Episode 4

By Monday morning, I had a new rule.

No athletes. No lake houses. No parties with doors taller than my dorm room.

"That is three rules," Harper said, sliding into the cafeteria seat across from me.

"It's one lifestyle."

"It's also impossible. You go to Northlake."

I stabbed a fork into eggs that had given up on being warm. "Then I will transfer to a monastery."

"Pretty sure they also have football."

I tried to laugh and failed.

Harper's face softened. She had listened to the whole story the night before: Noah's fake ID, the livestream, the broken art piece, Craig Morris looking at my coat like poverty was a motive, Landon Dalton standing barefoot on his own stairs and deciding I had come to scheme.

I had left out the part where he looked at me through the glass after I threw beer in his face.

That look kept returning at inconvenient times.

"Noah texted?" Harper asked.

"Seventeen apology paragraphs. Then one asking if I could maybe not tell Mom until after his calculus test."

"Bold."

"Stupid."

"Both can be true."

My phone buzzed before I could answer.

Unknown number: Northlake Stadium, south media entrance. Ten minutes.

I stared at it.

Harper leaned over. "Please tell me that is not a ransom note from the quarterback mafia."

"It's probably Dale Porter."

"The suit?"

"The suit."

She sat back. "Want me to come?"

I wanted to say yes. I also wanted one person in my life to stop fixing messes I could walk into myself.

"No. If this is about the damage, I should handle it."

The south media entrance was quiet compared to game days, all concrete, locked glass, and banners snapping in the cold. Landon Dalton stood under one of them with his hands in the pockets of a charcoal coat, looking exactly like the kind of man who could summon people to inconvenient places and expect them to arrive.

No Dale.

Great.

I stopped six feet away. "If you're here to lecture me, I have class in twenty."

His gaze moved over my face, unreadable. "I don't lecture people who throw beer."

"That's very emotionally mature of you."

He reached into his coat and held out a cream envelope.

I did not take it. "What's that?"

"Your payment."

"My what?"

"For the broken piece." His voice stayed flat. "You sent Dale half the amount this morning."

"I sent what I could right now. I said I'd pay the rest in installments."

"No."

The single word scraped.

"Excuse me?"

"You don't owe anything."

I looked at the envelope again. My name was written on the front in neat black ink. "Noah broke it."

"Noah's friend broke it. The security footage was clear."

I hated the relief that rushed through me. "Then why did Craig say--"

"Craig talks when he should think."

"That must make team dinners fun."

For one second, Landon's mouth almost moved. Almost.

Then the cold mask returned. "Take the money."

"No."

"Renee."

It was the first time he had said my name.

I hated that I noticed.

"If I take it, then you get to decide this was all a misunderstanding you solved with a check," I said. "Keep it."

His fingers tightened slightly on the envelope. "Fine. Then consider this your warning instead."

There it was.

The part of him I understood.

"Stay away from Tigers private parties," he said. "Whatever your angle is, find another one."

The cold went out of the air and straight into my chest.

"My angle is keeping my underage stepbrother out of trouble."

"Then do that somewhere else."

I stepped closer before I could stop myself. "You really think I wanted to be there?"

His eyes dropped to my mouth, then back up. "I think people want a lot of things from me."

"And you think I'm people."

"Aren't you?"

It should not have hurt. He was nobody to me. A campus god with a bruised ego and a lake house full of bad assumptions.

Still, my throat tightened.

"Send your warning to Noah," I said. "He is the one who needed it."

I walked away before he could answer.

The rejected email arrived that afternoon.

Harper found me in the student newspaper office staring at the screen.

Athletic Communications appreciates your interest in profiling Coach Kelsey Hart. At this time, Tigers training access is unavailable to freshman reporters. Please direct future requests through your section editor.

"They said no?" Harper asked quietly.

"They said freshman like it was a disease."

"Could be unrelated to Saturday."

I looked at her.

"Okay," she said. "Probably not unrelated."

I closed the laptop.

Across campus, in a players' lounge I had never seen, Landon Dalton probably forgot I existed between film review and dinner.

I wished I could do the same.

But the next day, Andy Osborn held the returned envelope in one hand and looked at Landon like he had lost his mind.

"You warned her?" Andy asked.

Landon sank into the leather couch, jaw tight. "She needed warning."

Dennis snorted from the pool table. "She threw beer at you. Pretty sure she gives the warnings."

Craig leaned on his cue. "She's playing innocent. Girls don't walk into Dalton parties by accident."

"She walked in because her idiot stepbrother called her," Andy said.

Craig rolled his eyes. "And she just happened to know enough about Landon to threaten media fallout?"

"She knew enough about minors and phones," Andy said. "That's not the same thing."

Landon said nothing.

Dennis looked from Craig to Landon, grin turning sharp. "Bet she likes him."

"Don't start," Andy said.

"No, seriously. Girl gets into his house, yells at him, throws beer in his face. Classic flirting."

Craig laughed. "Twenty bucks says she shows up again."

Landon's eyes stayed on the envelope.

"She won't," he said.

But his voice was too certain.

By Friday night, I had made sure he was right.

I changed routes to avoid the athletic center. I ate in the smaller dining hall by the library. I ignored every Tigers highlight on campus screens. When Harper suggested a dorm-floor mixer, I told her I had homework and watched a documentary in bed instead.

No more parties.

No more athletes.

No more Landon Dalton.

Then Valentine's night arrived, pink and glittering and cruel, and I stepped out of the convenience store with mint chocolate in my bag just as a guy I had rejected in my intro media class blocked the sidewalk.

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