Chapter 8
Adrian
The Briarcliff athletic center’s designated study hall smells like desperation and dry-erase markers.
The air is thick and recycled, the fluorescent lights hum with a flat, institutional buzz, and the chairs are molded plastic atrocities designed to punish the spine.
It’s a cage, plain and simple. A holding pen for high-value assets who can’t be trusted to keep their own grades up. I hate every fucking thing about it.
I drop my gear bag by a chair in the back, the thud echoing in the tense quiet as the rest of the team files in behind me, a low-grade current of resentment rolling off them in waves.
This is Addison’s latest power play, a response to the compliance report that landed me in this mess. Now, the whole team pays the price.
Calder slumps into a chair and immediately puts his feet on the table.
Gio starts a rhythmic, annoying tapping with his pen.
Rylan is already scrolling on his phone under the table, thinking he’s slick.
They act like this is just another inconvenience.
They don’t get it. They don’t have my father’s voice in their head, a low, constant threat reminding them that failure is blood in the water.
The door opens and Coach Addison steps in. The room goes silent.
“Listen up,” he says, his voice cracking through the bullshit like a stick across ice.
“Midterms are three weeks away. Eligibility is not a suggestion; it’s a requirement.
If your GPA drops, you don’t play. I don’t care if your last name is Hale and you score a hat trick every game.
You will not be a liability to this program.
” His gaze sweeps the room, landing on me for a fraction of a second too long.
“Don’t test me on this.” He nods to the front of the room.
“My daughter is your proctor. You will show her respect. Any issues, you answer to me.”
He leaves. The door clicks shut behind him, and the pressure in the room triples.
At the front desk, Talia Addison looks up from her clipboard. She has her father’s serious eyes but none of his overt menace. She radiates a quiet, unshakable authority that is somehow more intimidating. A spy in the camp. Great.
And that’s when I see her.
Clara Harrington sits at a small, designated “Tutor” table near the front, perpendicular to Talia’s desk.
She’s not looking at me. She’s meticulously arranging a small stack of textbooks, her movements precise and controlled.
My gut clenches, a hot, territorial spike like a skate blade digging into ice. What the hell is she doing here?
Then it clicks. She’s not here for me. She’s a library resource. For the whole fucking team. The thought of Rylan or Gio walking up to her, leaning over her, asking for her help, makes my jaw ache.
She’s supposed to be my problem. Mine to solve. Mine to fight. Not a public utility for my teammates to paw at.
A freshman defenseman, looking lost, is the first to approach.
I watch, my focus narrowing to a blade as Clara’s expression softens almost imperceptibly.
She listens, nods, and points to a line in his textbook, her voice too low for me to hear but the tone patient, calm.
He walks away looking relieved. I hate the soft edge of patience in her voice. It doesn’t belong to him. It’s mine.
My eyes drift across the room to Declan. He’s in a corner, as usual, lost in a thick history book, his posture a study in stoic concentration. His pen skitters under Talia’s desk. She picks it up and holds it out.
“Reid,” she says softly.
He takes it, their fingers brushing for a fraction of a second too long. He stiffens. She blinks, and the moment snaps.
My attention snaps back to the front of the room as Rylan gets up. He saunters over to Clara’s table, leaning against it with a lazy smirk.
“Hey, Scholar,” he says, his voice carrying in the quiet room. “Got a question about my thesis.”
Clara doesn’t look up from her book. “You don’t have a thesis, Rylan. You have a series of poorly structured opinions.”
The room doesn’t laugh. It stills, the silence so sudden the flat hum of the fluorescent lights feels loud. Everyone is waiting. My pencil creaks under the pressure of my grip, the wood on the verge of splintering.
Rylan’s smirk tightens. “Sharp tongue. I like it.”
Every second I stay seated is a blade under my skin. I want to cross the room and peel him off her desk.
But I don’t have to. Clara finally looks up, her gaze flat and unimpressed. “Do you have an actual academic question, or are you just trying to get your daily requirement of attention?”
His face flushes. He mutters something about a citation and slinks back to his seat.
“Don’t waste your time on trash,” I mutter, low enough that only she could possibly hear.
The silence that follows feels carved in stone. Inside me, something dark and hot coils. She handled him. Didn’t need me. The realization is a savage twist—infuriating and intoxicating all at once.
When she thinks no one is watching. Her fingers dart across her trackpad, guilty-quick.
I see the Briarcliff bookstore logo, then a link for ‘Required Course Materials.’ A page for an organic chemistry textbook loads, and then I see the price: $285.
I watch as a flicker of pure, gut-wrenching panic crosses her face.
Her lashes press shut hard in a blink that looks like surrender, and it makes my chest burn.
She slams the browser shut. Two eighty-five.
I could buy it with pocket change. But I wanted her to come to me, to admit she needed something, to give me that piece of her, too. I wanted her to ask.
That’s what she’s really fighting. Not just us. Everything.
I’m supposed to be studying, but the words in my history textbook are just black marks on a page. Her voice from our first session echoes in my head: “I correct statistical outliers. Right now, that’s you.” The memory of her calm, cutting defiance is a constant, irritating thrum under my skin.
At one point, she looks up, catching me watching her.
My mouth tilts, humorless. “Keep looking at me like that, Tutor Girl, and I might start thinking you enjoy this.”
Her voice stays calm, deliberate. “You’re not nearly as interesting as you think.”
The corner of my mouth twitches, sharp and humorless. Irritation cuts clean through, a blade I usually keep hidden. Her words lodge deep. I hold myself rigid, the tension coiling under my skin, begging to break free where she can see it.
The two hours crawl by in a haze of suppressed frustration. I watch Clara help two other players. I watch Talia shut down Gio for trying to watch game highlights on his phone. I watch the clock. Every tick is a countdown to when she’ll look at me again. She never does.
When Talia finally calls time, the collective sigh of relief from the team is almost comical as they surge out of the room like they’ve been freed from prison. Calder mutters loud enough for the guys at our table to hear, “Cap’s pet project again.”
I’m one of the last to leave. As I pack my bag, I see Clara organizing her table, her back to me.
Deliberate. Controlled. Like she’s making a point.
The urge to walk over there, to shatter that calm mask, claws at me.
But I don’t. Not here. Not with Addison’s daughter watching every move like a fucking spy.
I walk out, the unresolved tension coiling tighter in my gut.
My bag strap bites into my palm as I force myself past her.
This is torture—her in reach, me in chains.
Tomorrow is Wednesday.
Tomorrow, I get her in a room alone. No audience. No escape.
And I’ll make damn sure she remembers exactly whose problem she is.