Episode 2

Mercer Studio did not smell like football.

It smelled like black coffee, hot lights, hairspray, leather, and expensive air-conditioning.

Vivian stood just inside the lobby with Coach Wilson's practice schedule pressed flat between both hands, trying not to look as if she had wandered into the wrong life. Everything was matte black and brushed steel. A woman in a slip dress and combat boots crossed the polished floor carrying a garment bag longer than Vivian's body. Somewhere beyond the reception desk, bass-heavy music thudded once, stopped, then started again.

"Can I help you?"

The woman at the front desk looked up from a tablet. Her eyeliner was perfect. Her expression suggested she had already decided Vivian could not.

Vivian lifted the schedule. "I'm looking for Ethan Lawrence."

That changed the air.

Not much. Just enough.

The receptionist's eyes flicked over Vivian's cardigan, her folder, her student ID clipped to her bag. "Name?"

"Vivian Carter. I'm here from Blackridge athletics."

"Of course you are," the woman muttered, then tapped something on the tablet. "Ashley?"

A door opened behind her before Vivian could ask if that was good or bad.

"Tell me he didn't leave." The woman who stepped out had a headset around her neck, a silver measuring tape looped over one wrist, and the terrifying grace of someone who could make ten people move by raising one eyebrow. Her gaze landed on Vivian. "You're not security."

"No." Vivian tried for professional and landed somewhere near polite panic. "Vivian Carter. Blackridge athletics."

"Oh." The woman looked her over. "He sent a freshman this time?"

"Coach Wilson sent me."

"That is what I said." She extended a hand. "Ashley Vega. Studio production. If you're here to drag Ethan to practice, join the graveyard of brave souls."

Vivian shook her hand. "I'm only supposed to make contact and deliver the schedule."

"Smart wording. Less likely to get you emotionally destroyed."

Vivian blinked.

Ashley smiled like she was being kind. "Come on. We're between setups."

Between setups apparently meant walking straight into another world.

The main studio was huge and dark except for the stage area, where white lights blazed down on a set built like a luxury hotel room after midnight. Black sheets. Chrome floor lamp. A low leather chair. A backdrop the color of storm clouds. Racks of jackets stood along one wall, all deep browns and blacks, each piece soft enough to look dangerous.

Vivian's fingers tightened around the schedule.

Juno & Mare Leather, read the call sheet clipped to a stand near the entrance.

So this was not a side job at a gym.

This was a campaign.

"Hold the collar open but don't make it romantic," a man's voice called. "It needs to look like he doesn't care who wants him."

"Marco, that's his natural face," someone answered.

A few people laughed.

Then Vivian saw him.

Ethan Lawrence stood under the lights with his eyes closed and his head tipped back as a stylist adjusted the open collar of a white shirt that had given up pretending to be buttoned. A black leather jacket hung from his shoulders, not worn so much as obeyed. The shirt parted over a hard chest and the clean cut of muscle down his stomach before disappearing into dark jeans.

Vivian forgot, very briefly, how schedules worked.

He was bigger than the clips made him look. Not taller, necessarily, though he was tall. Bigger in the way storms were bigger when they arrived over your own roof. Even standing still, he looked like impact. Like he had been built for collision and had somehow gotten lost under studio lights.

Jersey number 99 was not on him.

It did not matter.

Every warning Coach Wilson had given her suddenly made sense.

"Pretty, right?" Ashley said beside her.

Vivian's face went hot. "I was looking at the set."

"Sure."

"I was."

"The lamp is devastating."

Vivian pressed the schedule harder between her hands.

Across the studio, the photographer lowered his camera. He was lean, dark-haired, and wearing all black except for white sneakers. "Ashley, if he disappears again before the last shot, I am invoicing his soul."

"Get in line, Marco."

"I'm serious. He is expensive, difficult, and allergic to direction."

Without opening his eyes, Ethan said, "I heard that."

Vivian's stomach dropped.

His voice was low. Rough around the edges. Not loud, but everyone heard it.

Marco pointed at him. "Good. Then hear this. Chin down. Less murder, more luxury."

Ethan moved his chin one inch.

The room shifted around him as if that counted as cooperation.

Vivian had seen athletes before. Gavin played football. Half the boys in her hometown had measured their worth in bruises and bench press numbers. But Ethan did not have the open, eager restlessness she knew. He had stillness. A kind of bored violence under the skin.

Ashley nudged her gently with an elbow. "You okay, Blackridge?"

"Yes."

"You look like you just discovered why our last assistant walked into a lighting stand."

"I'm fine."

"Great. Then don't stand in Marco's sightline. He bites."

"Only when talent makes me beg," Marco said.

"I don't make you beg," Ethan said.

"You make everyone beg, Lawrence."

The last name hit Vivian like a cue.

Lawrence.

Practice. Schedule. Attendance sheet. Trial.

She was not here to stare at Ethan Lawrence like every highlight reel, gossip thread, and breathless campus rumor had failed to warn her properly.

She was here to do a job.

Or earn one.

Vivian stepped carefully around a coil of cable and moved toward the edge of the light.

"Don't," Ashley said, too late.

Vivian stopped. "Don't?"

"Never walk into set during a shot."

"We're not shooting," Marco said. "We are suffering."

Ethan's mouth moved. It might have been a smile. It might have been a threat learning how.

The stylist stepped back from him. "Jacket is set."

"Finally." Marco lifted his camera again. "Eyes closed. Hand on the chair. Think rich, lonely, and emotionally unavailable."

"Still natural," Ashley murmured.

Vivian should have laughed.

She didn't.

Ethan's hand settled on the back of the leather chair. Long fingers. Taped knuckles. A small scrape near his wrist, fresh enough to be red. For some reason, that detail pulled her out of the daze more than the open shirt had.

Football player.

Not just model. Not just myth. Not just unfair lighting and a body designed to ruin freshman dignity.

Player.

Absent player.

Her trial.

"Ethan Lawrence?" she said.

The studio did not go silent, exactly.

It sharpened.

Marco lowered the camera an inch. Ashley closed her eyes like Vivian had stepped on a land mine and apologized to it.

Ethan stayed still.

For one beat, Vivian thought he might ignore her completely.

Then his eyes opened.