I skipped practice.

Yeah, I know. Stop looking at me like that. Owen McCalister does not skip practice. I’ve run drills with the flu, with stitches, with food poisoning from some shady taco truck Hunter swore was “life-changing.” Spoiler: it was life-changing. For my colon.

But today? I blew off conditioning, pissed Coach Morgan off enough to make my ears ring, just so I could trail Braelie across campus like a creep on my motorbike with my helmet on, and slow roll behind her. If she noticed, she didn’t give me the satisfaction.

You ever stalk someone to the library? Don’t. It’s depressing. All those kids fighting for outlets like it’s the Hunger Games for high achievers with a insatiable hunger for academic validation, and she just walks in like she’s God’s favorite, finds a spot by the window, cracks open her laptop. So fucking effortless like how those princess just glide and sing through life. Meanwhile I’m outside like an idiot with my helmet in my lap, trying to figure out how the fuck to… I don’t know… infiltrate?

If Kam was here she’d say some shit like, “Reign, you’re embarrassing yourself, she doesn’t even like you like that.” Yeah, well. Atlas said the same thing, Ez made a dick joke, and Andi told me to grow a pair. Nora, though? Nora looked at me like she already knew. So that means something, right? Considering only one of them is my best friend.

Two are your sisters, dumbass

Shut the fuck up.

Anyway. Back to the girl.

So Braelie’s in the library, headphones in, typing like she’s Alexander Hamilton writing the 85. I swear she hasn’t looked up in forty-five minutes. And I’m pacing the aisles pretending I care about dusty-ass economics journals just to be near her. Do you know how boring the Journal of Applied Corporate Strategy is? I don’t. Because I didn’t read it. I stared at the back of her head until my eyes crossed.

Finally, I slide into the chair across from her. Drop my water bottle loud enough to make her look up.

She does. And there it is. That little half-annoyed, half-flustered expression like, Why are you here? Except she doesn’t say it, because she doesn’t waste words on me unless absolutely she has to.

“What,” she says flatly.

“Hi, sweet pea,” I say. Yeah, I drop it casual, like it’s been her nickname forever and not something I came up at 4 am, hungover as fuck when she was trying to sneak out of my bed.

Her eyes narrow. “Don’t call me that.”

Which obviously means I’m going to call her that until the day I die.

“I skipped practice for you,” I announce, leaning back in the chair, stretching my arms obnoxiously because I know she notices my shoulders even if she pretends she doesn’t. “Coach is probably plotting my public execution. Pity me please, baby?”

Braelie just sighs. Goes back to typing. Which… rude.

So I kick at her shoe under the table. Just a tap.

“Stop.”

Another tap.

She glares so I grin.

“This is serious,” she says, gesturing at her screen like I care about her six-thousand-word blah blah blah analysis or whatever.

“I’m serious too,” I shoot back. “Deadass. Look, you give me one inch, I’ll—” I stop, smirk, shake my head. “Actually, nah. You don’t want to hear how far I’d run with that inch.”

Her face goes pink. Victory.

I lean forward, elbows on the table, eyes locked on hers. “Just let me in a little, yeah? Ten minutes. I’ll carry your books. Quiz you on your vocab. Hold your iced coffee while you look for books. I don’t care. I just… wanna be here.”

Braelie doesn’t say anything right away. Just stares at me like she’s weighing whether I’m an inconvenience or an inevitability.

(Both, mama, I’m both)

I know how it looks like, heartbreak Prince McCalister, begging for study time like a lovesick loser. It’s tragic. My ancestors are probably rolling in their marble graves.

But me? I don’t care.

I’d rather be here, with her side-eyeing me across a library table, than scoring hat tricks all day.

So I kick her shoe again, softer this time. With an aching smirk. “C’mon, babe. Make some room in that schedule. I’ll prove I fit.”