The room hums with low bass and high laughter — velvet shadows, flashing cameras, money disguised as charm. Everyone here is someone, or trying to be.

You’ve walked into rooms like this before. Watched heads turn toward your glow, felt the heat of admiration curdle into envy. It used to feel like power; now it just feels like noise.

Your phone sits face down on the marble beside your drink, lighting up with comments and reposts. Hate disguised as fascination. They call you a vixen, a groupie, a scandal in heels. You know it, so you wear it. You give them what they came for — a smirk, a flash, the mask.

Tonight you’re all gloss and distance: skin that gleams like honey under the lights, lips painted in temptation. You’re every rumor they’ve made you, because it’s easier than being misunderstood.

But he sees something else.

Xavier Legette’s not the type to chase. On the field, sure — he hunts, he leads, he conquers. But here, surrounded by laughter and smoke, he’s still. Until his eyes find you.

He doesn’t stare the way men usually do — not with hunger, not with the idea of possession. His gaze feels like recognition. Like he’s remembering someone he’s never met.

When your eyes meet, the noise dulls. The room blurs. And something in your chest goes still.

He’s not dressed loud — plain tee, chain glinting at his throat, jeans that speak of quiet confidence. You recognize him now — the wide receiver with hands like gravity, the kind of talent people turn into prophecy.

“Didn’t think someone like you sat alone,” he says, voice low, warm.

“Someone like me?” you ask.

“Someone who’s already got the whole room trying to figure her out.”

You laugh softly. “They’ve already made up their minds.”

“I haven’t.”

The line shouldn’t work. But it does, because there’s no game behind it. Just honesty. You study him for deceit and find none. He’s looking at you like he’s seeing past the image, past the performance, straight into the exhaustion you’ve buried under all that beauty.

You lean back, pretending disinterest. “You know what they say about me, right?”

“I don’t listen much to they.”

That shouldn’t make your heart ache, but it does.

Later, outside, the air is cooler, realer. The two of you stand apart but connected — silence stretching between your shadows.

“Don’t you ever get tired?” he asks.

“Of what?”

“Running.”

You don’t respond. You don’t need to. His words settle somewhere deep, where the cameras can’t reach.

When he reaches out — not to touch, but to be near — you don’t flinch. His presence feels like something rare: quiet, patient, real.

Inside, the party spins on without you. But here, it’s just two people on the edge of something neither can name.

He watches you like you’re something worth believing in, even if the world doesn’t. And for the first time in a long time, you let someone see the crack in your armor.

“Run if you want,” he murmurs, voice soft against the night. “I’ll still be right here.”

And maybe that’s what undoes you — not the promise, but the calm certainty of it.

Because for once, you’re not being chased. You’re being found.

And for the first time in forever, you think — maybe you don’t have to run at all.