Chapter 13 — Ninety-Six Pages （Nora） #2
He held my gaze without flinching, gray-green and steady, and his voice came out rough and quiet and absolutely sure. He said, “Ninety-six pages. That's my whole head. Don't lose it.”
The room tilted soft around the edges before I locked my knees under the table and forced air into my lungs. I whispered, “Two full sets? All of it? Beck, if this gets out — your career —”
“I know what it costs,” he cut in, gentle but firm, and he shook his head once. “Keep it. Study it. Don't let it leave your bag.”
Tears burned the backs of my eyes and I ducked my chin so he would not see them fall, hugging the notebook harder till its corners dug into my arms. I said, “Why me? Why would you risk this on me?”
His thumb brushed my knuckles once where my hands gripped the cover, warm and rough and lingering a heartbeat too long, and every nerve in my hand lit up. He said, “You're the only one who's never tried to fix me. That's why it's you.”
Want roared through me so sudden my breath hitched, and I couldn't look away from his mouth, and I didn't want to. My pulse hammered in my throat while his thumb rested against my skin.
He drew a shaky breath and eased his thumb back a fraction, his eyes never leaving mine, heat and restraint warring open across his face. He said, “I wanted to keep your hand, so I counted and didn't.”
My heart slammed so hard I felt it in my fingertips, and I curled my fingers where his thumb had been to hold the warmth a second longer. I said, “If you keep looking at me like that, I won't remember a single play.”
His breath caught audible and his eyes dropped to my mouth then jerked back to my eyes, dark and hot and restrained all at once. He rasped, “Nora — Picasso — God. You make it hard to think straight.”
Heat bloomed low in my belly before any sensible tutor thought could intervene, and I bit my lip hard to keep from leaning across the table. I whispered, “Then we'd better get back to the drill before I do something stupid.”
He pulled back deliberate and squared the pens again with a shaky exhale, putting the oak table and the playbook and sheer willpower between us. He said, “Right. Drill. Ask me — ask me the goal-line pictures.”
We stumbled back into the work with our knees almost touching under the table and the real notebook warm against my arm, and his voice steadied line by line. I said, “Okay. Bunched formation. Show me the stars.”
He drew them clean from memory without opening the cover, three routes blooming like constellations above the oak, and pride steadied my shaking hands. He said, “Slant star. Fade star. Fullback — little comet underneath.”
I tapped the next diagram with my fingertip and leaned so close our sleeves almost brushed, and the clean soap-and-rain smell of him cut straight through the radiator dust. I said, “Okay, hotshot. Third and long. Nickel package. What do you see?”
His eyes narrowed on the middle distance and his pen hovered, and I watched his whole face go calm the way it always does when the pictures lock in. He said, “Two deep stars. Corners soft. Middle opens like a door.”
My heart kicked hard because he had just handed me the exact answer in his own language, and I translated it back fast so he could hear himself right. I said, “Middle linebacker drops, window opens, seam route. Say it with me.”
“Seam route,” he repeated, low and certain, and his knee bumped mine under the table and stayed pressed there while he talked. “Seam. Got it. Next one.”
Rain hammered harder against the tall windows and the gray light thinned toward blue, and my cold toes curled inside my damp sneakers under the table. I sipped the latte he had ordered exactly my way and let the cinnamon burn warm down my throat. I said, “You remembered the extra shot. Again.”
He shrugged one big shoulder and stared at his squared pens like they were suddenly fascinating, and the tips of his ears went pink. He said, “You think better warm. Cold hands — cold hands make everything harder.”
Something tender and fierce swelled behind my sternum before I could armor against it, and I curled my fingers tighter around the cup to hide the shake. I said, “You notice everything. You know that? Everything nobody else catches.”
He looked up then, held and held, gray-green eyes unwavering, and the radiator hiss faded to nothing under the loud thud of my own pulse. He said, “Only with you. Only — your stuff sticks. The rest slides off.”
The air between us went thick and warm despite the cold glass at my back, and I forced my eyes down to the review sheet before I melted straight through the chair. I whispered, “Okay. One more picture. Then we pack. Deal?”
“Deal,” he said, rough and soft at once, and flipped to the last diagram with careful fingers. “Give me the hard one. I want — I want to get it right for you.”
“Perfect,” I breathed, and for a minute the rain and the podcast and the locker-room threat all fell away. “You've got this whole offense living in you. It's kind of beautiful.”
Dusk pressed blue-black against the windows and Marisol's six o'clock warning echoed in my head, so I packed the review sheets fast while Beck watched every move. I said, “We'd better run before they lock us in here.”
He stood and held my jacket open without a word while I slid the black grid notebook deep into the inside pocket and zipped it tight against my ribs. He said, “Keep it zipped up. Don't show it around the facility, please.”
The weight of every single page settled warm and terrifying against my side, and I pressed my palm over the zipper to feel its edges. I promised, “It won't leave my sight. Not the library. Not — nowhere.”
? ? ?
The hallway smelled of wet concrete when we slipped out, footsteps echoing past the dark tutoring center.
Rain needled my cheeks the second we hit the wet lot, and I hunched my shoulders with one hand clamped over the zipped book inside my jacket. I said, “My car. Come on. You'll soak through.”
He walked me to the driver's door with rain darkening his shoulders and dripping off his shaggy hair, and he crowded close under the lot light to block the wind. He said, “Text me when it's open. Read — read the first ten tonight.”
My fingers fumbled the keys because he stood so close I could feel his breath warm against my cold forehead, and my whole body leaned toward him before I caught it. I said, “First ten. Got it. And Beck — thank you. For trusting me.”
He brushed one raindrop off my cheek with the back of his knuckle, feather-light, then curled his hand back to his side like it cost him everything. He murmured, “Drive safe. Keep — keep it close.”
I dropped into the driver's seat and cranked the heat while rain hammered the windshield into gold smears.
Through fogging glass I watched him jog toward the facility, head down, wristband dark with rain, the decoy still in his locker for whoever wanted it.
My palm found the hard rectangle zipped inside my jacket, his pictures and secrets pressed to my ribs, my breath shaking in the cold car.
I zipped his whole mind inside my jacket, and understood what he'd just risked for me.