Chapter 9
LEDGER
The married-athlete housing complex sat on the edge of campus, tucked between the Wilson Center and the intramural fields. It was technically “premium,” which meant it wasn’t falling apart like the upperclassmen dorms, but it wasn’t exactly luxury either.
Roxie stood beside me on the sidewalk, staring up at the brick building like it might collapse on us out of spite.
“This is it?” she asked.
I adjusted the strap of my duffel bag. “Yeah. Building C.”
She blinked. “C for … married chaos?”
“C for can’t-back-out-now,” I muttered.
She elbowed me, lightly, but just enough pressure to say I heard that, swimmer boy. Then she followed me inside.
The lobby was clean, quiet, and smelled faintly like detergent. A bulletin board displayed flyers for couples’ cooking nights and volunteer opportunities. I pretended not to see them.
The apartment assigned to us was on the third floor. We took the stairs, and when we reached the door, I unlocked it and stepped inside.
The apartment itself wasn’t bad—small but clean. Updated flooring, new appliances, fresh paint. A tiny living room that fed into a tiny kitchen. A window overlooking the parking lot. Bathroom across from one other door in the short hallway. Everything neat. Simple.
But then my eyes went back to the one door. One.
And then I froze.
Roxie walked right into my back. “Ow—Ledger, move.”
But then she saw where my gaze was fixed. On the single closed door.
Her voice flattened. “Oh.”
Yeah. Oh.
There was only one bedroom.
One.
“Um,” Roxie said. “I thought we were getting a two-bedroom apartment.”
“Me too,” I said.
“But Coach Saunders said—”
“She thought it’d be a two-bedroom.” I swallowed. “So did I.” I wasn’t sure why I was telling her that again, but I didn’t want her thinking I had done this on purpose.
We both stood there as if we still couldn’t believe what we were seeing.
“It must be because we put in the application late.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “They mentioned how lucky we were to be getting the last unit available.”
She stared at the closed bedroom door like something dangerous waited behind it. “Well. This is … great.”
I stepped farther in, dropping my bag on the couch, if you could call it that. It was more like a loveseat. A very small loveseat.
I was pretty sure my legs were longer than the entire thing.
Roxie walked straight to the bedroom and opened the door. I followed just in time to see her take in the queen-sized bed, one dresser, and zero additional sleeping surfaces.
She turned slowly. “It looks like we aren’t just sharing an apartment, but also a bed.”
“No.” The word came out more forcefully than I had intended, but I could not share a bed with Roxie. Sharing this tiny living space would already push the limit.
She placed her hands on her hips, giving me a pointed stare. “You’re not sleeping on that couch.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.” Not the best comeback, just repeating what I’d said earlier, but it was all I had at the moment. I was too thrown off by this development to be truly invested in our bickering.
She pursed her lips. “It’s too small.”
“I’ve slept on worse,” I lied.
“Have you?” she challenged.
Fair point. There was no way I would fit on that couch. It would be miserable.
She crossed her arms. “You need your sleep for training. That is literally the entire reason we’re doing this. If you’re exhausted, this is pointless.”
My jaw locked. “We’re not sharing a bed.”
“Why? Because we made ‘no touching’ rule number two?” she shot back.
“Exactly.”
“Ledger.” She took one step closer. “The bed is big enough for two humans to sleep on opposite sides without ever coming near each other.”
“You elbow people in your sleep.”
She blinked. “You don’t know that.”
“I can feel it in my soul.”
Her lips twitched like she might smile. “Well, guess what? I snore.”
“I know. I’ve heard you nap on Talon’s couch.”
Her mouth fell open. “That was one time, and I was congested.”
“Oh, please …”
We were standing close now. Too close. Close enough that banter felt … different. Sharper. Charged.
She narrowed her eyes. “The bed is happening.”
“No,” I said automatically.
“Ledger Hayes.”
“That tone won’t work on me.”
She gave me a pitying look. “It works on everyone.”
“Not me.”
She lifted a single brow, giving me a look that already had me wanting to back down.
“Rule number four.” I pointed to her raised brow. “No eyebrow voodoo magic.”
She sighed, running a hand through her hair. “I’m not letting you wreck your body over pride.”
“It’s not pride.”
She gave me a look.
“Okay, it’s eighty percent pride,” I admitted.
“Great. And the other twenty?”
“Boundaries,” I said quietly.
Her expression softened for half a second, so fast I barely caught it. “We’ll have boundaries,” she said. “We already made rules, didn’t we?”
My throat felt tight. I glanced at the couch again. Laughably small. My feet would hang off by a mile. My back would scream at me by morning. Training would tank. Everything I’d fought for … gone.
I’d married someone for swimming. At this point, sharing a bed was just another line item on the list.
I exhaled. “Fine.”
Her brows shot up. “Fine?”
“Fine,” I repeated, hating and accepting it at the same time.
She nodded once, sharp and businesslike. “Good. Because I’m putting a pillow wall between us.”
I shrugged. “Great.”
“It will be a tall wall.”
“Fantastic.”
“And you stay on your side.”
“That was the plan.”
“Okay, then.”
Awkward silence hung in the room.
I set my bag by the dresser and started unpacking. Roxie did the same, her movements efficient, precise, deliberate—typical Roxie. The only time she slowed was when she placed her framed photo of her and Livvi on the dresser. I didn’t miss the way she lingered on it.
We avoided looking at each other.
Roxie finished unpacking first, closing her dresser drawer with a soft thud. “I’m going to shower,” she said, voice carefully neutral.
“Okay.” I cleared my throat. “Yeah. Go ahead.”
She grabbed a pair of sleep shorts and an oversized T-shirt and slipped into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.
The moment it clicked closed, I braced my hands on the dresser and let out a long breath.
This was happening.
We were actually doing this.
A real apartment. A real shared bedroom. A real bed.
My brain kept trying to insist the couch was an option, even though my body had already vetoed the idea. I couldn’t train at Olympic level while sleeping curled like a shrimp.
I changed into my own sleep clothes—athletic shorts and a T-shirt—and took my turn in the bathroom once she was done. The scent of her shampoo still lingered warm in the air. Her towel was neatly folded over the bar. She’d wiped down the mirror. Roxie-level tidy.
When I came out, she was already sitting on the edge of the bed, twisting the ends of her curls in her fingers. She looked up, startled, like she’d forgotten another person lived here now.
Or like this still didn’t feel real to her either.
“Uh,” she said. “You can take the left side.”
“Okay.” I walked to my half, the half behind her giant pillow wall, and tried not to think too hard about how intimate this all felt.
We climbed under the covers at almost exactly the same time, both turning off our bedside lamps with synchronized awkwardness.
Darkness took over the room, softened only by the parking lot glow filtering through the blinds. I stared at the ceiling. I could hear Roxie breathing, not close, exactly, but still noticeably there. A new presence in a space that used to be mine alone.
Her voice broke the quiet first. “I can’t believe we’re married.”
The words were soft, but they hit like a jolt of electricity.
“Yeah,” I said. “Me neither.”
A beat passed.
“What do you think your parents are going to say?” she asked, her tone hesitant, like she wasn’t sure she should ask but wanted to anyway.
I exhaled long and slow. “Honestly? I don’t know.
They’ll probably be disappointed I didn’t tell them.
My dad will ask why we didn’t FaceTime him in so he could make sure the officiant filled out the paperwork correctly.
” A small laugh escaped me. “But if they think I’m happy, then they’ll be happy. ”
She hummed thoughtfully. “They sound kind.”
“They are.”
“And your mom?”
“She’ll ask how we met,” I said. “Which I’m absolutely not answering truthfully.”
“What?” Roxie whispered, sounding horrified and amused at the same time. “You’re not going to tell her that I basically bullied you into marriage?”
“I was going to say you adopted me out of pity,” I deadpanned.
A quiet laugh escaped her, soft but real, and something in my chest eased.
She shifted slightly on her side of the pillow wall.
“What about yours?” I asked.
She sighed, heavy and tired.
“Oh, they’ll be disappointed,” she said flatly. “But not because it’s you, necessarily.”
My stomach clenched. “But because of …?”
“Because it’s not some country club heir they’ve known for twenty years.” Her voice dipped with frustration. “They’ve always assumed I’d marry one of those guys. The ones who talk about golf handicaps and summering in the Hamptons.”
I couldn’t help it—I snorted. “Gross.”
“Extremely.” She paused. “But no, Ledger. You’re not the disappointment.”
I let out my breath.
“You’re just,” she continued softly, “the unexpected option.”
Something warm flickered under my ribs at that, something I refused to name.
She let out a breath, the mattress shifting slightly beneath her. “If anything …” Her voice tightened. “I’ll be the disappointment. Like always.”
Her words were more vulnerable than I expected—not dramatic, not self-pitying, just honest. Too honest. And somehow it made something in my chest twist sharply, because she seemed to really believe that.
Maybe because her parents had trained her to.
Or maybe because she’d learned to preemptively blame herself before anyone else had the chance.
And now she’d married me—the very definition of not their world.
But before I could respond, she was moving on. “Do you think your parents will like me?” Her voice sounded smaller in the dark. Or maybe just unguarded.
I wasn’t ready for vulnerable. Especially not today. I’d had enough out-of-body experiences today to last me a lifetime.
“I think,” I said, putting on my smug voice, the one I knew she didn’t like, “they’ll want to know if you make me miserable.”
She let out a huff of air. “And do I?” Even though I couldn’t see her, I knew she’d rolled her eyes.
“Constantly.”
“Good.” She chuckled. “And ditto.”
We fell quiet again, but it wasn’t the same kind of quiet as before. This one felt significant, somehow. A humming, tentative connection taking shape in the dark.
I stared at the pillow wall between us—the fuzzy, ridiculous monument to boundaries—and let the truth settle in.
We were married.
We’d signed papers.
We moved in.
We were sharing a bedroom.
Sharing a bed.
And somehow, in the span of an hour, we’d had more real conversation than in all the years we’d known each other.
“We’re insane,” Roxie murmured.
“Completely,” I agreed.
Another beat of silence passed.
“What have we done?” she whispered.
I swallowed. “Something we can’t undo.”
She didn’t respond right away, but I heard the way her breath caught, just faintly.
And for a moment, in the quiet of our very small, very married bedroom, it felt like we were suspended in something fragile and unspoken. Something that scared me more than World Trials ever could.
Eventually her breathing steadied. Softened. Drifted.
And before I fell asleep too, one last thought flickered through my mind—not panicked, not resigned. Just stunned.
That was the first real conversation we’ve ever had.
And I wasn’t sure what terrified me more—
That it had happened.
Or that I wanted it to happen again.