Chapter 5 005

Chapter 5

The Morning After

I woke up before my alarm, which never happens, staring at the ceiling like it owed me an explanation.

He kissed me. Damon George kissed me.

I replayed it for probably the tenth time in the last six hours — the weight of his hand in my hair, the way his voice dropped when he kissed me desperately.

It didn’t feel like nothing.

It felt like my whole chest had been rewired overnight.

“Caroline.” Emma’s voice came muffled from the other side of the room, followed by a pillow smacking me in the face. “You’ve been staring at the ceiling for twenty minutes. It’s freaking me out.”

“I’m awake,” I mumbled, shoving the pillow off. “Barely.”

“You didn’t come back until, like, eleven. I texted you three times.” She sat up, hair a disaster, mascara smudged under one eye. “Did something happen at that hockey thing?”

Something. Understatement of the actual century.

“Nothing happened,” I said, way too fast, my voice cracking on the word nothing. “It was just loud. And a lot of hockey guys yelling about a game.”

Emma squinted at me like she wasn’t buying it, but before she could push, my phone buzzed against the nightstand. I lunged for it so fast I nearly fell off the bed.

Harper:brunch in an hour. team’s hosting it for the new recruits + friends. wear something cute I look like death.

Not from Damon. Of course it wasn’t from Damon.

“Who is it?” Emma asked, already digging through her drawer for a hoodie.

“Harper. There’s a team brunch thing in an hour.”

“Ugh, mandatory socializing before ten a.m.” Emma groaned, but she was smiling. “I’m coming. Free food is free food.”

Harper showed up at my door fifteen minutes later looking like a glamorous disaster — sunglasses on indoors, hair thrown up messily, clutching an iced coffee like it was the only thing keeping her upright.

“Don’t,” she said, holding up a hand before I could even ask. “Tyler is the actual worst human alive and I don’t want to talk about it. I cried for like an hour and then I watched three episodes of a baking show and now I’m fine. Moving on.”

“Harp, are you sure you’re—”

“I said moving on, Caroline.” She looped her arm through mine, tugging me toward the door. “Tell me literally anything else. How was the rest of the party after I left? Did you have fun?”

My stomach dropped straight through the floor.

“It was fine,” I said, staring hard at a spot on the hallway carpet. “Pretty boring, honestly. We just hung out for a bit and then I went home.”

Boring. Sure. If you counted getting kissed within an inch of your life by her older brother’s best friend’s older brother—wait, no. By Damon George, Harper’s older brother, in front of half the senior hockey team as boring.

“Boring? At a Wolves party?” Harper snorted. “Was Ethan being obnoxious? He’s always obnoxious.”

“So obnoxious,” I agreed, way too enthusiastically, grateful for literally any topic that wasn’t Damon’s mouth on mine.

Emma caught up to us in the hallway, clearly still deciding whether her hoodie counted as cute, and the three of us headed out into the bright, obnoxiously sunny morning.

The brunch was set up on the lawn outside the athletic center, the long tables covered in checkered cloths, trays of pastries, some kind of DIY mimosa bar that the athletic staff was very obviously pretending not to notice.

Freshmen recruits mingled awkwardly with upperclassmen. A speaker somewhere was playing music just loud enough to make conversation bearable.

“Oh my god, waffle bar,” Emma said, already gone, weaving through the crowd like a heat-seeking missile.

Harper squeezed my arm. “I need actual food before I die. Come on.”

I nodded, only half listening, my eyes doing the thing they’d been doing all morning, scanning every cluster of people, every broad-shouldered guy in a team hoodie, looking for…

There he is.

Damon stood near the far table, arms crossed, half listening to his coach talk to a group of recruits. He looked completely normal. Composed. Captain-mode fully engaged, like he hadn’t spent the last twelve hours living rent-free in my head.

Like he hadn’t kissed me at all.

Something in my chest twisted, sharp and stupid. What did you expect, Caroline? A billboard?

“Earth to Caroline.” Harper waved a hand in front of my face. “You’ve been staring at the waffle station for like a full minute. Are you hypnotized?”

“Just hungry,” I lied, grabbing a plate I didn’t actually want.

We found a spot at one of the tables, and for a while it was almost normal, Harper ranting about Tyler despite insisting she wasn’t going to, Emma making friends with literally every person within a ten-foot radius, the sun warm on my shoulders. I let myself relax a little.

Then I felt it.

That same prickling awareness from last night, crawling up the back of my neck like static electricity.

I looked up.

Damon was watching me from across the lawn. Not subtly. Not for a second, glance-away kind of watching. It was a full, unbroken stare, like he was trying to figure something out and hadn’t landed on the answer yet.

My fork froze halfway to my mouth.

“Caroline? You good?” Harper asked, following my line of sight, and I nearly choked on my own spit trying to look away fast enough.

“Yep! Totally good,” I squeaked, shoving a bite of waffle in my mouth so I’d have an excuse not to talk.

Harper, mercifully, got distracted by Chloe waving her over from another table, and disappeared in a flurry of “oh my god, tell me everything about last night” energy, leaving me alone with Emma, who was now deep in conversation with some sophomore about a communications elective.

Which meant nobody was watching when I finally let myself look back across the lawn.

Damon wasn’t there anymore.

My stomach did a slow, sinking dive. Okay. Fine. Whatever. It’s fine.

I stood up, telling Emma I was grabbing another mimosa I had zero intention of drinking, and wandered toward the drink table mostly just to have somewhere to put my body that wasn’t sitting there overthinking in front of witnesses.

That’s when a hand closed lightly around my wrist.

Not rough. Not grabby. Just enough to stop me mid-step, warm and familiar in a way that made every nerve in my arm light up at once.

“Caroline.”

I knew that voice. I’d know that voice anywhere, in any lifetime, in the middle of a hurricane.

I turned around, and there he was — close, closer than made any sense in the middle of a crowded brunch, his jaw tight, his eyes doing that thing again where they looked like they were trying to read every thought in my head at once.

“Damon,” I breathed, my heart slamming so hard I was sure he could hear it. “Hey.”

“We need to talk,” he said quietly, low enough that no one else could hear. “Now. Somewhere that isn’t here.”

My mouth went completely dry.

“About—” I started, even though I already knew exactly what.

“You know about what,” he said, and something in his voice sounded rough, urgent, a little unsteady and it made my knees feel like they might actually give out right there on the lawn.

I glanced back toward the tables. Harper was still laughing with Chloe. Emma hadn’t even noticed I’d left. Nobody was looking.

Nobody except him.

“Okay,” I whispered.

Damon’s jaw ticked, his eyes dropping briefly to my mouth before snapping back up, like he’d caught himself doing some

thing he shouldn’t.

“Follow me,” he said.

And God help me, I did.