Chapter 6
Chapter Six
ISA
By the time November turns cold enough to bite through leggings at night, people have stopped asking if Tristan and I are a thing.
They just assume we are.
That’s the problem.
It’s not one big moment that gets me there.
It’s accumulation.
The way he waits for me after rehab.
The way he slows his walk without making it obvious because the boot throws my stride off if I move too fast.
The hand he always offers automatically on stairs.
The way he carries my backpack like it annoys him that I’m trying to do too much on one leg.
The lunches.
The studying.
The fact that when he texts me goodnight, it no longer feels like flirtation.
It feels like routine.
Like mine.
Like him.
And because I’m seventeen different flavors of stupid where he’s concerned, I let that mean something.
The library smells like paper and coffee and dust warmed over by old heat vents.
Quiet.
Controlled.
Predictable.
Exactly the kind of place where people like me go to build fantasies on top of harmless little rituals and call it emotional intelligence.
I’m at our table—our table now, apparently—in the far back corner on the third floor, the dead zone where athletes go when they want to work without too many eyes on them.
My boot is kicked out under the chair beside me because there’s no comfortable way to sit in it for more than fifteen minutes, and Tristan’s got my backpack hooked over the back of his chair because he took it from me the second we sat down like he always does now.
He’s across from me in a black T-shirt and sweats, one forearm braced on the table, dark hair falling over his forehead in that unfair way that makes me ache to reach across and fix it just to have an excuse to touch him.
He’s pretending to read.
I’m pretending to outline.
Neither of us is doing much actual academic work.
He slides my highlighter back across the table and says, “You’ve underlined the same sentence four times.”
I glance down.
That is, unfortunately, true.
“It keeps needing emphasis.”
“No,” he says. “You keep needing a distraction.”
I lift a brow.
“And what would you call yourself?”
His mouth moves at one corner.
“Public service.”
That gets me.
Of course it does.
It always gets me when he turns on that quiet, private version of his humor—the one that doesn’t belong to the cameras or the court or the boys on his team.
The one that feels like it was built for smaller spaces and lower voices and girls dumb enough to think getting a better version of him means they’re getting the real one.
I reach for my water bottle.
Miss it slightly because the stupid boot shifts when I move.
Before I can even correct, his hand is there, sliding the bottle into my reach without him breaking eye contact.
That tiny little gesture hits harder than any grand move ever could.
The reason girls like me get ruined isn’t usually the big thing.
It’s the accumulation of all the little ones. And the reason why any guilt I had for pushing Drew away faded.
I take a sip and ask, “Do you ever actually study, or do you just come here to emotionally destabilize me?”
He leans back in the chair.
“That implies intention.”
“That implies guilt.”
“Maybe both.”
I smile before I can stop myself, and he sees it.
Of course he does. I am so far gone.
My fingers rest lightly on his forearm for one second when I hand him back his pen.
Not because I planned it.
Because it feels natural now.
That should have scared me.
Instead, it feels good.
Like we’ve crossed some invisible line into belonging.
He doesn’t pull away.
That matters.
More than it should.
More than I want it to.
I’m leaning in to show him something on my laptop when the room changes.
It happens so fast I almost dismiss it.
A shift in the air.
A pause in his body.
A tiny stilling under my hand.
I look up.
And there she is.
Stella Cortez.
Across the room.
Books in her arms.
Cream sweater. Black leggings. Hair pulled high. Every inch of her controlled in that way women like her get when they’re trying very hard not to let emotion touch the edges of anything visible.
For a second—just a second—I don’t panic.
Because I’ve seen her around before.
On campus.
In the athletic complex.
At a distance.
And I’ve told myself the same story every time.
She had her chance.
She walked away.
Whatever happened between them was summer, preseason, rumors, heat.
I’m the one here now.
Then I see Kane.
He’s behind her.
Close.
Too close to be random.
And whatever little comfort I’d built in my own chest starts to tilt.
Stella doesn’t move at first.
She just stands there looking at us.
At me.
At my hand on Tristan’s arm.
At the picture we make under the library lights like something already established.
Then something in her face changes.
Not dramatically.
Cleanly.
Like a door closes and another one opens.
And she starts toward us.
My pulse goes cold.
Not because I’m afraid of her.
Because I know exactly what this is.
This is a girl making a decision.
Tristan feels her coming before she reaches the table.
I know because I feel it happen in him.
He looks up.
Sees her.
And every line of his body snaps tighter.
Good, some vicious little part of me thinks.
Feel it.
Stella stops at the table.
“Hey,” she says lightly.
I smile automatically.
Perfectly.
“Hey.”
Tristan says nothing.
That hits me first.
Not the words she uses.
Not the look on her face.
That.
The fact that he doesn’t speak.
He just watches her.
Like she walked into the room carrying a weapon he can’t quite identify yet.
She glances between us.
Then back to him.
“Is there room for me?” she asks.
Polite.
Casual.
Intentional enough that I feel it in my teeth.
I tighten my fingers on his arm without meaning to.
Not much.
Just enough to mark that I’m here.
“Oh, of course,” I say sweetly.
I make it sound effortless.
Generous.
Inside, my whole nervous system is already bracing for impact.
Stella doesn’t wait.
Doesn’t hover.
She pulls out the chair beside Tristan and sits.
Close.
Too close.
Their knees brush under the table, and I see the exact second he notices because one muscle jumps in his jaw.
Her foot slides out lightly under the table.
I don’t see it touch him, not directly.
I see his whole body react like it did.
Subtle.
Sharp.
Immediate.
My stomach drops.
Stella picks up one of the books on the table and flips it open like she belongs here, like she just decided to write herself into a scene and the universe made room.
“So,” she says, eyes on the page, “what are we working on?”
“History,” I answer before Tristan can.
My voice is smooth.
My smile still perfect.
But my pulse is pounding so hard now I can hear it behind my ears.
Stella nods slowly.
“Yeah,” she says. “Tristan and I have a lot of that.”
There it is.
The first shot.
I feel it land.
On him.
On me.
On the whole table.
She looks at him while she says the next part.
“In fact, maybe it’s time we revisited our history.”
No one at the tables around us notices.
Or maybe they do, but not enough to matter yet.
To me, it feels like the whole library just leaned in.
Tristan’s breath catches.
Small.
Barely there.
But I hear it.
And suddenly I hate her.
Not in a dramatic, world-ending way.
In the sharp, clean way you hate someone who says the thing out loud you’ve been trying to downplay in your own head.
He doesn’t answer right away.
Stella leans back slightly in the chair like she didn’t just throw lit gasoline into the center of the table.
“Maybe we should grab a bite,” she says. “And talk about it.”
The silence after that is obscene.
My arm tightens around Tristan’s.
Claiming.
Instinctive.
Humiliating.
“Are you asking us out, Stella?” I ask, sweet as sugar and cut glass underneath.
She looks at me then.
Really looks.
Then smiles.
“No.”
Her eyes flick to Tristan.
“Just him.”
The room tilts.
I don’t know if it shows on my face.
God, I hope not.
“But you can tag along,” she adds lightly. “For funsies.”
That nearly gets a laugh out of me.
Not because it’s funny.
Because it’s insane.
Tristan moves first.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
He takes my arm off his.
Not rough.
Not cruel.
Worse.
Firm.
Final.
Like the choice to remove me from him costs thought, and that thought happened before he acted.
He leans back and folds his arms across his chest, broad shoulders tightening under the T-shirt, eyes locked on Stella.
Dark.
Sharp.
Dangerous.
“What game are you playing now, Stella?”
And there it is again.
That thing between them.
Combustion.
History.
A voltage that makes the table feel too small for the three of us.
Stella tilts her head.
“What, I can’t change my mind?”
“Not like this.”
His voice is low.
Controlled.
Then his eyes flick to me.
And they soften.
Just a fraction.
Just enough to make this even worse.
Like he’s trying to protect me from the scene unfolding while still being fully inside it.
Stella sees that too.
Of course she does.
“Or is this about the fact that I moved on?” he asks her. “With someone… like you?”
That lands.
On her.
On me.
On the whole air between us.
Then he says something about Adele and “Someone Like You,” and Stella actually huffs out a breath like he got her on it.
Like they have enough history for that kind of shorthand.
I sit there in my boot and my humiliation and feel about a hundred years old all at once.
Stella leans back, dragging her foot lightly once more under the table before pulling it away.
Then her voice changes.
Not softer.
Deeper.
“It’s lonely at the top, Vale.”
I go very still.
Because now I know where this is going.
She keeps talking.
About goals.
About being alone with them.
About thinking that’s what she wanted.
Then—“When what I wanted all along?” She looks at him like I’m not even there. “It was you.”
I suck in a breath so sharp it hurts.
There.
There it is.
No rumor now.
No suspicion.
No fault line sensed under the floorboards.
A confession.
In the middle of the library.
At our table.
With his body still reacting to hers like he remembers too much.