of my neck, pulling me up to kiss her again.
The rest happens in fragments.
The slide of her body against mine. The way she gasps when I find the right rhythm. The feeling of her fingers digging into my shoulders, her legs wrapped around me, her breath warm against my ear.
At some point she says my name - Zane - and it’s the first time I’ve heard it from her, and something in my chest cracks open.
Afterward we lie tangled together, her head on my chest, my hand tracing lazy patterns on her bare shoulder.
The room is quiet.
I should get her number. I should figure out more about her before she disappears into the dark like last time.
But I’m too tired. Too content. Too wrecked by the feeling of her here, real and warm against me.
“Don’t leave,” I murmur.
She doesn’t answer.
I fall asleep with her in my arms.
I wake to empty sheets and pale morning light.
The bed is cold where she was. There’s no note - nothing.
I lie there for a long moment, staring at the ceiling. Weak sun filters through the blinds. Her scent is still on my pillows.
Then I laugh softly.
She did it again.
I push myself up, running a hand through my hair, trying to feel annoyed about her just leaving. I can’t. Because the memory of last night is too vivid - the way she looked at me in the dim light of my apartment, the way she said my name, the way she felt pressed against me.
Nora.
That’s all I have. A first name and the memory of her smile right before she kissed me.
“Unbelievable,” I mutter.
LEONORA
I’m halfway across campus before my heart stops racing.
The air is cold, waking me up faster than coffee could. My legs are still slightly unsteady. My lips still feel swollen.
I pull my jacket tighter and keep walking, boots crunching against frost-covered grass.
That was reckless. Exactly the kind of thing I told myself I wouldn’t do.
But when I replay it - his hands, his mouth, the way he looked at me like I was the only person in the world - I can’t make myself regret it.
He still doesn’t know who I am. I told him Nora. Not even my full name. Just the second half of it - Nora. A half-truth.
I reach our dorm section and slip inside before anyone can see me. The hallway is quiet this early, just the distant sound of a shower running somewhere and the soft hum of the vending machine on the first floor.
I make it to my room, close the door, and immediately press my back against it like someone might have followed me.
The room is dark. Katie’s door is still closed. Willow’s too.
I cross to my bed, collapsing onto it face-first.
The pillow swallows my groan.
What did I do?
Twenty minutes later I’m still lying there, fully dressed, staring at the ceiling, when my phone buzzes.
Willow: YOU WERE GONE ALL NIGHT
Willow: WE HAVE QUESTIONS
Willow: SO MANY QUESTIONS
Willow: I’M COMING OVER
I barely have time to sit up before the door bursts open.
Willow stands in the doorway, still in her pajamas - an oversized sweater with a cartoon cat on it - hair exploding in approximately a hundred directions like she fought her way through a hurricane to get here.
Behind her, Katie hovers with mugs of coffee, already dressed in her usual neat sweater and jeans, looking amused. “She’s alive,” she observes.
“Barely,” I mutter.
Willow crosses the room in three strides and drops onto the bed beside me, making the whole frame bounce. “Start talking.”
“There’s nothing to-”
“Leonora.” Willow’s voice is flat. “You disappeared. For hours. With Zane Blake. Who you have been secretly obsessed with for weeks.”
“I haven’t been-”
“You literally told us. At the spa. You admitted it.”
Katie sets the coffee on my desk and perches on the edge of my chair, tucking one leg under her. “We’re not here to judge. We’re here to… assess damage.”
“There’s no damage.”
“Then why do you look like someone died?”
I open my eyes. Stare at the ceiling again.
“Because I left.”
“Left?”
“His apartment. This morning. While he was still asleep.”
Silence.
“You pulled a ghost exit? After sleeping with him?” Katie sounds shocked.
“I didn’t - I mean, yes, but-”
“Holy shit.” Willow leans back, genuinely impressed. “That’s cold.”
“It’s not cold, it’s-” I sit up, dragging both hands through my hair. “He doesn’t know who I am. He thinks I’m just some girl from a party. Some girl who disappeared on him once already. And now I’ve done it again.”
Katie tilts her head. “So… you like him?”
“Yes.”
“And he clearly likes you-”
“He likes the idea of me. The mystery. The girl who won’t stick around. But he doesn’t know anything. Not even my full name. Not where I live. Not what I do.”
Willow is quiet for a moment, which is rare. Then she says, “Are you going to tell him who you are?”
“Obviously I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because-” I stop. Swallow. “Because if I tell him, I jeopardize the whole team. The league. All our wins. Or he’d have to keep my secret, and I can’t ask him to do that. It’s not fair.”
Katie reaches over and squeezes my hand. Her fingers are warm. “So, what now?”
“Now I go to practice. I pretend last night didn’t happen. I pretend I don’t know what his mouth feels like, or the sound he makes when-” I stop. Breathe. “I pretend he’s just my teammate.”
“And when he sees you?”
“He won’t recognize me.” I say it flatly, like a fact.
Like saying it firmly enough will make it true.
“I was in a costume with really heavy makeup. I even had a wig. He saw me for maybe four hours total, half of which was in the dark at his apartment.” I shake my head.
“He’s looking for a blonde girl who disappeared. Not his left wing.”
Willow and Katie exchange a look.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Willow says quickly.
“You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The silent communication thing you do when you think I’m being an idiot.”
Katie hides a smile behind her coffee mug.
Willow sighs dramatically. “Okay, fine. You’re being an idiot. But not for the reasons you think.”
“Then why?”
“Well… you really think he won’t notice?” Willow sounds uncharacteristically gentle.
The room feels suddenly too small.
“I have to go,” I say.
“Leo-”
“Practice. I have practice.” I’m already standing, grabbing my bag from the floor, moving toward the door. “I’ll text you later.”
I don’t wait for them to answer.