Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
ISA
I knew something was wrong the second I reached the bedroom.
Not because Drew yelled or slammed something.
Because he was quiet.
Drew Travers was a lot of things. Loud when he wanted to be. Cocky when he didn’t know what else to be. Physical in every emotion, every room, every silence. Even when he was still, he took up space like his body had its own weather system.
But this quiet was different.
This quiet had weight.
I stood in the doorway with my coffee cooling in one hand and my heart climbing slowly into my throat.
His suitcase was open on the bed.
Half-packed.
Hoodies folded with that obsessive precision of his. Shoes lined up beside the bag. Toiletry case zipped. Charger coiled. Everything neat. Everything controlled.
And Drew sat on the edge of the mattress, elbows on his knees, a wrapped box clutched between both hands.
Small.
Silver paper.
White ribbon.
My name written on the tag in his blocky, too-careful handwriting.
He didn’t look up.
“Drew?”
Nothing.
The house behind me kept moving. Somewhere downstairs, my mother laughed too brightly. A cabinet closed. Christmas music played low through the speakers because my mother believed expensive homes should have soundtracks.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
His jaw moved once.
“I’m leaving.”
The words hit so cleanly I almost didn’t understand them.
I stepped inside. “What? Why?”
“I booked a flight.”
My fingers tightened around the mug. “Back to Miami?”
“No.”
He finally looked up.
I wished he hadn’t.
His face was calm in the worst possible way. Not angry. Not wild. Not even hurt on the surface. Just closed. Like he had packed everything already except the body.
“Colorado,” he said. “Jace’s family has a place outside Vail. He told me if I ever needed to disappear over break, I could. So I’m going.”
I stared at him.
The room tilted slightly.
“For Christmas?”
“And New Year’s.”
New Year’s.
The word cut deeper than it should have.
The date I had picked. The midnight line I had drawn so confidently when this all felt manageable. When Drew was a weapon and a distraction and the most dangerous fake boyfriend on campus, but not yet the man sitting on my bed with his whole face shut down.
“Drew,” I whispered.
He looked down at the box.
“I guess our arrangement quits a little early.”
The coffee mug shook in my hand.
I set it on the dresser before I dropped it.
“Arrangement,” I repeated.
His mouth twitched.
Not a smile.
A wound pretending it had teeth.
“That’s what it is, right?”
“No.”
His eyes lifted.
I hated how fast I said it.
Not because it wasn’t true.
Because it was too late and too small and I could hear the panic in my own voice.
“No?” he asked quietly.
My throat tightened. “You heard my mother.”
“I heard enough.”
“She’s awful.”
“She is.”
“I froze. I didn’t agree with her.”
He nodded once. “Okay.”
That was worse than if he’d argued.
“Drew.”
“I know how mothers like yours talk, Isa. I know people say ugly shit. I know you don’t control every word that comes out of her mouth.”
“Then why are you packing?”
He stood.
Not fast.
Not sharp.
Just stood, and suddenly the room felt too small around him.
“Because you didn’t say anything.”
My breath caught.
There it was.
The real thing.
Not my mother flirting with him in the kitchen the night before like he was some beautiful investment opportunity.
Not my father making little digs about hedge funds and market manipulation because Richard Montgomery’s money made him feel small.
Not the way everyone in my house kept looking at Drew like he was a score.
I swallowed. “I should have.”
“Yeah.”
“I know that.”
He looked away, his hand tightening around the wrapped box.
“No,” he said. “I don’t think you do.”
Tears burned fast and humiliating behind my eyes.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like I’m some horrible person because I didn’t fight my mother before coffee.”
His face changed then.
Not softer.
More tired.
“I don’t think you’re horrible.”
“Then what?”
“I think you’re trained.”
The words landed so hard I forgot to breathe.
He looked at me fully now.
“I think she says jump and some part of you still asks how high. I think she says prize and you don’t correct her because part of you has been taught that’s what men are.
Status. Security. Proof. I think you hate it, but I think it’s in you.
And your father is a nightmare of a different kind.
Insecure. Makes petty jabs… I’m over fake dating you when I wanted it to be real. ”
I flinched.
“And I think I stood there like an idiot waiting for you to say I wasn’t a prize to be bagged.”
My chin wobbled before I could stop it. His eyes flicked away like looking at me hurt.
“Drew.”
“No.” His voice cracked on the edge, then leveled out. “Now?”
I stepped closer.
He stepped back.
That broke something in me.
“Now you can tell me you want me?” he asked. “Now you can tell me all the things I would’ve believed months ago? Weeks ago? Hell, even a few nights ago?”
“I do want you.”
He laughed once.
Quiet.
Destroyed.
“Yeah. I know you want me.”
The heat that usually sparked between us at that word was gone.
There was nothing sexy in it now.
Only accusation.
“That was never the part I doubted.”
My tears spilled then.
I hated them.
Hated that my body betrayed me when my mouth still couldn’t catch up to the truth.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I whispered.
Drew’s face twisted for half a second before he hid it.
His voice got rougher. “I wanted you for so long, Isa. Before you looked at me. Before Vale fucked it up. Before the fake dating. Before the jersey. Before your mother found out my father’s name and decided I was a better investment than the basketball prince. ”
“That’s not fair.”
“No?” He stepped closer now, and I wished he hadn’t because the warmth of him was worse than distance.
“Tell me something, Texas. If I was just Drew Travers with no Montgomery behind me, no money, no CNBC father, no family gates, no possible draft buzz, would you still be standing here crying because I’m leaving? ”
“Yes.”
“Would you?”
“Yes.”
His eyes searched mine like he wanted to believe me so badly it hurt him.
Then the doubt won.
“That’s the problem,” he said. “I don’t know anymore.”
I pressed a hand to my chest because something there felt physically broken.
“You do know.”
“No. I know your body wants me. I know you like my hands. I know you like my house. I know you like the way people look when you walk into a room with me. I know you like that I show up.”
“That’s not all.”
“Then why is it so damn hard for you to say the rest?”
The room went silent.
Because there it was.
The word waiting between us.
The one he had almost said in airports and beds and whispered into my hair when he thought I was asleep.
The one I had heard.
The one I had carried around like contraband.
I love you.
It sat on my tongue, heavy and terrified.
Drew watched me.
Waiting.
Still, stupidly waiting.
And I hated myself because I loved him.
I loved him so much I could feel it in my bones.
But saying it now, with his suitcase open and my mother’s ugly voice still echoing downstairs, felt like handing him something desperate instead of true. Like proving him right. Like only reaching for the truth because he was already halfway out the door.
“I do know,” I said.
His face closed.
Not enough.
Too late.
He nodded once.
“Yeah.”
“Drew, please—”
“I think it’s a little too late now, babe.”
Babe.
Not baby.
Not Texas.
Babe.
Cold.
Gentle.
Final.
My mouth opened, but no sound came out.
He looked down at the wrapped box in his hands. His thumbs moved over the ribbon once. Slow. Careful. Like even now, he couldn’t be careless with something meant for me.
“I bought this before Thanksgiving,” he said.
I stared at the box.
My name.
Silver paper.
White ribbon.
“I was going to give it to you Christmas morning.” His throat worked. “Stupid, probably.”
“It’s not stupid.”
His laugh was almost soundless.
“You don’t even know what it is.”
“I know it’s from you.”
That made him go still.
For one second, something cracked through the calm.
Pain.
Hope.
Love, maybe.
Then he shut it down.
“I can’t take it with me,” he said.
“Then don’t go.” I reached for him.
His eyes closed.
I had never seen Drew look like that.
Like I had put my hands into his chest and pulled.
“Don’t,” he said.
“Drew.”
“No.” His eyes opened, and they were glassy now, though no tears fell. “You mean you don’t want me to leave right now. That’s different.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
“I don’t want to lose you.”
His mouth tightened.
“Then you should’ve known before your mother told you I was a bigger prize than Vale.”
I recoiled.
He hated himself for it immediately. I saw it. But he didn’t take it back.
Maybe because some part of him believed it.
Maybe because some part of me had earned it.
“You never wanted to be with me anyway,” he said.
“That’s not true.”
“I had to twist your arm. Twist your heart. Twist your body.” His voice went lower. “And I’m good at that. I know I am. I know how to get what I want when your pulse is racing and your mouth is soft and you forget to hate me for ten minutes.”
“Stop.”
“But it shouldn’t be that hard.” He looked at me then, and the devastation in his face finally broke through all the calm. “It should not be this hard to be chosen.”
My tears came faster.
I couldn’t stop them now.
“I choose you.”
He shook his head.
Too small.
Too sad.
“No, Texas.” His voice broke just enough to ruin me. “You’re scared of losing me. That’s not the same thing.”
He put the gift on the bed.
Carefully.
Right in the center of the comforter.
Then he picked up his bag.
The movement snapped something awake in me.
I stepped between him and the door.
“Please.”
He stopped.
For half a second, I thought maybe he would reach for me.
He didn’t.
He just looked down at me like he was memorizing the worst thing he had ever wanted.
“I would’ve stayed,” he said.
My throat closed.