Chapter 3
MAISIE
I see Boone Kinkaid twice before our Thursday study session, which wouldn’t be a big deal if I hadn’t spent the first three weeks of the semester not noticing he existed.
I knew who he was, obviously. Everyone on campus knows Boone.
His face is on the athletic posters, his family name is everywhere, and girls in my dorm have analyzed his ass with a level of detail that honestly feels like a privacy violation.
But knowing a guy exists and suddenly having your brain short-circuit every time he enters a room are two very different things, and I hate what it says about me.
The first time happens Wednesday morning in the dining hall.
I’m digging through my bag for a smashed granola bar because I overslept, skipped breakfast, and stupidly thought I could run on caffeine until lunch.
I finally yank the wrapper open, look up, and spot Boone across the room laughing with a couple of guys from the football team.
He looks relaxed and stupidly good, and I stare long enough that I walk straight into a concrete support column.
Not a glancing blow. My forehead meets actual solid concrete.
I stumble back, clutching my granola bar like a weapon, and look around in pure terror.
Nobody reacts. Either I got lucky or Creature University students are too polite to point out when someone concusses herself over a werewolf.
I shove half the granola bar in my mouth and march out, furious at myself.
He’s hot. Big deal. I’ve lived twenty years around attractive men without damaging campus infrastructure.
After that, it feels like he’s everywhere—crossing the quad with his gym bag, sitting near the windows in the student center, just constantly in my line of sight.
The second time I can’t avoid him is Thursday morning. Delilah and I are getting ready for class when movement outside our window catches my eye. I look down and see Boone jogging along the path.
Shirtless.
It’s fifty-two degrees outside.
I know the man owns clothes because his massive gray team hoodie is currently draped over the back of my desk chair.
He lent it to me Tuesday night after deciding my canvas jacket was useless, and I’ve been meaning to give it back.
Mostly I keep forgetting, which is definitely the reason and has nothing to do with the fact that it’s warm and smells like cedar and rain.
I stand there staring out the window until Delilah speaks behind me.
“You’re doing the thing again.”
I drop the curtain and spin around fast. Delilah is sitting on her bed, floating her history textbook at eye level because holding paper with her hands is apparently beneath a witch.
“I’m not doing anything,” I say, grabbing my hairbrush. “I looked outside.”
“For forty-five seconds,” she says, flipping a page without touching it. “Straight at Boone.”
“He wasn’t wearing a shirt, Delilah. It’s freezing out. I was concerned for his health.”
She gives me a flat look. “You were concerned about his abs.”
“I was concerned about the general decline of common sense on this campus.”
“Maisie, that girl in my history class? She saw you almost take out a support column in the dining hall yesterday.”
My brush freezes mid-stroke. “She’s a liar.”
“She said you bounced off the concrete, panicked, and pretended to inspect your granola bar.”
“I hate this school.”
Delilah grins. “I thought it was a very graceful recovery.”
“I’m leaving.” I shove the brush in my bag and grab my books. “I have class, a quiz tomorrow, and real problems that don’t involve Boone Kinkaid’s lack of shirt.”
“I didn’t say you had a problem.”
“Your face did.”
She sets her book down and sits up straighter, her expression shifting from teasing to something more serious. “Speaking of real problems—I have my coven threshold-ward practical this weekend.”
I pause, actually turning to look at her. “The defensive warding thing?”
“Yeah.” She tucks a strand of dark hair behind her ear, and I catch the nervous energy underneath her casual tone.
“The one I’ve been studying for all semester.
I’m actually excited, but also terrified.
Defensive warding is my favorite kind of magic—it’s all about protection, creating barriers that hold.
But the practical is brutal. They test you under pressure, and if your concentration breaks even a little, the whole thing collapses. ”
“When is it exactly?”
“Saturday morning. Which means I basically have to spend the next three days not thinking about it, which is impossible. So instead I’m going to think about it constantly.”
I can’t help but smile. “Very on-brand.”
“I know.” She grimaces. “I’m already a mess. I’ve been practicing the same sequence for two weeks, and yesterday I accidentally warded my textbook to my desk. Took me twenty minutes to undo it.”
“Did you try just... pulling harder?”
“Maisie, that’s not how magic works.”
“I know, I’m just testing your stress levels.” I set my bag down and lean against the desk. “You’re going to crush it, though. You know this stuff better than anyone.”
She looks at me, and something in her expression softens. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You literally talk about warding theory in your sleep. Last week you spent forty minutes explaining threshold boundaries to me while I was trying to eat cereal. You’re going to walk in there and show them exactly what you can do.”
Delilah grins, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. “Okay. Okay, I’m going to review my notes one more time before I lose my mind.”
“Good luck,” I say, grabbing my books again. “And hey—when you pass, I’m buying you coffee. The expensive kind from The Hearth.”
“Deal.” She picks her book back up, already looking more grounded. “Now go before you’re late for class. And try not to bounce off any more support columns.”
“No promises.”
Boone texts me Thursday afternoon right after my lab.
Boone: Something different tonight. Meet me at The Hearth at six-thirty. Trust me.
Maisie: Okay.
I don’t even think to ask why we aren’t going to the library. That lack of hesitation should probably scare me, but I have too much anatomy homework to unpack it.
The Hearth is tucked into one of the oldest brick buildings in the middle of campus, covered in ivy and looking more like a historic house than a coffee shop. Inside, it’s warm and smells like roasted espresso and old wood.
The walls are covered in framed black-and-white photographs from the university’s early days.
I stop in front of one from the late thirties showing a mixed group of students on the library steps.
A shifter in the front has his claws out.
A guy behind him has a tail curled around his leg.
A human girl is wedged between them, laughing her ass off.
It’s weird seeing it like this. In class, 1930s integration feels like dry dates on a slide. Here, they just look like regular college kids dealing with tough classes and bad dining hall food—only while making history.
“That’s my great-great-uncle on Dad’s side.”
I jump and swing around, nearly smacking Boone in the ribs with my bag. “Jesus! You can’t sneak up on people like that.”
Boone laughs, catching my shoulder to steady me. “I walked normally. You’re just jumpy.”
“You’re six-foot-four. You should come with a warning siren.”
“I’ll wear a bell next time.” He steps up beside me, pointing at a tall guy in the photo with unmistakable wolf ears. “That’s Nathaniel.”
I glance at the picture. “The one who proposed on the library steps?”
Boone looks down at me, surprised. “You remembered that?”
“You told me Tuesday. It was weird enough to stick.”
“He wanted to wait until she graduated so he wouldn’t distract her from classes,” Boone says, leaning against the wall. “Margaret found out, told him he was an idiot, and made him propose two weeks later.”
I snort. “I like Margaret.”
“Everyone liked Margaret. She ran the campus infirmary for twenty-eight years and spent most of that time telling Nathaniel he was wrong about things.”
“Sounds like a solid marriage.”
“Best one in the family.” Boone smiles and nods toward the corner. “Come on. Got us a table.”
I follow him to a small booth in the back and freeze. Sitting on the table in front of an empty chair is a large paper cup.
I pick it up and read the label: Extra caramel, whole milk, single shot.
“How the hell do you know this?” I ask.
Boone drops into the booth and pulls out his notebook. “You told me.”
“I mentioned coffee. I didn’t hand you a recipe.”
“You complained about the dining hall sludge for ten minutes,” he says, looking way too pleased with himself. “Then you said your perfect coffee has so much caramel it’s basically a drinkable candle.”
I press my hand to my forehead. “I was sleep-deprived.”
“You were very passionate.”
“You remembered all of that?”
“Yeah.” He watches me. “You also said you concentrate better with background noise, which is why we’re here instead of the library.”
I stare at him for a second, my chest doing a weird, tight flutter. “You’re annoyingly observant.”
“Drink your candle, Pope. Open chapter four.”
I sit down, take a sip, and immediately groan. It’s perfect. “Damn it. This is great.”
“Told you.”
We work for forty minutes. Boone is actually a great tutor. He doesn’t treat me like an idiot when I miss a concept—he just strips out Perkowinski’s dense shifter jargon and explains how the biology actually works in real life.
The table is tiny, though. Our shoulders keep brushing every time he leans in to check my notes, and after a while, I catch myself staring at his hands. They’re massive. Broad palms, blunt fingernails, clean calluses from lifting.
“Maisie.”
I blink up at him. “Yeah?”
“You missed the entire last sentence.” He leans back, eyes narrowing with a slow smirk as he tracks where I was looking. “Were you staring at my hands?”
“No.”
“You were.”
“You’re six-four, Boone. It’d be weird if you had doll hands.”