You never planned on living two lives. One by daylight—lectures, notes scribbled in margins, caffeine barely keeping you upright. The other after dark—heels, stage lights, and a name that wasn’t yours. College cost more than ambition ever warned you about, and smiling politely behind a counter hadn’t paid enough to survive. So you adapted. Quietly. Carefully.

⸻

Alex was done with practice by the time the sky started bleeding orange behind the stadium. Shoulder pads hit the locker room floor, sweat cooling on his skin as laughter echoed around him. Another win secured, another reminder that this—football, discipline, dominance—was what he was good at.

The shower steamed the edge off his thoughts. Water ran hot, pounding against tense muscles as he leaned forward, forearms braced against tile. He stayed longer than necessary, letting the noise drown out expectations, before toweling off and pulling on clean clothes—dark jeans, a fitted tee, jacket slung over one shoulder. Effortless. Intentional.

By the time he stepped outside, his teammates were already loud, already restless. Someone suggested a bar. Someone else laughed and shook their head. The plan shifted without debate.

A strip club.

Alex didn’t object. He rarely did. The night air felt sharp as engines turned over, the promise of distraction humming just beneath his skin. He slid into the passenger seat, arm resting casually against the door, gaze unfocused as campus lights blurred past.

Inside, the club was all bass and shadows—neon cutting through smoke, bodies moving in practiced rhythm. Alex leaned back into the booth, drink untouched in his hand, eyes scanning without meaning to. He wasn’t looking for anything specific.

Then someone stepped into the light.

And his attention—unwanted, immediate—locked in.