Episode 3

For a second, Vivian forgot every polite sentence she had practiced in the rideshare.

Ethan Lawrence did not say a word. He only looked at her from under the white studio lights, shirt open, leather jacket loose on his shoulders, gray eyes cool enough to make the room feel smaller.

Then his gaze dropped to the schedule in her hand.

"No."

Vivian blinked. "I haven't asked yet."

"You're from Wilson."

"Coach Wilson," she corrected automatically.

Something like amusement touched his mouth. "That supposed to scare me?"

"No. It's his name."

Behind her, Ashley made a tiny sound that might have been a laugh strangled for professional reasons.

Ethan's attention stayed on Vivian. "Tell Coach Wilson I'm busy."

"You don't know what day the schedule is for."

"Practice."

"Yes."

"Then I'm busy."

Marco lifted his camera again. "Excellent. Can the emotional violence happen after the last shot?"

"Two minutes," Ashley said.

Ethan ignored both of them. "Are you the new hall monitor?"

"Operations assistant," Vivian said.

"You look like you should be selling cookies outside a library."

Her face heated so fast she almost hated herself for it. Almost.

"And you look like you have practice at four," she said, holding out the paper.

The studio went dangerously quiet.

Ethan stared at the schedule.

He did not take it.

"I have a paid booking at four," he said.

"The opener is next Saturday."

"I know when the opener is."

"Then you know missing every official practice is a problem."

His eyes sharpened. The lazy amusement did not vanish, exactly. It grew teeth.

"For who?"

Vivian held her ground because the alternative was backing into a light stand and dying of humiliation. "For the team."

"The team survived before me."

"Coach Wilson seems to think it would survive better with you."

"Wilson thinks a lot of things."

"Do you?"

That did it.

Ashley's head turned sharply toward Vivian. Marco lowered the camera again, delighted in the way artists became delighted when someone else created chaos.

Ethan stepped down from the low platform.

He was not close enough to touch her. He did not need to be. The air changed anyway, all heat and leather and the clean, faint bite of whatever product they had used in his hair.

"You always this brave," he asked, "or did Wilson forget to warn you?"

"He warned me."

"And you still came?"

Vivian wished her voice did not have to climb over her heartbeat. "I need the job."

For the first time, something in his expression shifted.

Not soft.

Interested.

That might have been worse.

"How badly?"

"Enough to stand here."

"That bad, huh."

"Apparently."

The corner of his mouth curved. "Tell Wilson I'm flattered he found someone with a pulse. Still not going."

The refusal landed in Vivian's stomach like a stone.

There it was.

Her trial, failing in real time under commercial lights.

She looked down at the schedule, then back at him. "If this is about money-"

Ashley's eyes widened. "Oh, no."

"-because the booking pays and practice doesn't," Vivian pushed on, hating that her voice was getting faster, "I understand that. I mean, I don't understand it personally, because no one has ever paid me to stand under lights in an open shirt, but I understand that paid work matters."

Ethan's gaze flicked down to his own shirt, then back to her face.

The smile got worse.

"Do you?"

"Yes." She swallowed. "So if you were willing to miss one evening of paid work and attend practice, I could try to compensate you."

Silence.

Terrible, total silence.

Then Ben Ortiz, who Vivian had not noticed until that exact doomed moment, looked up from a case of tape near the wall and said, "Wow."

Vivian's stomach dropped through the floor.

Ashley pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose.

Ethan took one slow step closer.

"You want to compensate me," he said.

Vivian heard the sentence as he heard it.

Every inch of her skin went hot.

"For the booking," she said quickly.

"For one evening."

"For the missed professional obligation."

"At four o'clock."

"Yes."

"With you."

"No." Her voice cracked. "Not with me. At practice. With the team. In a normal athletic context."

Ben coughed into his fist.

Ethan looked like he might laugh, which somehow felt more dangerous than him looking annoyed.

"Carter," he said, and her last name in his mouth was unfairly intimate for a word found on her student ID, "do you have any idea what my evening rate is?"

"No."

"Twenty thousand."

Her mouth fell open.

"Minimum," he added.

"For one evening?"

"You offered."

"I offered to help, not buy a small car."

"Depends on the car."

"You're impossible."

"Usually."

Vivian looked at Ashley, because surely an adult in production would tell her he was lying.

Ashley shrugged. "The number isn't insane."

"That is a terrible thing to say to a freshman."

This time Ben laughed.

Ethan's eyes stayed on Vivian, bright with the first real amusement she had seen from him. Not kind amusement. Not yet. But not bored, either.

"Tell you what," he said. "Ninety percent off."

Vivian did the math too fast. "Two thousand dollars is still not a normal amount of money."

"For you, maybe."

"For most people."

"Most people aren't asking me to give up a booking."

"Most people probably know better."

"You're learning."

She should have left then. Coach Wilson had been very clear: make contact, deliver the schedule, get an answer, leave if he acted like an idiot.

Answer: no.

Behavior: spectacularly idiotic.

And yet Ethan reached out, took the schedule from her hand at last, and looked at it.

It should not have felt like a victory.

It did.

His taped fingers brushed the edge of the paper where hers had been. A tiny, stupid spark moved through her hand.

He noticed.

Of course he noticed.

"You taking the bus back?" he asked.

The question threw her. "Yes."

"Don't wait outside. Neighborhood's fine. Men are stupid anyway."

"Was that concern?"

"Observation."

He pulled a black marker from the call-sheet stand, turned the practice schedule over, and wrote something across the back.

Then he handed it to her.

Vivian looked down.

A phone number.

Her heart stumbled.

"If Wilson wants to send someone else, tell him not to bother," Ethan said.

"Is this your agent?"

"It's mine."

Ashley went very still.

Ben's brows lifted.

Vivian looked up. "Why are you giving me your number if you aren't coming?"

Ethan's smile was slow and unreadable.

"Because you haven't bored me yet."

The words should not have pleased her.

They did anyway, which was humiliating.

By the time Vivian reached the bus stop, the afternoon had tipped toward evening and the back of Coach Wilson's schedule felt heavier than the folder under her arm. She texted the operations line the truth: Contact made. Schedule delivered. Player declined practice.

She did not mention the number.

On campus, in the quiet outside Juniper Hall, she unfolded the schedule one more time.

Ten digits stared up at her in black marker.

Under them, Ethan had written one line.

Don't waste it.

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