The morning of the state championship smelled like cheap beer, wet asphalt, and the frantic, desperate energy of a town that had nothing else to live for.
I stood at the window of my bedroom, the radiator hissing a weak rhythm against my shins, and watched Millhaven wake up. Across the street, the Miller brothers were already stringing maroon and gold pennants between the sagging telephone poles. Pickup trucks with foam fingers duct-taped to the grilles rumbled down Main Street. The whole town was vibrating, holding its collective breath for the golden boy to deliver them salvation.
They didn't know the golden boy was held together by cortisone and a prayer.
I pressed my forehead against the cold glass of the windowpanes. Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was the violent, mottled canvas of Hayes's right shoulder. The memory of the heat radiating off his skin, the sharp catch in his breath when I pulled his shirt over his head.
*If I don't give them this, I'm nothing.*
His words from last night were a heavy, physical weight in my chest. If he played today, he was going to tear that rotator cuff completely. The Columbia scout would pack up his clipboard by halftime, and Hayes would be trapped in this town, under the thumb of a father who only loved him when he was winning.
I stepped away from the window. The floorboards creaked under my bare feet as I walked to the nightstand.
I opened the bottom drawer. Past the stack of required reading for AP Lit, past the ridiculous, overpriced cashmere sweaters my father sent me out of guilt, sat a small, black velvet box. Inside wasn't jewelry. It was a burner phone.
My father's lawyers had given it to me on the day of my exile. *Only for absolute emergencies, Wren. Do not contact your old friends. Do not leave a digital footprint. You do not exist.*
My hands were shaking as I picked it up. The plastic felt cheap and hollow, but it weighed a thousand pounds.
If I turned this on, if I made a call, I was pinging a cell tower. I was risking the NDA. I was risking my mother's hush-money, her lifestyle, my own fragile anonymity. I had spent months meticulously building my invisible walls, making sure no one looked at me twice.
But Hayes had looked at me. He had looked at me when I was trying so hard to be unseen, and he had made me feel like I was the only thing in the room.
I sat on the edge of my mattress, my thumb hovering over the power button. The screen flickered to life, the harsh white light burning my tired eyes.
There was only one person in my old life who had the kind of power I needed right now. Someone whose family didn't just have money—they had the state.
I dialed the number from memory. It was pathetic that I still knew it, a ghost from a life where I wore silk instead of oversized flannels, where I attended galas instead of freezing high school football games.
The line rang. Once. Twice.
"This is Vance."
The voice on the other end was smooth, bored, and steeped in the kind of casual arrogance that only came from generational wealth. Julian Vance. The Governor's son. My ex-boyfriend.
Hearing his voice sent a cold, violent shiver down my spine. It smelled like expensive scotch and the interior of a town car.
"Julian," I breathed, my voice barely a whisper in the quiet bedroom.
The silence on the other end stretched, heavy and sudden. I could almost hear the gears turning in his head, the sharp, predatory snap of realization.
"Well, well, well," Julian finally murmured, the boredom entirely gone, replaced by a dark, silken amusement. "Wren Ashworth. I thought your father buried you under the patio."
"I need a favor." I didn't have time for the dance. Julian loved the dance—the verbal sparring, the power play. But I was running out of time. Kickoff was in six hours.
"A favor?" I could hear the clink of ice against crystal. It was 8 AM on a Saturday, and he was already drinking. "You vanish off the face of the earth for eight months, ignore my calls, and now you want a favor? Birdie, you break my heart."
I squeezed my eyes shut. *Birdie.* I hated that nickname. I hated how he said it, like he owned the cage I was kept in.
"It's Millhaven High School," I said, forcing my voice to remain perfectly flat, perfectly detached. "They're hosting the division championship today. The stadium... the home bleachers are entirely wooden. Built in the fifties. They're rotting, Julian. They're a structural nightmare and a massive fire hazard."
"And let me guess," Julian drawled, his tone sharpening. "You want me to whisper in my father's ear. Have the State Fire Marshal pay this quaint little town a surprise visit before kickoff. Shut the whole circus down."
"Can you do it?" My knuckles were white where I gripped the phone.
Julian hummed, a low, calculating sound. "I can do anything, Wren. You know that. The question is, why do you care? Since when does the ice princess of Manhattan care about a public school football game?"
He was fishing. He was looking for the weakness. If I told him about Hayes, he would weaponize it. Julian didn't destroy things out of anger; he destroyed them because he found it entertaining.
"I don't care about the game," I lied, staring at the dust motes dancing in the shaft of morning light. "I care about the noise. It's annoying."
Julian laughed. It was a sharp, genuine sound that made the hairs on my arms stand up. "God, I've missed you. You're such a beautiful, terrible liar."
"Will you do it, Julian?"
The line went quiet for a long time. I could hear my own heartbeat, frantic and loud, drumming against my ribs. I was trading one devil for another. I was burning my sanctuary to the ground to keep Hayes from burning himself.
"Consider it done," Julian finally said, his voice dropping an octave, losing the playful edge. It was a promise, and it was a threat. "I'll make the call. The stadium will be red-tagged by noon."
A wave of relief so violent it made me dizzy crashed over me. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet, Birdie," Julian whispered. "Favors between us are never free. I'll see you soon."
The line clicked dead.
I pulled the phone away from my ear, staring at the black screen until my vision blurred. I had saved Hayes. He wasn't going to play today. His shoulder was safe.
But as I dropped the burner phone back into the velvet box, I realized my hands were still shaking.
The quiet before the storm wasn't over. I had just changed the weather.