Chapter 7
Tallulah POV
The error prompt on the compliance portal flashed red for the fourth time in forty minutes.
Outside the subterranean computer lab of The Iron Foundry, freezing rain ticked against the reinforced glass of the ground-level light wells, a steady, relentless drumming that sounded like handfuls of dry gravel thrown against the panes.
And if his clearance was suspended, my fellowship review would be initiated before breakfast.
Beside my keyboard, my phone screen lit up with a preview from Toby: Ramos, Toby – Track he understood the physics of every angle, every vector of momentum, every microscopic failure of the kinetic chain.
"Where did you learn to read an EMG curve?" I asked, keeping my hands on the keys.
Coast didn't look up from the raw data sheet. "When Julian had his cervical fusion, I spent six months sitting in the neuro-recovery unit at Albany Med watching the monitors. You stare at those graphs long enough, you learn what a failing nerve looks like."
The mention of his brother hit the room like a drop in atmospheric pressure.
He didn't offer any more, and I didn't push. But the hostility that had choked us for two weeks felt suddenly distant, replaced by an unspoken understanding. We were both terrified of failing the people who depended on us.
Without a word, Coast reached into his canvas bag, pulled out an unopened bottle of water, twisted the plastic cap until the seal cracked, and set it on the desk right beside my right hand.
"Drink," he ordered softly.
"I need coffee."
"You've had three cups of cold battery acid," he said, his gaze flicking to the empty paper cups in the trash bin. "Your hands are shaking, Barry. Drink the water."
I reached for the bottle, my fingers brushing his knuckles as I took it. His skin was rough, burning hot against my cold fingertips. A tiny hitch caught in my chest, my pulse leaping in my throat before I could take a swallow.
We worked through the backlog with clinical efficiency.
Coast divided the raw runs, identifying the physical movements while I recoded the algorithmic timestamps.
When my posture sagged at midnight, he reached across the desk and shifted my secondary monitor two inches closer so I didn't strain my neck.
When my eyes fluttered shut for three seconds while a batch file processed, his knee nudged mine beneath the desk—firm, heavy, an unyielding anchor in the dark.
* * *
At 1:58 AM, the progress bar hit one hundred percent.
The screen flickered, the red error banners dissolving into a clean, brilliant green.
SUBMISSION ACCEPTED: NCAA CLEARINGHOUSE CERTIFIED.
RECEIPT ID: 994-02-BOS-STUART.
The mechanical confirmation bell chimed through the small speakers.
The sound hung in the quiet room.
The adrenaline that had been driving my nervous system since nine o'clock vanished, draining out through the soles of my boots in a single, devastating drop.
My spine seemed to turn to water. I slumped back into the task chair, my head falling against the headrest, a long, ragged exhale shuddering through my lips.
"It's done," I whispered to the acoustic ceiling tiles.
"It's done," Coast agreed.
He hadn't slumped. He sat upright in his chair, his sleeves still pushed high, watching me with an unreadable, heavy focus. The dim blue light from the monitors carved deep shadows beneath his cheekbones, highlighting the stubble along his jaw and the jagged scar across his collarbone.
I rolled my head to the side, looking at him. My eyelids felt impossibly heavy, weighted with lead. "You're surprisingly tolerable when you aren't threatening to break people's bones, Stuart."
The corner of his mouth twitched, a faint, dangerous smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Don't get used to it, Barry."
I let out a weak, breathy laugh, the exhaustion making my limbs feel hollow. I reached down to the floor to grab the strap of my messenger bag, my fingers clumsy, numb from five hours of typing.
My hand slipped. Coast’s hand moved at the same second to catch the nylon strap.
His fingers closed over the back of my hand.
The contact was absolute. His palm was huge, rough, calloused from stick tape, radiating a furnace heat that scorched straight through my skin.
Neither of us pulled away.
The room went dead silent. The only sound was the sleet ticking against the high windows and the rapid, uneven rhythm of my own breathing.
Coast didn't release my hand. Slowly, deliberately, his grip shifted. His large fingers slid under my palm, his calloused thumb coming to rest flat against the inside of my wrist.
Right over my radial artery.
My pulse was racing, a frantic, fluttering beat hammering against the pad of his thumb. He felt it. I knew he felt it. The masseter muscle in his jaw clenched, a sudden, dark intensity flaring in the depths of his pale green eyes.
He didn't let go. He leaned forward, dragging his chair an inch closer, his broad frame crowding my space until the scent of cedar, clean sweat, and rain filled my lungs completely.
He leaned in until his face was barely three inches from the side of my neck, his breath washing warm across my sensitive skin.
"Why are you still looking at me like I'm the enemy, Tallulah?" he rasped.
His voice was a gravelly whisper, rough with exhaustion and something far more lethal. The sound of my first name on his tongue made my chest contract, my breath catching in my throat as my fingers curled involuntarily against his palm.
"Because you're dangerous, Coast," I breathed, unable to look away from the raw, unmasked hunger in his face.
"So are you," he murmured, his thumb smoothing a slow, devastating circle over the pulse in my wrist.
I sat frozen in the blue glare of the monitors, my hand locked in his, realizing with a sudden, terrifying clarity that the wall between us hadn't just cracked tonight—it had collapsed entirely, and there was nothing left to protect me from the fire.