21. Rose
Rose
Kirin directed her toward Happy Burger in neighboring Silver Tree, insisting they had the best shakes and malts outside of Kismet.
She wasn’t sure why that mattered. Her instincts—already off-kilter since last November—had been pinging since he told her they needed to talk somewhere “away from curious eyes.”
It shouldn’t have felt ominous, but lately everything had.
Preston’s latest messages had left her jumpy, and she’d been expecting to go back to Rita’s, so this detour only tightened the coil in her stomach.
She drove with her playlist low, Kirin humming now and then as if he sensed her nerves but didn’t want to call them out.
Maybe the kiss was too much. Maybe Laurel found out this was all for a project. Or worse—maybe he knew about Preston. The thought lodged in her throat. What lies could Preston have told him?
Her hands trembled as she rolled up to the drive-thru speaker. She was staring blankly at the menu when Kirin’s hand came down on her knee. She flinched, and his hand disappeared.
“Hey. It’s just me.” His voice was soft, a slow rhythm meant to ground her.
His hand appeared near her knee again, slowly dropping as if waiting for her to push him away.
When his hand settled, his thumb brushed lazy circles against her knee, a gesture meant to calm her.
It only made her pulse race faster. “Order whatever you want. But you have to get the triple chocolate malt. It’s nonnegotiable. ”
She nodded, trying to steady her breath long enough to mumble the order.
As she drove up to the window to pay, her mind was a jumbled mess of worry colliding with flashes of their kiss—how his hands had spanned most of her back.
She didn’t realize just how big they were until they were on her.
He’d slid them down until he gripped her ass.
He couldn’t know it, but having her ass grabbed and squeezed was a weakness of hers and not something she’d ever admitted to. The heat Kirin had spilled into her blood with that simple act had scared her almost as much as it thrilled her.
He passed her a twenty to pay, smiling at the teenager in the window who couldn’t stop glancing between them. Rose watched out of the corner of her eye. “Doesn’t it get weird? When people recognize you all the time?”
He glanced over, fingers tapping his thigh. “Does it get weird for you?”
“I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but”—she turned to him, her tone serious—“women’s sports don’t garner the same public attention as men’s.”
His quick laugh startled her—and she almost asked what was funny, but the window opened, and she handed over the twenty, receiving their malts in exchange.
She followed his directions as she left the drive-thru, weaving through a tangle of back roads, and tried to pretend her nerves weren’t shaking her apart.
He guided her up a hill and told her to turn left.
The overlook opened onto a view of Kismet Lake, moonlight rippling across the dark water, the sprawl of campus twinkling at the far end.
“You seem nervous,” he whispered, watching the horizon.
“I’m driving,” she deflected, then bit her lip before the rest could slip out—you could hurt me.
They were alone. He could do anything, say anything, and no one would know. Her heart kicked painfully at the reminder, and when he looked over, she swore he could hear it.
“We can go somewhere else,” he offered. His expression was open, concerned—not a hint of annoyance.
She shook her head. He kept his tone gentle. “I just thought you might be more willing to talk if it was quiet.”
Her stomach dropped. “Talk about what?”
He sighed, rubbing his face, and the silence thickened until she couldn’t stand it. Her thoughts raced in every direction. He regrets the kiss. He wants to end our project or our fake-dating arrangement entirely. I’ve misread everything. Again.
“Hey.” His voice broke through the spiral. His hand touched her knee again, light but firm like he wanted to keep her grounded. “I’m not mad. I just need to ask what’s going on.”
“Nothing’s going on,” she answered too quickly, which he noticed.
Of course he noticed.
He slipped his phone out of his pocket, thumbed through something, then turned the screen toward her. “I think you should see this.”
She looked, dread and curiosity warring, until everything went silent.
Her photo. Her body. Her face. Thousands of likes. Hundreds of shares.
She snatched the phone from him. Her hands shook as she scrolled. The comments blurred. Her lungs burned.
Nobody should have those pictures. She’d watched Preston delete them. Watched him empty his trash folder while she sat beside him. They’d laughed about their little photo session, and weeks later, when he started hurting her, she’d been relieved he didn’t have them.
Oh, how na?ve she’d been.
There they were—online, permanent, spreading to more and more people with every second.
It was ironic that he’d shared that one—the last night they’d been together. The one from that damn party. The one that ended everything. The one she hadn’t realized someone had taken.
Her stomach twisted. She heard herself breathe too loudly, too fast. The sound filled her head until she barely registered Kirin’s voice.
“Rose.” His tone was firm, sharp enough to cut through the panic. He gently pried the phone from her fingers, setting it facedown on the bench between them. “Rose, look at me.”
She couldn’t. If she did, she’d fall apart.
She stared straight ahead, tears slipping hot down her cheeks, waiting for it to be a nightmare. To wake up and crawl out of bed and throw up. But her nightmares never featured Kirin. Those belonged to blue eyes and a cruel smile under flashing streetlights on a blurry road.
“Rose.” His voice came closer, softer. He shuffled into the middle seat. Once again, his hand lifted—hesitated, unsure—then dropped. “I don’t know what happened. But I think I understand enough to know you didn’t deserve it.”
Her heart cracked. She rubbed her hands over her eyes, trying to make the world stop.
She needed a second, one moment where nobody could see her, where there were no expectations because it was a second between seconds.
Where she could just be. But that’s not how life works, nor is it how the world works.
No, instead, her world tilted. Her vision swapped its clarity for a funhouse mirror as everything went wobbly.
The effect was slow and nauseating. She cried—quietly at first—grieving her sanity, her peace, a life where people could look her up without finding those photos of her.
Then, she shook as the anger appeared faster than a flash flood—her cries turned to sobs.
Kirin didn’t touch her again. He just stayed beside her, steady and silent, while the sobs worked their way through with each emotion.
A collection of natural disasters stacked on top of one another like a flipbook.
Every sound in the car seemed too loud—her gasps, the distant sounds of wildlife living without the internet haunting them, the wind buffeting against the windows.
She’d survived the hospital stay, flipping her world upside down, the threats, the photos dropped in her mailbox, the months of fear and humiliation before everything and after it. But this—this was different. Preston had taken something intimate and turned it into another weapon.
Something she couldn’t erase.
By the time the sobs subsided, the sky had deepened into blue-black. Her eyes ached; her throat burned. When she finally glanced at Kirin, he wasn’t pitying her—just waiting. Present.
The simple steadiness nearly broke her all over again.
“What do you think you know?” she asked hoarsely, wiping her face with the back of her hand as she stared out the windshield.
“Can you look at me?”
She closed her eyes at the gentle request, took a breath, and did.
“I think you got out of a dangerous situation with a dangerous person,” he said. “Maybe Goodwin. Maybe someone else, but I doubt it. I’m not sure which parts fit and which ones don’t, but I know it wasn’t your fault.”
Her laugh was sharp, brittle. Manic. “Just a guess, huh?”
“I’m not just some dumb jock, Rose. And Westmont’s been all over the news—this has been coming into focus for a while.”
She sighed, sinking back against the seat. “I don’t talk about it—what happened.”
He nodded. “You don’t have to tell me everything. But I’d like to understand. Just enough to make sure you’re okay. To help, if that’s possible.”
The calmness of his voice was a strange comfort.
She’d gone over this story so many times, and nothing good ever came of it.
The police took her statement, and then dropped it in the shredder for all she knew.
The lawyers had her go over it several times, ensuring they had every single detail. It didn’t make any difference.
She’d told her parents some details. Kenzie knew more.
Kirin only waited, much like Kenzie had. Quiet, patient.
It made her want to tell him, but it would take weeks to get through all of it, so she started with the obvious bits. The parts that would help him understand and might protect him if Preston retaliated.
“I knew Preston had a temper,” she began, her eyes drifting back to the view.
“Everyone did. He was charming when he wanted to be, and I told myself that was enough. That it was passion, not control. Then the control started—what I wore, how I talked to people, who I talked to, how I should behave around his teammates. I kept telling myself he just wanted the best for me. That it was all part of the package because of his family. There were expectations. I had to learn the rules, obey them, and it would be easier.”