CHAPTER 19 — ALMOST HAPPY
POV: Damon Blackwood
The morning after what happened in that locked room had no business being this calm.
The penthouse was bright, flooded with cold light streaming through the tall windows and spreading across the floor like an elegant lie.
Outside, Northaven was still waking under the gray sky, the campus paths damp from last night's rain, the bare trees swaying gently, and the arena in the distance with its doors closed—as if it didn't contain the threat of an article about to dismantle everything.
Inside my place, though, there was the smell of freshly brewed coffee, toasting bread, and Noah Bennett barefoot in my kitchen, wearing an old team shirt of mine as if that weren't a direct assault on my ability to think.
I stood frozen in the doorway to the living room for too long.
The shirt was from a previous season—black, worn at the collar, with Northaven's crest cracked across the chest. I didn't even remember taking it out of the closet.
Maybe it had gotten lost in the laundry.
Maybe Noah had grabbed it by accident, though accidents in this penthouse were becoming dangerously frequent.
The fabric hung loose on his shoulders, dipped lower at the back of his neck, and the sight of my clothes on his body struck something in me that no check on the ice ever could.
There was nothing explicit about the scene.
That's precisely why it was worse. Noah standing at the counter, hair still messy, legs in dark sweatpants, making coffee like he belonged there—he looked like a version of the future I hadn't authorized and yet wanted to stare at until it hurt.
“If you keep standing there looking like that, I'm going to assume you had a stroke from caffeine deprivation and call Marjorie,” he said without turning, stirring something in the pan with a spatula I was certain I'd never used.
“That shirt is mine.”
“Good morning to you too.”
“Bennett.”
He glanced over his shoulder, and his expression was an indecent mix of sleepiness, irritation, and humor.
His mouth still looked a little swollen from the night before, or maybe that was just my memory filling in cruel details.
His eyes dropped to my chest, where the shoulder wrap showed under my clean shirt, then returned to my face with that automatic assessment I'd learned to endure and, in weaker moments, crave.
“Yours, clean, and abandoned in the laundry,” he said. “I needed something to wear after my shower, and my shirt smelled like locker room, crisis, and questionable choices. You have two hundred others just like it. Survive.”
“You're wearing my number.”
Noah looked down at his own chest, where the twenty-seven sat faded on the fabric. When he raised his eyes again, there was provocation there, but also a hint of caution, as if he knew the shirt carried weight beyond the joke.
“Want me to take it off?”
The question could have been banal. It wasn't. It hung between us alongside the heat of the coffee maker, the gray light, and the memory of the locker room where I'd let Noah take the lead until my body obeyed without turning trust into defeat.
My right hand closed around the doorframe before I could take a step.
He noticed, of course. Noah always noticed when I tried to mask reaction as composure.
“No,” I replied, my voice lower than I'd intended. “Keep it.”
His face barely changed. But enough. One corner of his mouth softened before he turned back to the pan, and I crossed the kitchen trying to look less affected than I was.
My shoulder hurt, but not in the worst way.
The tape was holding well, the inflammation had eased overnight, and I'd slept better than I deserved after a week where every hour felt loaded with threat.
Maybe that's why the morning was so dangerous.
Peace created illusions. And Noah in my kitchen created something worse than illusion: want.
“You cooked,” I said, stopping on the other side of the island.
“Don't be dramatic. I made eggs, toast, and coffee. This is basic survival, not a domestic revolution.”
“My kitchen has never witnessed this before.”
“I noticed. I found an expired bag of coffee behind a protein bottle that probably had archaeological value. You eat like someone who thinks money can replace digestive function.”
“I usually eat out.”
“Do you usually use 'out' for everything you don't know how to keep inside?”
The words came out light but cut too deep.
Noah noticed instantly. His smile faltered, and his hand on the spatula went still.
I could have gone on the defensive. I had the arsenal for it.
I could have brought up his leaving, the photo, the folder, Julian's message—everything that made “inside the house” sound like a bad joke.
Instead, I just stood there looking at him, at the shirt with my number, at the coffee he'd made, and at the way the question seemed to have been asked of both of us, not just me.
“Maybe,” I replied.
Noah was quiet for a second, and the absence of a sarcastic response felt almost like a touch. Then he grabbed a mug, poured coffee, and slid it toward me across the counter.
“Drink. You get dangerously philosophical before caffeine.”
The mug was my favorite—black, no design, heavy enough to feel like it could survive being dropped.
Noah had chosen it without knowing. Or maybe he'd chosen it because he noticed it was the most used.
I didn't ask. I drank, and the strong, decent taste—much better than anything I'd make—settled the morning into something almost normal.
Almost. That word was the most we could have before the world remembered where to find us.
“Mason texted,” Noah said, setting a plate in front of me. “Nothing yet in the team group chats. Valerie hasn't posted anything either. He's monitoring, which means, in his words, 'sacrificing my peace for two idiots with enough tension to power the arena.'”
“Did he use those exact words?”
“He used worse. I edited out of respect for breakfast.”
I sat at the island. Noah came to my side, not across from me, and leaned his hip against the counter while he ate standing up.
That detail got to me more than it should have.
The closeness without urgency, without fighting, without hands reaching for each other to prove something.
Just Noah stealing a piece of toast from my plate after giving me a whole other plate, and me letting him.
Maybe almost happy was this: a string of permissions too small to scare you until it was too late.
“It's still Saturday,” he said, looking at my shoulder and then at my face. “Big game tonight. You're going to follow the plan.”
“You say that like I have a history of ignoring medical advice.”
“Damon.”
“Fine. I'll follow the plan.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Say it again without sounding like you're signing your own death warrant.”
“I'll follow the plan, Noah.”
Saying his name changed the kitchen. Not from immediate desire, though that was always there, underneath everything, like heat beneath thin ice.
It changed because the words came out simple.
Without venom. Without dispute. Noah lowered his eyes to the mug, and his fingertips slid along the handle as if he needed to touch something that wasn't me.
“Don't play to prove anything to Julian, the photo, the team, me, or yourself,” he said, voice lower. “Play because it's your job and because your body can still handle it within limits. If the pain goes above a seven, you come out. If there's tingling, you come out. If I signal, you come out.”
“And if the game needs me?”
“The game needs you whole, not destroyed.”
“Did you rehearse that line?”
“I rehearsed several. Most involve threatening your ego with humiliating medical metaphors.”
“That one was almost kind.”
“Don't get used to it.”
I almost smiled. Noah saw and looked away to grab the coffee.
The morning went on like that for a few more minutes: dry conversation, disguised care, the weight of the article hovering outside but unable to fully breach the kitchen.
He helped me adjust the tape after my shower, and the scene should have been purely clinical.
It wasn't. He stood behind me, smoothing the edge of the brace over my skin, and I felt his breath near the back of my neck.
I didn't push forward. Neither did he. There was a new kind of tension in not turning every touch into combustion.
A harder tension, because it required trust. And trust, between us, was still a blade without a handle.
Before we left for the arena, Noah took the box with the Bennett file and locked it in the built-in safe in my office.
I watched from the doorway while he typed the password I'd given him minutes before.
He didn't comment on the fact that I'd trusted him with the code to the most private part of the penthouse.
Neither did I. But when the safe door closed, his eyes found mine, and something silent passed between us.
A trust still small, maybe. A young and fragile thing.
Enough to make me want to defend it with my hands.
“Done,” he said. “Now, for the love of any sports god, let's pretend we're functional people for a few hours.”
“Think we can pull it off?”
“Separately, maybe. Together, the odds aren't great.”
“You like bad odds.”
He grabbed his backpack, still wearing my shirt under the department jacket. “I like challenges. Don't confuse that with bad taste.”