PLAYING THE CAPTAIN (UPCOMING)

There is a very specific type of panic that only happens when you are standing on a freezing sidewalk in twenty-two-degree weather, watching brown water pour out of a second-floor window like a cheap water park ride.

“I’m real sorry, kid,” the landlord said, shivering inside his puffy coat as fire trucks blocked the street.

“Pipes froze solid overnight. The whole ceiling caved right over the living room. It won’t be livable until mid-January at the earliest.”

I stood there on the curb, clutching the handles of my two oversized rolling suitcases, my nose already numb from the biting North Carolina wind.

Mid-January.

Today was December twelfth. Campus dorms had officially locked their doors at noon for three weeks of winter-break pipe maintenance.

My roommate, Josie, was currently three hours away in Charlotte, living her best life running tournament operations for Apex Sports Management while staying in Griff’s off-season apartment.

My older sister, Ren, was three states away playing in a holiday basketball tournament for her D2 school. And my parents were currently on an anniversary cruise in Mexico with zero cell service.

Which left me. On a freezing sidewalk. With fifty pounds of winter clothes, a box of gingerbread Pop-Tarts, and approximately forty-six dollars in my checking account.

“Cool,” I muttered through chattering teeth, forcing a bright, cheerful smile that probably made me look like an escaped mental patient.

“Super cool. Love that for me. Have a wonderful holiday season, Mr Henderson.”

I turned on my heel and began dragging my suitcases through the icy slush on Maple Street.

My brain was running at four hundred miles an hour, flipping through options like a malfunctioning Rolodex.

Hotel? A decent room near campus was two hundred dollars a night because of the weekend hockey tournament.

A hostel? The only hostel in Sutton Falls smelled like damp gym socks and had a three-star review that specifically warned about raccoons in the hallway.

Sleeping in my five-hundred-dollar 2008 Honda Civic? It had a broken heater and would probably turn me into a human popsicle before midnight.

My phone buzzed in my coat pocket.

I yanked off my pink knit mitten with my teeth and checked the screen.

Josie: Landlord give you the keys yet? Tell me your new place has heat. Griff and I just finished dinner in Uptown, and he’s already asleep on the couch.

I stared at the screen, my thumb hovering over the keypad.

I could tell her. Josie was my best friend in the entire universe. She would immediately panic, shake Griff awake, and demand he drive three hours in the dark to come rescue me.

Griff would do it, too, because Griff was essentially my overprotective honorary big brother at this point.

Which was exactly why I couldn’t say a single word.

Griff had spent the last four months carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders... his dad’s health, NFL draft pressure, the fake-dating fallout.

He finally had three weeks of peace with Josie before spring bowl practices started. Dropping my stupid housing disaster in their laps would ruin everything.

I was twenty years old. I was supposed to be an independent adult who handled logistics for a living. I didn’t need big brother rescue missions.

I just need a couch, I thought, my boots crunching over frozen gravel. One warm couch for three weeks.

And that was when the thought hit me.

Heavy. Terrifying. Completely insane.

Elm Row.

The big, slightly crooked off-campus house where Griff and his brother lived. Griff was in Charlotte until January. The football season was in its winter dead period.

Which meant only one person was currently inside that house.

Jonas “Bear” Halloran.

My stomach did a violent, sickening flip that had absolutely nothing to do with the freezing weather.

Bear.

Sutton Ravens hockey captain. Starting goaltender. Six-foot-four of thick muscle, dark scowling intensity, and perpetual irritation.

Opposing forwards literally skated around the goal crease just to avoid making eye contact with him.

In the two years I’d known him through Griff and Josie, I had heard him string together a maximum of twelve words in a single sentence.

He was quiet. He was intimidating. He was built like a lumberjack who survived entirely on black coffee and violence.

And, for reasons my therapist would have a field day dissecting, I had been completely, hopelessly infatuated with him since sophomore year.

Not that I had ever let on. God, no. I would sooner swallow a handful of thumbtacks than let Bear Halloran know that every time he walked into a room, my pulse jumped into my throat.

Around him, I turned my perky, bubbly mask up to a deafening eleven. I chattered. I smiled. I made jokes.

He responded by glaring at me like I was a brightly colored mosquito buzzing near his ear.

You can’t go to Elm Row, my rational brain screamed as I turned onto the quiet, tree-lined street. He’s going to look at you, grunt once, and shut the door in your face.

“He won’t shut the door,” I argued out loud to the empty sidewalk, my breath puffing white in the dim streetlights.

“He’s Griff’s brother. He has basic human decency. Probably.”

Besides, the Elm Row house had four bedrooms. Griff had mentioned back in October that the upstairs guest room was completely empty after their buddy Tyler moved out.

All I needed was four walls, a mattress, and a place to plug in my laptop so I could finish my spring event schedules.

I could be a ghost. I’d buy my own groceries. I’d clean the kitchen. He wouldn’t even know I was there.

Before my cowardice could win, the two-story house appeared through the bare oak trees.

The porch light was on, casting a warm yellow pool over the wooden steps. A massive black pickup truck sat in the driveway, its bed dusted with snow.

Warm light glowed from the living room window.

My heart was hammering against my ribs like a caged bird. My palms were sweaty inside my mittens despite the fact that my toes felt like ten frozen peas.

“Just be charming, Camila,” I muttered, hauling the first suitcase up the wooden stairs. “Be cheerful. Normal people ask for favours all the time.”

I dragged the second bag onto the porch and dropped the handles with a loud plastic thud.

I raised my fist. Hesitated for two agonising seconds.

Then I knocked three times on the heavy oak door.

The sound echoed through the cold night.

Inside, heavy footsteps crossed the hardwood floor. Slow. Measured.

The lock clicked.

The door swung inward, and the blast of warm radiator air from the entryway hit my freezing face.

And then there was Bear.

My breath hitched straight in my throat.

He was wearing an old, faded grey Ravens hockey hoodie with the sleeves shoved up to his forearms, showing off thick, corded muscle and dusted dark hair.

Black sweatpants hung low on his hips. He was completely barefoot, his dark brown hair standing up in sleep-tousled waves, and he held a steaming white ceramic mug in one massive hand.

He looked huge. Broad enough to block the entire doorway, towering over my five-foot-two frame by more than a foot.

His glacier-blue eyes swept down over my ridiculous pink puffer coat, moved to the two giant suitcases sitting on the porch, and then slowly travelled back up to my face.

His jaw was shadowed with dark stubble, his brows drawing together into that familiar, terrifying scowl.

He didn’t say a word. He just stood there, staring down at me through the cold air.

I swallowed hard, plastered on my brightest, sunniest, most desperate smile, and gave a tiny wave with one pink mitten.

“Hey, Bear,” I squeaked. “So... funny story.”