Chapter 25 JUNIPER
“Do you hear me?” I snapped, the words tearing out of me raw and trembling.
“My dad has cancer. Stage III pancreatic.”
The silence that followed was a physical thing — thick, impossible to breathe through.
Knox stared at me, the cocky mask gone.
For once, he looked genuinely stunned, like the words had hit him harder than any tackle on the field.
Then he moved.
Before I could step back, his arms were around me, big and sure, pulling me in with a gentleness that didn’t match the rest of him.
One hand settled at the back of my head, the other braced across my shoulders, holding me flush against his chest.
The world narrowed to the steady press of him and the muffled thump of his heartbeat under my ear.
I froze. Every muscle locked.
“Let go,” I hissed, pushing at his chest, palms flat against hard muscle that didn’t budge.
“Knox, let go right now—”
He didn’t.
If anything, he tightened, chin resting lightly on my crown, his voice low and even against my hair.
“It’s okay… it’s okay,” he murmured, like he was trying to talk me down from a cliff.
“He’ll be okay. Breathe. Just breathe.”
My hands shook so badly they were useless.
The tears I’d been holding in for hours spilled hot and silent into his shirt.
His scent — clean, sharp, a hint of pine and something expensive — wrapped around me, and for one terrifying second it felt like safety. I hated that it felt like safety.
I hated that I wanted it.
My shoulders loosened a fraction. The tightness in my chest eased, not gone, but less jagged.
I kept pushing at him, because pushing felt like control, but my strength was gone.
The sobs came in small, ugly bursts, and he held me through each one without a word, like he’d decided words weren’t necessary.
When my breathing finally evened out, I stopped fighting.
I didn’t have any energy left to push him away, even if I wanted to.
My body sagged forward, exhaustion winning, and my arms slid around him just to keep myself upright.
He didn’t let me fall.
One strong arm banded around my back while the other tipped my face gently toward his shoulder.
“That’s it,” he murmured, voice low and steady against my hair.
“Breathe.”
I tried.
I really tried.
In… slow and shaky, the air catching in my throat like broken glass.
Out… trembling, uneven, barely enough to keep the black spots from dancing at the edges of my vision.
My hands fisted in the front of his shirt, knuckles white, as if clinging to him could stop the world from tilting.
Every inhale felt like failure.
Every exhale carried another wave of terror — Dad’s pale face on the kitchen floor, the doctor’s careful words, the mountain of bills I had no idea how to climb.
I didn’t want to fall apart.
Not here.
Not in Knox Reyes’ arms, of all places.
But my body wasn’t listening.
Another shaky breath in.
My chest hitched. A sob threatened to rip free, and I bit down hard on my lip to trap it.
“There you go,” he whispered, the word warm against the top of my head.
I hated how my body betrayed me in that moment, choosing now — of all times — to memorize him.
The solid press of his chest against mine.
The calm, powerful rhythm of his heartbeat under my palm.
The possessive spread of his hand over my hip, fingers splayed like he had every right to hold me there.
He smelled like clean sweat, faint cologne, and something warmer that was just… him.
For ten, maybe twenty seconds, the world narrowed to the heat of his body, the steady rise and fall of his breathing, and the strange safety I felt wrapped in arms that had no business feeling safe.
Then he stepped back.
The absence hit me instantly — cold air rushing in where his warmth had been, leaving me unsteady again.
My arms fell awkwardly to my sides as reality crashed back in.
Knox stood there looking at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read.
“Better?” he asked, voice low.
I nodded because, yes, I could breathe again.
Barely.
“Good.” Knox reached for a tissue like he owned the damn room.
He dabbed under one eye with surprising gentleness, wiping away the tears that were now flowing freely down my cheeks.
Then he cupped my face with one large hand, fingers pressing firmly into my jaw as he worked on the other side, dabbing until every trace of salt and mascara was gone.
I didn’t protest.
I was too stunned, too raw, too speechless to do anything but let him.
I could get addicted to this — to someone holding me together when I was falling apart.
To having my face caressed like I mattered.
My dad had always been the only one who wiped my tears, who put a Band-Aid on my scraped knee and told me it would be okay. He was my only family.
But this man I barely knew cleaned my face like we’d loved each other for years.
A dangerous, tender warmth bloomed in my chest despite everything.
“Thank you,” I whispered when he finally stepped back.
The tears had dried.
The proof of my breakdown was gone.
My eyes probably looked like a raccoon’s, but at least the evidence was erased.
Knox straightened and tossed the stained tissue into the trash.
“Don’t thank me,” he said, tone suddenly back to his arrogant self.
“Though I admit I’ve never wiped a girl’s tears before. I usually make them cry straight after fucking them, but that’s beside the point…”
The gentle Knox from ten seconds ago had vanished.
I can feel the old armor click into place, the one that keeps people at arm’s length.
For a beat I want to hate him for the line, for the timing, for the way he turns everything into a joke.
“And there he is,” I said, voice dripping with mocking sarcasm.
“Knox Reyes, Asshole Extraordinaire. If this is the part where you warn me you’re a bad guy and I should be more careful, save your breath. I already know."
His mouth twitched into something that might have been a smile if he actually believed in them.
He nodded toward the door.
“They’re still out there. And if you walk out looking wrecked like you do right now, they’ll think I fucked you good and proper in here.”
I let out a sharp, bitter laugh.
“As if I care what anyone thinks. I’ve never cared before, and I sure as hell don’t care now.”
The lie tasted sour on my tongue.
I did care about my reputation — more than I wanted to admit — but I’d rather die than let him know that.
Knox smirked, studying me with a look that was equal parts pleased and bored.
“You’re excellent at pretending to be untouchable..but right now ..”
His gaze skimmed slowly down my body before returning to my eyes.
“You owe me.”
“Owe you? For what? Trespassing? Invasion of privacy? Cleaning up my tears like some wannabe white knight?”
“I’m helping you keep your image,” he shrugged, casual and cruel.
“If I tell them nothing happened in here, they’ll definitely believe me.”
His eyes dragged over me again, slower this time, like he was cataloguing every inch of my baggy hoodie and glasses like they were a costume he found amusing.
I crossed my arms over my hoodie and lifted my chin, letting the tears burn behind my eyes like a dare.
“Oh, of course,” I said, voice syrupy and poisonous.
“Because everyone will totally buy it. Why wouldn’t they? Knox Reyes, campus golden boy, would never stoop to fuck someone who actually reads books or pays her own bills. He needs the kind of girl who comes with a spray tan and a laugh that sounds like a ringtone—barely‑clothed, zero backbone, ready to giggle at his jokes and disappear the second he gets bored. So when they see me—hoodie, glasses, the girl who looks like she lost a fight with a thrift store—they’ll nod and believe the fairy tale. Because the great Knox would never sully his image by being seen with someone who has standards, or a job, or a life that isn’t built around his ego. God forbid his precious rep gets tarnished by someone who actually matters.”
The sarcasm tasted like acid on my tongue, but it felt good to throw it back at him.
I watched his face, waiting for the smirk to crack, waiting for him to finally look uncomfortable.
He didn’t.
Instead, that infuriating half-smile lingered, like my words were cute instead of cutting.
”Careful,” he murmured, stepping just a fraction closer.
“You almost sound jealous.”
I laughed — short, sharp, and completely humorless.
“Jealous? Of what? Your revolving door of brainless conquests? Please. I’d rather swallow glass than be another notch on your bedpost. Now get out of my way before I make sure the only thing people remember about you today is the sound of you hitting the floor.”
He studied me for a long beat, the smirk fading into something quieter, almost thoughtful.
I turned to walk away, but his hand shot out and grabbed my arm again — firm, unyielding.
“Wait” he said, voice dropping lower,
“I may have come across a little cocky just now…”
“A little?” I bit back, unable to stop the sarcasm from spilling out like venom.
“Try a lot. Try ‘I’m God’s gift to women and the rest of you should be grateful’ levels of cocky.”
He ignored the jab, eyes still locked on mine with that intense, unreadable stare.
“Your dad is ill. Cancer. And you wanting to drop out of college means you don’t have money. You’re probably drowning in bills you can’t pay, and pretending you can handle it all alone is only going to make it worse. Let me help. I can make this easier — money, whatever you need. No strings.”
My pulse banged so loudly in my ears it was embarrassing. Shame and fury twisted together in my stomach, hot and bitter.
“What, you suddenly want to play savior now?” I hissed, the sarcasm sharp enough to cut glass.
“The big, bad quarterback sees a girl in a hoodie and decides she’s his latest charity project? How noble. How convenient. You don’t know me. You don’t know my dad. You don’t know a damn thing about what we’re going through. So spare me the hero speech and get out of my fucking way.”
“Not so fast,” he said.
He took his phone from his pocket, unlocked it with a thumbprint, and tapped twice.
He held up the screen.
A photograph of me crying, and him holding me, but from the angle of the picture it looked like we’re kissing — my fists curled in his shirt like I planned to rip it off, my wet lashes spiked and glistening.
He must have taken it when my eyes were closed.
Panic punched the air from my lungs.
My voice came out very calm, almost eerily so.
“Delete it.”
“I will,” he said, and my stomach dropped even as a weird, treacherous relief hit.
“After you help me.”
I swallowed.
He watched the movement like it was interesting.
“Help you?”
“I need you to be my fake girlfriend.”