Chapter 15 #2
“Have fun.”
“We aren’t having fun.”
“Then you’re doing it wrong.”
Their giggles float back through the stairwell.
Hannah watches them go.
“Traitors.”
The RA slides a guest sheet toward me.
“Sign in.”
I sign my name.
She sighs and leads me up.
Her room feels like her.
Books line the windowsill and spill from the shelves. Notes are pinned above her desk beside photographs of Chicago, the youth team, and her roommates.
The radiator knocks inside the wall.
A faucet drips in the small sink.
Her bed is neatly made, though one corner of the blanket has been folded back. A paperback lies facedown across the pillow.
“You ironed your sheets,” I say.
Hannah squints at me.
“How can you tell?”
“They look formal.”
“I was distracted.”
“By me?”
“By household maintenance.”
“Same thing.”
She closes the door, then takes the grocery bag.
“I didn’t realize you’d be panic-shopping for me.”
“The aisle had too many choices.”
“That must have been difficult.”
She unloads the popcorn, Dr Pepper, and candy.
Then the chocolate.
Then the gummy bears.
Her eyebrows rise.
“You panicked hard.”
“I wanted options.”
For a moment, neither of us says anything.
The kiss hangs between us.
So does what she said afterward.
‘I won’t be used.’
“I didn’t come for coaching,” I tell her.
Her fingers stop on the Dr Pepper cap.
“I didn’t say you did.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I think many things.”
“I came because you left before I could see you.”
The sarcasm disappears from her face.
I continue before she replaces it.
“You were the only person in that arena I wanted to find.”
“You’re still high from the win.”
“I’ve won before.”
“That sounded arrogant.”
“It was factual.”
She fights a smile.
“Put on a movie, Haverhill.”
I open the laptop.
“What are we watching?”
“Anything without basketball.”
“That removes most quality cinema.”
“No sports. No documentaries about misunderstood point guards. No music where anyone rhymes money with money.”
“That isn’t a movie genre.”
“It should be.”
I find an old adventure film involving archaeologists, curses, and enough historical inaccuracies to make her start objecting before I press play.
“This?”
“It’s terrible.”
“So no?”
“I didn’t say that.”
We sit against the wall on her bed, leaving enough space between us to satisfy Hannah’s distrust.
She pulls a thick blanket across her lap.
Then higher.
I glance at her.
“What?”
“You’re hiding.”
“I’m cold.”
“The radiator is trying to cook us.”
“I’m comfortable.”
“You know I’ve seen women without bras before.”
“Not women wearing Demogorgons.”
I look at the monster stretched across her shirt.
“First time for everything.”
She throws a gummy worm at me.
I catch it and eat it.
The movie starts.
For the first twenty minutes, Hannah corrects every historical detail.
“That artifact is from the wrong period.”
“Maybe the villain time-traveled.”
“That language didn’t exist.”
“He’s innovative.”
“No legitimate excavation operates like this.”
“It would be a short movie if everyone completed the permits.”
She laughs.
Her shoulders gradually loosen.
The blanket slips lower.
At some point, she reaches across me for the popcorn. Her hair brushes my jaw.
Thick.
Wavy.
Soft enough that I have to fight the urge to wind it around my fingers.
It smells like almonds and something warmer underneath.
She returns to her side with a handful of popcorn, unaware the whole room just shifted.
Or pretending to be.
Halfway through the movie, Hannah’s commentary slows.
Then stops.
Her head settles against my shoulder.
I go still.
Her breathing evens out, one hand resting loosely near my arm beneath the blanket.
Hannah Goodwin has fallen asleep on me.
The movie continues, light shifting across the room. I lower the volume and look down.
Without the sarcasm ready on her tongue, her face softens. A tiny freckle sits high on her cheek. Her long lashes rest against smooth skin behind the lenses of her glasses.
The gold star remains on her chin.
Her thick hair spills across my shoulder in dark waves, carrying that faint almond scent I recognized before I recognized her.
I want to push it away from her face.
I don’t.
Any movement might wake her, and I’m not ready for the walls to return.
My shoulder starts going numb.
I stay still.
She challenged my game, lied about her name, stole my seat, and accused me of trying to use her.
Now she trusts me enough to sleep against me.
That feels more intimate than the kiss.
Near the end of the movie, she shifts. Her nose brushes my hoodie, and her fingers curl into my sleeve.
“Kane?”
Her voice is soft with sleep.
“Still here.”
She blinks up at me, unfocused behind her glasses.
“Did you really play better because of what I said?”
“No.”
Her brows pull together.
I let the silence sit for a beat.
“I played better because you were watching.”
Hannah holds my gaze.
Then she realizes where her head is and straightens too quickly. The blanket slips into her lap.
“Don’t get used to that.”
“Too late.”
“It’s late.”
I close my laptop and stand.
Her hair is mussed from sleep. Her glasses have slid low on her nose. The oversized shirt hangs crooked from one shoulder, and she looks warm, soft, and nothing like the girl who threatened me with a pencil.
“Good night, Haverhill.”
I should leave. I place my laptop on her desk and lean down.
Hannah watches me come closer.
I give her time to stop me.
She doesn’t.
My hand slides into the thick hair at the back of her neck, and I kiss her.
Firm.
Slow.
Her breath catches against my mouth.
Then her fingers close around the front of my hoodie, and she kisses me back.
No anger to hide behind this time.
No argument.
Just Hannah’s warm mouth, her grip tightening in my sweatshirt, and the quiet hum of the old radiator beside us.
I pull away before I forget the open door and where we are.
Her lips are pink. Her eyes remain closed for one extra second before lifting to mine.
I touch the edge of the gold star on her chin.
“Good night, Footnote.”
Her sleepy expression sharpens.
“Footnotes are minor details.”
“I know,” my voice is soft and husky.
“And easily skipped.”
“Not this one,” I whisper hoarsely.
That silences her.
I straighten and head for the doorway.
Hannah remains on the edge of the bed, watching me leave with her fingers still curled against the place where she held my hoodie.
Footnote.
The name used to fit because I thought she was a strange little addition at the edge of my real life.
Now she’s inside my game. My classes. My head.
Maybe I’ve been calling her the wrong thing.
Footnotes live at the bottom of a page.
Endnotes wait until everything else is finished.
And somewhere between the library, the gym, and finding her asleep against my shoulder, Hannah Goodwin has started to feel less like an interruption.
More like where the story is headed.
* * *
The walk back to the athlete quad should feel longer. The night is cold enough to sharpen every breath, but I barely notice. Leaves scrape along the stone paths. Lights glow behind dorm windows. Somewhere across campus, a party has spilled onto a balcony, music carrying through the dark.
I feel more awake than I have in months.
Not game-night charged.
Not the restless high that follows a win.
Something quieter.
Cleaner.
Hannah fell asleep on my shoulder.
That should not matter more than twenty-six points and eleven assists.
It does.
I thought Stella was the answer for a long time. We understood the same hunger. The same loneliness of earning a place in rooms designed for someone else. I thought if she chose me, it would prove all the work had led somewhere beyond trophies and headlines.
Then she chose Vale.
After that, I tried simplicity.
Parties. Groupies. Women who looked good in photographs and wanted exactly what I expected them to want.
Krista had legs built for speed, faster hands, and kisses that never gave me time to think. For a while, that seemed ideal. She didn’t ask for emotional honesty. I didn’t ask for conversation that lasted beyond whatever bed we landed in.
It was easy.
It was also empty.
Hannah is nothing like easy.
She challenges every sentence I say. Finds cracks in arguments I thought were solid. Watches my game and sees the mistake beneath the result.
She sees the parts that need work.
The strangest thing is that she doesn’t want to profit from any of it.
No pictures.
No access.
No future contract.
She left the arena before cameras could turn her into a question.
Hannah needs nothing from me.
I’m the one who followed her.
I needed her answer in the library. Her correction at the gym. Her face in the stands tonight.
I needed to find her after she disappeared.
That should bother me.
Instead, I smile like an idiot while crossing the quad.
A girl who has spent weeks trying to get away from me has somehow become the first person I look for.
Maybe Stella was never the answer.
Maybe losing myself with Krista wasn’t either.
Maybe the answer is someone who can see every flaw and still show up with Twizzlers.
The suite is dark when I get back.
Noah’s door is closed. Music hums faintly behind Jalen’s, though he’s probably wearing headphones and forgot to shut down his speakers.
We each have our own bedroom around a shared living area. It’s the closest athlete housing gets to privacy without letting us forget we’re still college students.
I strip off my hoodie and jeans, then pull on thin plaid pajama pants.
No shirt.
No socks.
The room is warm enough without them.
I set my phone on the nightstand and climb beneath the covers.
Hannah hasn’t texted.
I consider sending something.
Me: Still thinking about that kiss.
Too much.
Me: Your pimple patch was cute.
Immediate death.
Me: Sleep well, Footnote.
Worse.
I put the phone facedown.
The kiss replays anyway.
Her fingers twisting into my hoodie.
The soft sound she made when my hand slid into her hair.
The way she kissed me back before her mind could rebuild every reason not to.
Then there was the game.
Seeing her arrive late and breathless.
The wink.
Her head shaking when I forced the drive.
That single nod after I made the right read.