Chapter 183

Noah

The week after the championship felt unreal—like living inside two different worlds at the same time.

On the field, everything was fast, focused, and loud. Aiden pushed the team harder than ever, preparing for the Rose Bowl like it was a war—because it was. Every drill was sharper, every play review heavier, every second measured. People kept congratulating me in the hallways, professors smiled when I walked past, strangers asked for pictures. I was the “miracle run,” the headline. The guy who couldn’t be stopped.

And yet, the thing that kept my heart beating wasn’t any of that.

It was every stolen second I got with Aiden. Especially those in which I was pinned to the wall, breathless, laughing into his mouth, whispering that I missed him before he’d bring me to my knees and to his crotch… My favorite place to be while I was with him.

We were careful, but not distant. Careful—but not cold.

I didn’t care about caution anymore. I just cared about him.

When I wasn’t with him, I spent every free hour at my mother and sister’s new house. William had made sure it was fully furnished, stocked, comfortable—almost too comfortable for them to ever wanna leave. The first dinner we had there felt like something out of that life we always wanted to have, a life they deserved, but that I was scared wasn’t really ours. Emily kept smiling at me like she couldn’t believe we were all sitting at the same table, eating real food, laughing, like a family who had never been broken.

Mom reached across the table once and held my hand.

She didn’t say much. She didn’t have to.

She looked… lighter. More alive than I had ever seen her, but the question still came.

Soft. Careful. Afraid of the answer.

“Have you heard from your father?”

I lied. I told her no, but the truth was sitting in my phone like a throat full of glass.

You think this is over?

You better bring them back.

They are my wife and my daughter. Just like you’re my fucking son.

Sometimes the messages came in the middle of the night.

Sometimes they came one after another, like punches.

You all owe me.

I will not be replaced.

He was furious. Desperate... And desperate men were dangerous.

You better fucking give me what you owe me. Or I swear I will come and take it.

I blocked the number, but he made new ones.

I thought about telling William.

But how could I?

Anything he did would be… extreme. And any move against my father would only make him angrier. That meant more retaliation, more chaos, more debt. More danger.

So instead, I showed Aiden.

He read through the messages, eyes darkening with every line. “He’s unraveling,” he said. “And that makes him dangerous. You can’t ignore this.”

“But if I respond, I give him what he wants,” I argued. “He’ll just keep pushing. He’ll never stop.”

“You’re not going to respond,” he said, steady as always. “But you will keep every message. And you’re going to forward them to William. Let him handle the legal side. We may not want to owe him more, but your family’s safety comes first—and right now, he’s the one with the resources to keep them protected.”

So I did.

Every message. Every threat. Every drunken, venomous voicemail.

William replied almost immediately:

You did the right thing. I’ll take it from here.

I didn’t share any of it with my mom or Emily.

I would rather choke on blood than see fear in my mother’s eyes again.

So I carried that weight alone.

And on the other side of all of this, there was Lexie.

Sweet, excited, glowing with anticipation. Completely oblivious. In love with me, and in love with my family.

My mom adored her back, and Emily—even knowing everything—still held her hand and hugged her and let herself love her too.

Lexie would call three times a day—about flowers, color palettes, guest lists, table linens, cake tiers, her dress fitting...

I'd nod, smile, say the right words, and I'd thank God that my mom and Emily were thrilled to help because I couldn’t do it. Inside, my chest was stone, because I knew. I knew that wedding would never happen. I knew I would break her heart.

I just didn’t know how to do it without destroying her.

I kept waiting for the right moment, the safe moment—if such a moment could even exist.

And through all of it—the practices, the dinners, the planning, the threats—I held onto the thing that kept me steady:

Every night, before bed, Aiden’s voice in my ear, low and warm and sure:

“We’re going to figure it out.

One step at a time.

I’ve got you, baby boy.”

And I believed him. Even when I was scared. Even when I felt like I was running on a wire stretched over a wildfire, because if I lost everything else—I was not losing him. Not again.

But the more the week went on, the more something else started sinking in.

Paranoia.

At first it was small things. A shift of light in the corner of my vision. A quiet step behind me when I knew the hallway should’ve been empty. A car I thought I’d seen parked near campus two days in a row.

Nothing I could prove but enough to make my stomach tighten. Maybe it was nothing and no one at all, maybe just the stress, but maybe it was my father already back… Or maybe it was  the cost of living two lives at once.

Still… even with that constant edge of tension pressing between my shoulder blades, I wouldn’t have given up our stolen time for anything.

Most nights, the same unspoken routine.

I waited until everyone cleared out—until the last shower stopped, the last locker slammed, the janitor finished locking up and walked away. That was when Aiden always came back. He’d unlock the door just for us, slip inside, and leave it cracked for me.

So every night I could, I followed.

I slid in behind him and closed the door again from the inside, the click of the lock sealing us into our own secret world. The locker room was dim, lit only by the muted emergency bulb overhead, the space quiet except for the faint hum of the vents and the steady pulse in my ears.

The air always smelled like him. Cedar soap and mint. My Aiden…. Always waiting for me. And every time, something inside my chest loosened like it had been holding its breath all day.

“I was waiting for you, baby boy,” he murmured. His voice was low, the way it got when it was only for me. “Thought maybe you went to see your family already.”

“I will,” I said, quieter than I meant to. “Just… not yet. I thought someone was around when I left tutoring. Heard footsteps. Could’ve been nothing. I waited a while.”

Aiden stilled.

His voice stayed calm when he spoke, but I felt the shift—protective, sharp, his.

“Next time, text me,” he said, stepping closer until his chest brushed mine. “I’ll check it out.”

I swallowed, nodding, my hands already curling into his shirt.

“I’m fine, just wishing I had more time with you…” I murmured. “I promised I’d have dinner with my mom and Em when I get back.”

“Then,” Aiden said, his lips brushing the corner of my jaw, “let’s make sure you’re nice and clean by the time you leave here.”

His fingers slid under the hem of my hoodie—slow, but with no hesitation. “Shower with me.”

It wasn’t a question.

My heart kicked hard once, loud enough that it felt like sound.

Clothes came off in rushed, clumsy movements—not frantic, just urgent, like we were both starving and had been for days. His mouth found mine halfway through; I kissed back, gripping the back of his neck, his hip, whatever I could reach.

The water was barely warm before we were inside it, the steam wrapping around us, the world fading until it was just hands and breath and the familiar heat of him everywhere.

“You’re with me,” he whispered.

And just like that, the paranoia, the threats, the pressure—all of it fell away.

For a few minutes, there was nobody else on earth.