Chapter 1

The bass from Fletcher's speaker system had turned the living room into something with a pulse — low and heavy, vibrating through the hardwood floors and up through the soles of Kai's boots where he stood in his usual spot. Kitchen. Back to the counter. Beer in hand, barely touched.

Eleven o'clock. Fletch already had his arm around someone he'd met nine minutes ago. Ezra was on the deck doing his whole silent guardian thing. Standard Friday.

He took a slow drink. The kitchen was loud enough to blur conversations into white noise — laughter, someone shouting about beer pong, a glass breaking somewhere that Ezra would handle without being asked. Kai's eyes moved through the room the way they always did. Reading exits. Reading people. Not looking for anyone in particular.

Chloe had found him twenty minutes ago. Black dress, red lipstick, hand on his arm, laughing at something he hadn't meant to be funny. She was still here — leaning against the counter beside him, close enough that her perfume competed with his cologne. She was saying something about a media internship. About connections. About his father's company.

She always circles back to that.

"Mm," he said. Not a response. A placeholder. His thumb traced the rim of the bottle.

Across the room, Fletcher materialized in the kitchen doorway with two Solo cups and a grin that meant trouble.

"Bro. Bro. Guess who just walked in."

Kai's expression didn't change. "Don't care."

"You're gonna care."

"I won't."

Fletcher's grin widened. He glanced toward the front of the house, then back at Kai, and the look on his face was the specific breed of delight that preceded every terrible thing Fletcher had ever done.

"Fletch," Kai said. A warning.

But Fletcher was already backing away, hands raised, cups sloshing. "I'm just saying — I may have sent a few extra invites. Inclusive vibes, you know? Open door policy. Community building."

He didn't.

"Fletcher."

"Love you, man." He vanished into the crowd.

Kai exhaled through his nose. Chloe was still talking. Something about LinkedIn. He wasn't listening. His gaze tracked through the living room — past the beer pong table, past the cluster of people by the speakers, past —

He stopped.

No.

There. Near the entrance. Half-lit by the warm glow of the overhead lights. Standing in his house, at his party, looking like she had every right to be there.

Freya Brenner.

His hand went to his hair before he could stop it. Pushed it back. Gripped once. Let go.

Don't. Don't fucking —

Chloe's hand touched his arm. "Kai? You okay?"

"Fine," he said. Flat. Automatic. His eyes hadn't moved.

Why is she here. Why is she always —

He set the beer down on the counter behind him. Harder than necessary. The glass clinked against the granite.

Freya hadn't seen him yet. She was talking to someone — smiling at someone — and Kai could feel the exact moment his jaw tightened, because he'd trained that tell away three years ago and it was back, right now, standing in his kitchen watching Freya exist in his space and —

I don't care.

Across the room, on the back deck, Ezra looked through the glass doors. Looked at Kai. Looked at Kai's hand, still near his hair. Looked at Fletcher, who had appeared beside him with the world's most satisfied expression.

They exchanged a glance. Fletcher mouthed: It's happening.

Ezra said nothing. But something shifted behind his eyes. Something that looked a lot like finally.

In the kitchen, Kai straightened. Rolled his shoulders. Picked up his beer. Let his expression flatten into the performance he'd spent years perfecting — bored, unbothered, untouchable.

Just another Friday. She's nobody. This is nothing.

Freya turned.

Their eyes met across the room.

...fuck.

The room didn't get quiet — the bass was too heavy for that, still thudding through the floorboards like an erratic heartbeat — but the noise between them suddenly felt compressed, stripped of all resonance until it was just air.

Freya didn't freeze. Freezing was for prey, and she'd spent twenty-two years learning how to never look like target practice. But her fingers tightened on the strap of her bag, her knuckles whitening just enough to pull the dark ink on her skin taut.

Kai Hawthorne.

Of course. The dark hair pushing over his brow, the posture that practically demanded people give him a two-foot radius, and those ridiculously blue eyes that looked like they'd been cut out of glass and slapped onto a statue. Standing in his kitchen like he owned the square footage, the zip code, and the air everyone else was currently breathing.

Beside her, Adam nudged her shoulder, his purple strand of hair bouncing as he tilted his head toward the kitchen counter. "Well," Adam murmured, his voice laced with a bright, dangerous amusement that meant he knew exactly what kind of night this was about to become. "Look who's holding court in the VIP section. Should I go get us drinks, or do you want to start the psychological warfare right here by the coat rack?"

Freya didn't look at Adam. She couldn't break eye contact with Kai. If she looked away first, he won. That was the rule. It had been the rule since freshman year macroeconomics when he'd stolen her seat on day one and then proceeded to match her exam score down to the decimal point.

Bored, she thought, scanning the deliberate, effortless blankness on his face. Look at him. Acting like he didn't just almost rip his own hair out two seconds ago. She hadn't missed the hand in his hair. She never missed his tells, no matter how many years he'd spent trying to bury them under six feet of stone-cold, old-money indifference.

"Get drinks," Freya told Adam, her voice steady, cool, and completely devoid of the sharp spike of anxiety currently rattling around her ribs. "And get something strong. I have a feeling the air quality in here is about to drop."

Adam gave her a knowing, freckled grin, tapped her arm, and melted effortlessly into the crowd toward the makeshift bar, leaving her anchored near the hallway.

Freya took a slow, deliberate breath — in for four, out for four, just like her therapist had drilled into her until it was second nature. The crowd rippled around them, a blur of college students, red cups, and Chloe's laughter echoing thinly over the bass as Chloe slid her hand back onto Kai's arm.

Freya saw the movement. Saw Chloe lean in. Saw Kai's eyes stay locked, unblinking and icy, right on her.

A slow, sharp smirk cut across Freya's lips. She didn't hide. She didn't turn around and leave like any rational person avoiding a panic attack would. Instead, she adjusted the collar of her jacket — exposing the dark, intricate line of tattoos tracing up her throat — and took a step forward, heading straight for the kitchen.

If Kai Hawthorne wanted to play untouchable tonight, she was more than happy to make him reach his breaking point.

In the kitchen, the air instantly grew colder as Freya closed the distance.

Kai didn't move an inch. He kept his back against the granite, his posture relaxed to the point of arrogance, though the muscles in his forearm flexed tight against his dark sleeve as he brought the bottle back to his lips. He took a slow drink, his eyes tracking her every step through the ambient light, waiting for her to stumble.

She didn't.

She stopped right at the edge of the kitchen island, just out of physical reach, and crossed her arms. Her green eye caught the dim light first; her grey eye stayed shadowed, calculating.

"Nice party, Hawthorne," Freya said, her tone smooth, light, and utterly fake. "Though I see your open-door policy has really lowered the bar on house guests."

Chloe's head snapped toward Freya, her eyes narrowing as her hand tightened defensively on Kai's shoulder. Kai, however, didn't even glance at Chloe. His blue eyes stayed locked on Freya, cool and deadly.

"Brenner," Kai replied, his voice a low, smooth drawl that cut right under the heavy bass of the speakers. He didn't lift his head. Didn't shift his weight. "I'd ask who invited you, but I already know Fletcher's brain operates on zero survival instinct."

"Oh, don't blame Fletch," Freya said, leaning her hip against the high table, resting her chin in her hand with a mock-thoughtful expression. "He just likes having people around who actually know how to smile. I know that's a foreign concept in the Hawthorne household — feelings being a weakness and all that — but some of us actually enjoy ourselves on a Friday night."

The mention of his father's unspoken rule landed like a hairline crack in a glass wall.

Kai's jaw gave one microscopic twitch. He lowered his beer, setting it down with a soft, final clink against the stone.

"Is there a point to this visit?" Kai asked softly, stepping forward just one inch, bringing the full height of his frame to bear on the space between them. "Or did you just come over here to make sure your GPA isn't the only thing taking a hit this semester?"

Freya's smile didn't fade, but the air in her chest tightened. There it is. The sharp edge. The mark he always tried to leave.

"My GPA is fine, Kai," she said, her voice dropping lower, dangerous and intimate over the roar of the music. "And as for the point of my visit..." She reached out, her fingers hovering just inches from his chest — close enough that he could see the dark ink covering her knuckles, close enough that he stopped breathing for half a second — before she reached past him, smoothly plucking an unopened bottle from the ice bucket behind his elbow.

She popped the cap off on the edge of the counter with a clean, practiced flick, held his stare, and took a slow sip.

"I just came to get a drink," she murmured, her mismatched eyes flashing under the dim amber lights. "Try not to choke on your pride while I'm here."

She turned on her heel and walked away, disappearing into the crowd toward Adam.

Behind the counter, Kai stood completely still. His hand went to his jaw, his thumb pressing hard against the joint where his teeth were clamped tight.

Out on the deck, Fletcher pressed his forehead against the glass door, wheezing with laughter, while Ezra simply took a slow drink of his beer and shook his head.

Kai didn't look at them. He looked at the empty space where Freya had been standing, the faint scent of her perfume lingering in the warm kitchen air — cherry and something like damp cedar — cutting straight through Chloe's floral notes and the sharper, smokier edge of his own cologne.

Unbelievable.

His phone buzzed in his pocket.

[The Clubhouse 🏀]

Fletcher: so on a scale of 1 to punch me in the face, how much do u love me right now bro?

Kai locked the screen without replying, his grip on his phone tight enough to crack the casing. He raised his eyes, tracking the long, dark wavy hair moving through the party.

The slow burn had officially caught fire.

The scent hit him before he even saw where she'd gone. Dark cherry, damp cedar, a warm weight in the air that cut clean through spilled beer and everything else in the room. It was the same scent that had haunted him since the first day of freshman year, her dark wavy hair pulled up, exposing the delicate line of her neck and a hint of ink. He'd stared at the back of her head for an hour, entirely unnerved by the sudden, unwanted spike in his pulse, before deciding his only safe defense was to hate her.

Three years.

Three years of watching her from across lecture halls. Three years of keeping a mental tally of every debate she won, every sharp smirk she threw his way, every time she made him feel something he couldn't control. He didn't know how to ask a girl like Freya out. He didn't know how to do any of this — not really. When Kai wanted someone, it was clean, physical, and devoid of lingering consequences. A text at midnight, a bedroom door locked, an unspoken agreement that by morning, they were even. Hookups were easy. Hookups didn't demand vulnerability. Hookups didn't make his chest feel like a collapsing building.

He never saw her like a potential hookup. That was the problem. Freya was a storm he didn't have the gear to survive, so he treated her like an enemy.

Across the room, Freya leaned against the back wall, nursing her bottle. The initial surge of adrenaline from confronting him was fading, leaving a familiar, hollow vibration under her skin. Her hand reached up, fingers lightly tapping against her collarbone — an unconscious grounding technique her therapist had taught her.

In for four. Hold for four. Out for four.

"You're doing the finger-tapping thing," Adam said softly, appearing at her side and handing her a fresh lime wedge for her drink. His brown eyes were gentle, cutting through his usual playful demeanor. "He get under your skin that fast?"

"He didn't get anywhere," Freya said, her voice tight as she took the lime. "He's just... insufferable. Standing there looking like a poster boy for emotionally stunted rich kids."

"Well, he is an emotionally stunted rich kid," Adam pointed out with a wry smile. "His dad owns half the commercial real estate on the Eastern Seaboard. Guys like Kai Hawthorne are born expecting the world to bow down. You're the only person in this university who looks at him like he's something he needs to scrape off his shoe."

Freya swallowed down a sip of her drink, the bittersweet cherry notes of her lip balm mixing with the alcohol. "Because he expects people to bow down. I don't care how much money his family has. He acts like he's made of stone."

She didn't know about the cold, silent house Kai had grown up in after his mother died. She didn't know about the father who handed him sports car keys like hush money and told him that crying was for weak men who end up bankrupt. To her, Kai was just a privileged, ruthless genius who took pleasure in picking apart her hard-earned confidence.

And Kai, watching her from the shadow of the kitchen doorway, didn't know about the cold nights in foster care before Simon took her in. He didn't know that every time he backed her into a corner verbally, her heart raced not just from anger, but from a terrifying, ingrained fear of losing control. He thought she was just fiercely arrogant — a brilliant, untouchable girl with dark tattoos and a gaze that could strip a man down to his bare bones.

"Hey," Chloe's voice cut through Kai's thoughts. She stepped in front of him, blocking his view of the far wall, her fingers wrapping around his wrist. Her perfume — sweet, floral, expensive — flooded his senses, but all he could focus on was how synthetic it smelled compared to the wood-and-cherry lingering near the hallway. "You're completely somewhere else tonight. Shall we go upstairs? Your room's quiet."

It was the usual routine. The easy out. The distraction.

Kai looked down at Chloe. Her eyes were bright, expectant, used to him agreeing without a second thought. This was how his weekends went. Clean, uncomplicated, temporary.

Then his eyes drifted over her shoulder. Across the room, Freya was laughing at something Adam said — a genuine, flash-of-white-teeth smile that hit Kai like a physical blow to the ribs.

His jaw set. The cold, mechanical walls inside his chest slid back into place.

"Not tonight, Chloe," Kai said, his voice quiet, flat, and absolute. He gently, but firmly, unclasped her fingers from his wrist.

Chloe blinked, caught entirely off guard. "What? Kai, it's midnight —"

"I'm done for the night," he lied, stepping past her before she could argue.

He didn't head upstairs, and he didn't go back to the crowd. He walked straight through the kitchen, pushed open the heavy glass sliding doors, and stepped out into the cool midnight air of the back deck.

Ezra was leaning against the wooden railing, the amber tip of a cigarette glowing in the dark. He didn't turn around when the door opened. He just exhaled a slow stream of smoke into the night.

"Fletch is taking bets on how long before you two burn the house down," Ezra said quietly, his deep voice barely carrying over the hum of the outdoor speakers.

Kai leaned his elbows against the railing, staring out at the dark yard, his knuckles white. "She's infuriating."

"She's the only person who makes you look human, man," Ezra replied, taking a slow drag. He turned his head slightly, his grey eyes observing Kai's tense profile. "You look like you're about to put your fist through a wall."

"She thinks she's untouchable," Kai muttered, the cologne on his neck catching the cool night breeze. "She comes into my house, pushes every button, and acts like it's a game."

"And what is it to you?" Ezra asked simply.

Kai didn't answer. He couldn't. Because if he admitted that it wasn't a game — that every time she looked at him with those heterochromatic eyes, he felt like he was drowning — he'd have to admit he felt something. And feeling something was where the Hawthorne line ended.

Inside, near the hallway, Freya caught a glimpse of Kai's dark silhouette through the glass doors. He was standing in the cold, alone with Ezra, looking out into the dark like he was miles away from his own party.

For a split second, her throat tightened. There was something in the rigid line of his shoulders that didn't look arrogant. It looked... isolated.

No, she reminded herself sternly, taking a deep breath of her own perfume to steady her heart. He's Kai Hawthorne. He doesn't get lonely. He just calculates.

She turned her back to the glass, grabbed Adam's arm, and forced herself back into the noise.

The shift in the music was immediate — a heavy, rhythmic beat dropping into a remix that turned the living room into a pulsing crowd of moving bodies.

"Oh, absolutely not," Adam laughed, trying to pull back as Freya grabbed his hand, dragging him toward the makeshift dance floor. "Freya, you know my rhythm is strictly reserved for indie pop and early 2000s divas. I cannot handle whatever aggressive bassline Fletch just threw on!"

"Too bad," Freya laughed, her eyes flashing with a bright, rare lightness that transformed her entire face. She hooked her arm through his, spinning him into the center of the room. "You promised me fun tonight. No macroeconomics, no thesis prep, and definitely no brooding rich boys."

She let herself sink into the beat. Freya wasn't one for mainstream pop — her playlists were a heavy mix of dark wave, alternative rock, and post-punk — but right now, the sheer noise was a welcome relief. It drowned out the persistent, quiet buzz of anxiety that usually sat at the base of her neck. She threw her head back, her long, dark wavy hair spilling over her shoulders, her hips moving naturally to the rhythm. The intricate lines of ink on her arms and neck caught the flashing ambient lights of the room — a stark, stunning contrast of dark lines and pale skin.

She looked entirely free. Completely out of his reach.

From the edge of the living room, Kai stood near the hallway archway. He was supposed to be leaving. He was supposed to go upstairs, close his door, and ignore the rest of the night. Instead, he was frozen, the empty space beside him where Chloe had been now replaced by a suffocating, hyper-focus on the center of the room.

His blue eyes tracked every move Freya made.

Look at her.

It hit him in the chest like a physical weight — a sharp, dull ache he had no name for. For three years, he'd forced himself to see her as an obstacle. A competitor. The girl who sat across from him in seminar rooms, picking apart his logic with a razor-sharp mind and a slight, smug tilt of her chin. He'd trained himself to channel every sudden spike of adrenaline she caused into aggression, turning what could have been attraction into a cold, relentless academic rivalry. Because rivalry had rules. Rivalry meant he was still in control.

If he let himself look at her — really look at her, the way he was right now — he'd have to acknowledge the truth: he'd been completely undone by her since the first day she walked into his life.

Beside her, Adam spun her around, both of them laughing loudly over the bass. Kai's jaw clenched so hard the muscle flexed beneath his skin.

He hated how easy it was for Adam to make her smile like that. He hated how comfortable she was in her own skin, surrounded by noise and people, while he felt like a prisoner inside his own chest every time an emotion tried to breach the surface.

"Man, you're staring so hard you're gonna burn a hole through the drywall," Fletcher's voice cut in. He slid up beside Kai, a fresh red cup in hand, leaning against the doorframe with a wicked, knowing grin.

"I'm not staring," Kai said immediately, his voice flat, gravelly, and unbothered. He didn't break his gaze for a second.

"Right, right. You're just... intensely evaluating the structural integrity of her dance moves," Fletcher wheezed, taking a sip. "Bro, you're bleeding intensity. Just go talk to her. Without the razor blades in your voice for once."

"There's nothing to talk about," Kai grunted, finally tearing his eyes away to glare at his roommate. "She's loud. She's annoying. And she's in my way."

"Yeah, okay, Romeo," Fletcher snickered, slapping Kai on the shoulder. "Keep telling yourself that while she lives rent-free in your head."

Across the room, Freya wiped a loose strand of dark hair from her face, catching her breath as the song ended. Her skin was warm, her heart beating fast from dancing.

For a second, her gaze drifted toward the archway.

She saw him immediately. Standing tall, dark hair slightly messy, dark shirt clinging to his sculpted chest and arms. He was leaning against the wood, looking down at her like a stern, disappointed judge.

Unbelievable, she thought, rolling her eyes. Can he literally not exist without judging everyone around him?

Objectively, she wasn't blind. She knew Kai Hawthorne was devastatingly handsome — the kind of sharp, sculpted, blue-eyed perfection that looked like it belonged on a billboard for some luxury brand. But to Freya, his attitude completely ruined it. He was arrogant, cold, spoiled, and so pathologically obsessed with being superior that it turned all that physical beauty into a walking red flag. He was a statue: pretty to look at, but freezing to the touch and totally hollow inside.

She caught his eye, deliberately held it, and raised her eyebrows in a silent, challenging What?

Kai didn't blink. He just stared back, his expression an impenetrable mask, though beneath his dark shirt, his pulse was racing a hundred miles an hour.

"Come on," Adam said, pulling Freya's arm toward the front door. "Before you two start a fire using pure eye contact. I need air."

"Lead the way," Freya said, turning her back on Kai with a sharp flick of her hair, leaving him standing in the dark hallway, surrounded by a party he owned, feeling entirely left behind.

The cold air outside hit Freya like a slap, a crisp midnight breeze cutting through the warmth of the crowded living room.

She stood on the wide porch steps of The Clubhouse, taking a deep, deliberate breath — four seconds in, four seconds out — letting her perfume mingle with the night air. Adam was a few feet away, leaning over the wooden railing, frantically texting someone with a grin on his face.

"Adam," Freya murmured, rolling her shoulders. "I'm heading back inside for two seconds to grab my jacket, and then we are getting out of here."

"Copy that, boss," Adam hummed without looking up from his phone. "I'll be right here."

Freya turned and stepped back into the house, navigating the warm, crowded hallway. She reached the hook near the front door where her dark denim jacket was hanging. As she reached up to pull it down, a heavy, familiar presence closed in behind her.

The air shifted. The sharp, expensive scent of his cologne flooded her senses before she even turned around.

"Leaving so soon, Brenner?"

Kai's voice was a low, smooth rasp right above her ear. He was standing too close — barely a foot of space between her back and the broad, sculpted wall of his chest.

Freya whipped around, her dark hair sweeping over her shoulder, her mismatched eyes flaring with instant, fierce hostility. She planted her hand flat against the center of his chest — purely to push him back, to force him out of her space.

"Back off, Hawthorne," she snapped, her chin tilted up, every line of her body instantly coiled like a spring. "I've had my fill of your charming personality for one night."

Her palm hit his chest — firm, warm, and utterly unprompted.

It wasn't a shove. It was contact. A simple, physical touch meant to push him away, but to Kai's hyper-vigilant, deeply broken system, the warmth of her hand through his dark shirt registered as something infinitely more dangerous: affectionate proximity.

His body reacted before his brain could stop it.

A sudden, violent spike of panic slammed into Kai's ribs. His chest seized, the air in his lungs instantly turning to liquid lead. The old, suffocating ghost of his childhood — the cold rooms, the ruthless lectures, the absolute terror of being vulnerable — surged into his throat. His heart thundered wildly, a silent, terrifying panic attack threatening to rip through his carefully constructed composure.

In a split second of absolute, desperate weakness, Kai lost control.

His hand shot out and gripped her wrist — not hard enough to bruise, but firm, desperate, his long fingers wrapping around the dark tattoos inked into her skin. He pulled her a fraction of an inch closer, his blue eyes blown wide, stormy, and completely stripped of their usual icy arrogance.

"Don't," Kai breathed, his voice raw, rough, and cracking at the edges. His chest heaved once, a shallow, desperate breath. He stared down at her face, his gaze dropping to her lips, then back to her mismatched eyes, completely unraveling in front of her. "Don't... push me away."

It lasted two seconds.

Two seconds where Kai Hawthorne looked broken. Two seconds where the untouchable, arrogant heir looked like a man drowning in open water, clinging to her like a lifeline.

Freya froze. Her breath caught in her throat. The fierce fire in her chest instantly sputtered into absolute, jarring shock. She felt the heavy, frantic pulse hammering in his wrist where his skin met hers. What is this?

Then, the shutter slammed shut.

Realization hit Kai like an iceberg. He saw the shock in her eyes, felt the stillness of her body, and realized what he had just exposed. He had touched her. He had let her see the panic. He had broken the cardinal rule of his existence.

Feelings are weakness. Especially for Hawthorne men.

In a fraction of a second, the weakness vanished, replaced by a wave of self-loathing so hot it turned his blood to ice.

He dropped her wrist like her skin was on fire, violently stepping back two full paces. The mask slammed down so hard and fast it was sickening. His posture straightened, his shoulders set, and his blue eyes hardened into twin chips of frozen glass.

"Actually," Kai drawled, his voice instantly sliding back into that smooth, cruel, razor-sharp pitch, "do us both a favor and take your jacket."

He reached out, snatched her jacket off the hook, and tossed it callously into her arms, stepping back to restore a wide, cold distance between them.

"You're clogging up my hallway," he sneered, a slight, mocking tilt to his lips that didn't reach his eyes — eyes that were still wildly dark beneath the arrogant surface. "And frankly, your perfume is giving me a headache. Get out of my house."

Freya stood there, holding her jacket against her chest, her wrist still tingling where his hand had clamped down.

The whiplash was violent. One second he was looking at her like he was dying, his pulse racing, his voice breaking — and the next, he was back to being the insufferable, spoiled brat who looked down on her from a pedestal.

Her shock instantly burned away, replaced by a surge of white-hot, furious indignation. Freya Brenner didn't run. She didn't cower. She took a sharp, grounding breath — four seconds in, holding back the sudden prickle of her own anxiety — and took a step toward him, completely refusing to let him have the final blow.

She shoved her jacket on, zip clicking sharply into place, and looked him up and down with absolute, cutting contempt.

"You are unbelievable, Hawthorne," Freya said, her voice dropping into a quiet, lethal register that cut straight through the music coming from the living room. "You act like you're made of stone, but you're so fragile a single touch makes you flinch." She took one more step, leaning in close enough that her scent washed over his one last time. "Keep your party. Keep your house. But the next time you put your hands on me, make sure you're ready for the consequences."

She turned on her heel, her dark hair whipping through the air, and walked out the front door, slamming it shut behind her so hard the glass panes rattled.

Kai stood alone in the hallway.

His hand went up to his throat, his dark hair falling over his forehead as he leaned his head back against the wall, breathing heavily, trying to force his heart to slow down. His fingers were shaking.

Out on the deck, Ezra watched through the window, his eyes narrowing as he took a quiet drag of his cigarette.

Kai leaned against the wood, staring at his own hand — the hand that had just held Freya's wrist — and clenched it into a tight, white-knuckled fist.

Fuck.

Kai locked his bedroom door, threw his phone onto the mattress, and stripped off his dark shirt. His chest was still tight, his skin hot where she'd touched him. He paced the length of the room once, twice, before collapsing onto the edge of the bed and pulling his hands through his dark hair.

On the nightstand, his phone lit up. Then lit up again. And again.

[The Clubhouse 🏀]

Fletcher: BRO

Fletcher: KAI

Fletcher: KAI HAWTHORNE

Fletcher: ANSWER YOUR PHONE DONT BE LIKE THIS

Fletcher: I literally saw the hallway slam from the kitchen. The door slammed so hard my solo cup vibrated.

Fletcher: What did u do????? Did u bite her?????

Fletcher: Ezra said u looked like u saw a ghost.

Ezra: Leave him alone, Fletch.

Fletcher: NO I WILL NOT LEAVE HIM ALONE. THIS IS HOUSE LORE.

Fletcher: Kai. Bro. You owe me $20 for the door hinges.