Chapter 35 I'M TOO BUSY DREAMING 🌶️
SEAN
The house is still loud, but it's a different kind of loud now—softer, looser. The chants have turned into mumbled singing, half the guys are sprawled on couches, and Mason is leading a dramatic retelling of the final play with a pizza crust as a hockey stick.
I find her by the stairs.
Even after hours of chaos, after every camera, every handshake, every slap on the back—I see her and the rest of the world drops away. She's leaning against the banister, hair falling into her face, smiling at something Rae just said. And all I can think is how badly I want her away from all this noise.
"Come on," I say quietly, threading my fingers through hers. "I want you to myself for five minutes."
Her hand squeezes mine. That's all it takes.
We slip upstairs, away from the crowd, and the music fades into a dull pulse through the floorboards. I pull her into my room and close the door behind us, the dim light casting everything in gold and shadow. For a second, I just stand there, taking her in.
"I still can't believe you wore my jersey," I murmur. My voice is rougher than I expect.
Her lips twitch, teasing. "I can't believe I enjoyed it."
That pulls a laugh out of me—low, disbelieving. God, she's impossible. And perfect.
Ryan sets to sit on the edge of my bed, legs crossed under my jersey, hair falling in loose strands around her face. My freaking jersey. That alone has my pulse hammering. She looked like fire wearing it in the stands, looked like mine when she leaned over the railing, looked so damn delicious outside the arena when I kissed her with half the world watching.
I didn't plan any of that. I don't plan anything with her. She just pulls it out of me.
And now, here, I can't stop staring at her.
She tilts her head, that little smirk tugging at her lips. "You're staring."
"I know," I say, stepping between her knees. "Can't help it."
Her arms loop around my neck before I can say more, and her mouth is on mine. Hot. Demanding. Every kiss with her feels like it carries weight—like it's building something bigger than either of us expected. And this one? This one feels different.
I kiss her back until I can't breathe, until my hands find her waist and tug her closer, until she's pressed flush against me and I feel her shiver. I know exactly why—because I drag my lips down the curve of her jaw, to that spot just behind her ear. The one that makes her inhale sharp, body trembling against mine.
"There?" I whisper against her skin, kissing the same spot again, softer this time.
Her breath hitches. "You know what you're doing."
"Yeah," I murmur, grazing my teeth lightly just to hear that sound again—the quiet gasp that makes my whole body ache. "I've been paying attention."
She leans back slightly, and I follow, kissing down the line of her neck to her shoulder, pushing the jersey aside just enough to bare her skin. My lips find her there too, slow and reverent. The taste of her, the warmth of her—it's enough to make me forget the game, the noise, the world.
We've done this before. Slept together. More than once. But tonight, it feels different. Because tonight I'm not just chasing her body—I'm chasing her, all of her. The girl who stood in my jersey and made me feel invincible. The girl I didn't know I was waiting for before she was forced to live with me and my plus three.
I ease her back onto the bed, covering her with my body, kissing her like I can make her understand everything I can't say yet. About next semester. About wanting this to be more than stolen nights and closed doors. About wanting her. Always.
Her fingers tug at my shirt, pulling it over my head, and then her hands are on my shoulders, tracing the lines of muscle there like she's memorizing me. I bury my face in the crook of her neck, kissing, tasting, breathing her in. My shoulder brushes hers, my lips finding the spot again just behind her ear, and she shivers so hard I smile against her skin.
"You drive me crazy," I whisper.
She tugs my face back up to hers. "Good."
The kiss that follows is messier, hungrier, her nails digging into my back as I slide my hands under the jersey, pushing it up until she lifts her arms and lets me strip it over her head. My name, my number, crumpled between us.
What follows is heat and need and something that feels like more than either of those. I take my time with her—kissing the slope of her shoulder, the line of her collarbone, the inside of her wrist. Letting her feel every ounce of what has been there since day one for me. I was just too much of an idiot to act on it earlier. She pulls me down with her, hips arching, and when we finally come together, it's not rushed. It's deep, it's consuming, it's everything I didn't know I needed.
She gasps my name, right against my ear right, and it's the sound that does me in—the sound that makes me know, with terrifying clarity, that this isn't casual for me. Maybe it never was.
I kiss her again, hard, shoulder to shoulder, chest to chest, the rhythm of us building until the world narrows to nothing but her.
And when it's over, when we collapse tangled in sheets and sweat and the faint buzz of the house below, I don't move away. I hold her tight, her head resting on my chest, her breath evening out against my skin.
I don't tell her what I'm thinking—that I don't want this to end, that next semester doesn't have to mean goodbye, that I want to do this, with her, for real. That she's it for me. I don't tell her now, but I will.
I press a kiss into her hair instead and whisper, "You're mine."
She hums against me, half-asleep, and it sounds like agreement.
And maybe the timing isn't right to say everything out loud, but I know I'll find it. Because I'm not letting this go.
Not her.
Not us.
〰️〰️〰️
The glow of last night still clings to me, warm and dizzying, but the headlines slice straight through it. My stomach drops as I scroll, thumb dragging faster than my brain can process.
Ryan stirs against me, soft and heavy, and I freeze. Her breath fans across my chest, her hand curled near my ribs like she belongs there. And she does. That's the thing that guts me—the fact that she feels so right while the world outside this room is already trying to make her wrong.
Screenshots. Edits. Clips of me kissing her outside the arena, slowed down and set to whatever trending song people thought would make it sting more. Some accounts calling her a distraction, others calling me reckless. Every headline worse than the last. Some are trash blogs, some are accounts with real followings. Doesn't matter—they're all circling the same narrative.
Her name.
My name.
Us.
And none of it in the way it should be.
A part of me wants to hurl the phone across the room and let it shatter into pieces. Another part of me wants to wake her up and warn her, prepare her for what's waiting when she opens her own notifications. But looking down at her, tangled in my sheets, looking peaceful for the first time in weeks—I can't. Not yet.
I bite the inside of my cheek, forcing myself to breathe through the mix of rage and panic clawing at me. She deserves more than being reduced to clickbait. More than being labeled like that.
Ryan McKenna is the fiercest, strongest person I know. She's not anybody's "Former BU Track Queen." She's not a punchline. And she sure as hell isn't some cheap puck bunny.
She didn't ask to be dragged into the mess of my life, into the noise of fans and wannabe reporters with nothing better to do. My pulse is racing, but I make myself settle back down, arm tightening around her.
Ryan blinks up at me, groggy, hair tangled, freckles scattered like constellations across her cheekbones. "Why're you awake so early?" Her voice is scratchy, half-asleep.
I kiss her temple before I can stop myself. "Couldn't sleep."
"Hmm." She nuzzles closer, legs hooking tighter around me. "That's new. You usually snore like a bear."
I huff out a laugh, trying to sound normal, but it feels paper-thin. Because all I can think about is her finding out. About her scrolling the same garbage I just did, reading strangers reducing her to a punchline, a headline, a fucking hashtag.
She deserves better than that. Better than me fumbling this.
"I'll make coffee in a bit," I murmur, brushing her hair back from her face, memorizing the freckles along her nose. Anything to distract myself from the way my chest is caving in.
She hums, already drifting back under, trusting me to hold her. And I do. I hold her like I can keep the world out just by keeping her close.
But the truth is, I can already feel it pressing in. And I know the second she wakes up, we won't just be Ryan and Sean in this room anymore. We'll be content. Clickbait. Something for everyone else to dissect.
And I don't know if she's ready for that. Hell, I don't know if I am.
So I lie there, heart pounding, staring at the ceiling, with the weight of her body against mine and the weight of a thousand strangers waiting outside our door.
And for the first time since last night, I'm scared. Not of losing a game. Not of screwing up my career. Scared of losing her before I've even had the chance to tell her everything.