Chapter 7
On the weekend of the intercollegiate basketball game, one of the campus organizers begged me to come watch.
I tried to refuse.
She begged harder.
Eventually I caved.
Adrian was quiet on the phone when I told him.
Then he gave a tiny hum of agreement, the kind that always made me feel like I had just kicked a puppy by mistake.
“I’ll come right after,” I promised.
The stadium was loud enough to shake your teeth.
I was halfway through texting Adrian under the bleachers when the crowd suddenly exploded.
I looked up just in time to see Hudson Hale jogging off the court, sweat dampening his hair, the whole place watching him like he was the second coming of every bad decision a teenage girl had ever made.
Then, to my horror, he walked straight toward me.
He sat down in the empty seat beside mine like we had planned it.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said.
Around us, people were already whispering.
I locked my phone and looked at him flatly.
“I have a boyfriend.”
He leaned forward, elbows on knees, and gave me a sideways smile.
“That’s a little direct.”
“I like direct.”
“No problem,” he said. “We can still be friends. I heard you won first place in debate. That’s impressive.”
I looked at him for a second too long.
For reasons I could not explain, I was suddenly losing my last scraps of affection for the last name Hale.
That night, when I reached Adrian’s place, the apartment was dark.
No lights.
No music.
Just him sitting there in the shadows like he had been waiting for hours.
I ran over and hugged him hard.
“Sorry, sorry, I’m late.”
He went rigid at first.
Then, slowly, his hand came up and touched my back.
“I have something for you,” he said.
He led me upstairs to a huge practice room.
There was a piano inside.
He sat down under the warm light, placed his hands on the keys, and started to play.
I do not know enough about music to describe what he did to me in technical terms.
I only know that by the time he finished, I was sitting there completely wrecked.
Years ago he had once sent me a short recording of himself playing, and I had shamelessly forwarded it to a music teacher I knew.
The teacher had hounded me for days wanting to know who the pianist was.
So I already knew Adrian was extraordinary.
Hearing it live was something else.
When he stopped, I grabbed his sleeve.
“That was incredible,” I said. “One day I want to hear you play on a real stage—”
The words left my mouth and I immediately wanted to kick myself.
Because I saw it happen.
The flicker.
The fear.
The thought of a stage. A crowd. Eyes.
So I corrected myself instantly, fierce and dramatic.
“Actually, no. Absolutely not. That music is way too good. It should be for me only. Private concert rights. I’m selfish.”
To my relief, he smiled.
Just as he opened his mouth to answer, a voice called from downstairs.
“Adrian? You in?”
Adrian’s entire body changed.
He turned white.
His hand clamped around mine.
He pulled me toward the back of the room, toward a hidden bedroom I had not even noticed before, and whispered urgently, “Mine. Mine. Mine.”
I stared at him, startled.
He stopped at the door and looked at me with a kind of desperate pleading I had never seen before.
“Please,” he said. “Don’t come out.”
I touched his face.
“Okay. I won’t.”
Then he went downstairs to face whoever had come to the door.