Triplets for the Silver Fox

1. Rowan

ROWAN

Blackthorne suspends every athletic program, and I work out what happens to my sister's scholarship before the seminar room finishes emptying.

Harper falls into step beside me outside Fenwick Hall, her bag half-zipped and her laptop tucked against her hip. Students crowd the corridor around us with the same email open on their phones. "They can't freeze active awards mid-semester. There are contracts."

"They froze them an hour ago." I keep moving, since stopping means picturing Callie reading the same message. "Spirit sits under athletics. It's the same budget line under the same suspension. Callie's scholarship runs through the athletic department, which means the same freeze hits it."

Harper catches up when I reach the stairs. "She's a first-year. They can't expect her to find tuition money halfway through September."

"Blackthorne can expect anything it wants.

Getting away with it is a different question.

" Blackthorne lets graduate students compete, which is why a second-year law student can still captain spirit.

The program awards athletic scholarships too.

Callie has one, and the university just locked the account that pays it.

Callie's scholarship is the only reason she's here instead of at a state school two hours from home.

I've signed her housing forms, argued down her meal plan, and driven the rental van when she moved into the dorm.

Mom stopped handling most of the paperwork a few months after Dad died.

Anything with a deadline comes to me now.

The scholarship was the one piece I didn't have to hold up for everyone else. That lasted six weeks.

"My office has forty emails since nine." Harper works the student advocacy desk, which means she reads the complaints nobody upstairs wants filed.

She also spent the last week telling me the money-laundering rumor had enough detail to deserve attention.

I called it campus gossip. I hate being wrong in a way that costs my sister a term.

"Athletes, student trainers, and campus workers paid through athletics are all getting the same answer.

Financial aid won't tell anyone what happens next. "

"There won't be a straight answer until somebody makes them give one." I pull up Blackthorne's scholarship policy while we cross the lobby. "The university requires notice before it suspends an active award. There's an appeal process too. I'd bet rent they skipped both."

Harper peers at my screen. "You already found the policy."

"I was in an emergency seminar with Wi-Fi." I lock my phone and tuck it into my bag.

Harper pushes through the lobby door beside me. "Most people used the Wi-Fi to complain in the group chat."

"Most people are wasting perfectly good tuition." I head outside before she can defend them.

Harper follows me across the quad, where news vans wait at the curb in front of the administration building. Students crowd the steps with their phones raised.

She looks at the vans, then at me. "The press briefing starts on the second floor at two."

I check the time. We've got six minutes.

She moves into my path before I reach the crosswalk. "You want to go yell at the president."

"I want to hear him first." I step around her. "Then I'll decide about the yelling."

Harper matches my pace again. "That answer would reassure me more if I'd met you yesterday."

I glance at her. "You'd still have made friends with me."

She smiles. "I would've required references."

I almost laugh, then stop myself. It still helps enough to get me through the administration doors without calling Mom first. If I call her before I have facts, she'll hear the worst in every pause.

The second-floor press room is one flight up. I take the stairs two at a time, turn at the landing, and walk straight into a man in dark wool.

I hit his chest shoulder-first and catch the edge of the top stair with my shoe before I can recover. He catches me around the waist and pulls me forward, away from the drop behind me. I get both feet under me while I'm still against him.

For one second, neither of us moves.

He's solid beneath the suit, warm enough that I register the heat of him through my blouse.

His arm stays around my waist while I get my balance, and my body responds to the contact before I have any useful opinion about the man attached to it.

The reaction irritates me almost as much as nearly falling down the stairs.

He's tall enough that I have to tip my head back. His dark hair is cut close, with a trace of gray near one temple. The suit fits too well for ordinary university administration. His face is all sharp lines, controlled and serious until he looks down at me. Then amusement reaches his mouth.

He still hasn't let go.

"You stand in a stairwell like you own the building." I brace against his coat and make enough room to look at him properly.

"You take stairs like you're being chased." His voice stays low and unhurried.

It shouldn't make any difference that his voice suits him. It does.

I straighten as much as his arm allows. "People usually stand to the right."

He gives the stairwell a brief look. "People usually look where they're going."

I can't argue with that. I dislike that he's right, and I dislike how aware I am of where his arm rests around me. "You can let go now."

He releases me immediately.

The lack of hesitation catches me almost as much as the contact did. He steps back far enough to give me room, then holds the press-room door open. Harper reaches the landing behind me with an expression that tells me she's seen far too much.

I walk past the stranger. "You were still in the way."

He inclines his head. "I'll remember that."

I make it three steps into the room before Harper leans close. "You know that was flirting."

"It was a traffic dispute." I head for the side wall.

Harper glances back toward the door. "That explains why you look annoyed at his shoulders."

I refuse to look at him again just to prove I can. "I look annoyed at his personality. It was an informative thirty seconds."

"Very informative."

I take a place where I can see the podium. "You're enjoying this too much."

"Your life has been grim lately. I'm taking what I can get."

The press room is already crowded. Four reporters sit in the first row, with camera operators behind them. Richard Caldwell stands at the podium in his usual gray suit.

Caldwell opens with the usual language. He mentions difficult decisions, the integrity of the institution, and the university's duty to students. He says transparency twice without giving us anything useful.

A county reporter asks whether students with frozen scholarships will owe tuition they can't pay.

Caldwell closes the folder in front of him.

"Financial aid is reviewing each affected account.

Hardship provisions remain available, with accommodations considered according to individual circumstances. "

I lean toward Harper. "That's administrator for no."

Harper keeps her attention on Caldwell. "That's administrator for don't ask again until five."

The next reporter asks how a routine compliance review became a shutdown of twelve programs in one morning. Caldwell glances toward the man seated to his left.

The man from the stairwell stands.

Recognition runs through me before I can stop it.

I take in the same dark suit, the same controlled posture, and the same mouth that had been fighting amusement two minutes ago.

He doesn't look like a stranger who happened to block a stairwell anymore.

He looks completely at home beside the president of Blackthorne.

Harper shifts closer. "You insulted somebody important."

"I noticed."

Her head turns toward me.

"He was still in the way," I add.

Caldwell moves aside. "Erik can address the scope of the suspension."

Erik takes the podium. "For those who haven't met me, my name is Erik Danilov. I joined Blackthorne this month as dean of institutional affairs. Athletics, compliance, finance, facilities, and campus safety report through my office. I authorized this morning's suspension, so I'll answer for it."

His attention moves across the room and catches on me for half a second. There's no visible surprise. He knew I'd followed him into the press room.

I hate that I notice the exact moment he looks away.

He doesn't lean into the microphone or shuffle notes. He doesn't look at Caldwell before he answers the first question either.

The student reporter raises her pen. "What happens to athletes who had nothing to do with the financial misconduct?"

"We're reviewing the affected accounts now." Erik stays at the podium. "Any program whose funding clears review will reopen."

She watches him over the top of her laptop. "How long will that take?"

Erik doesn't hesitate. "I don't know yet."

No evasive estimate. No promise he can't guarantee. The answer is irritatingly useful, and for several seconds I'm more interested in how directly he answers than in the way he looked at me on the stairs.

Another reporter asks what triggered the review.

Erik looks toward the cameras. "We've opened a money-laundering investigation with financial records already in hand.

Funds moved through athletic accounts for at least three years.

The routes include vendor contracts and a donor collective.

The volume required senior financial authorization. "

I straighten against the wall.

Transfers at Blackthorne cross more desks than students think.

A department can request money, a vendor can invoice it, and several employees can touch the paperwork before the final authorization.

Dad used to complain that half the university sent his office forms nobody else had bothered to read.

If Erik is talking about the person whose approval sat at the end of those chains, I already know which office he's describing.