Chapter 7 Shoulder

Avery's POV

Luca set his coffee down. "You never asked what I transferred here to escape."

I looked up from my screen. "I figured you'd tell me eventually."

"Not much to tell." He shrugged. "My father got a job. I got a new lunch table."

I almost smiled. Almost.

The bell cut through before I could answer. He grabbed his tray and left without another word, like the conversation had never needed an ending.

I packed up my laptop slow. My phone buzzed twice on the table.

The first text was from an unknown number.

ask jaxon about his shoulder

I stared at it a second. Then it was gone, deleted from the other end. I checked the thread. Empty.

The second text was from my mother.

Dinner's at 7 tonight. Mrs. R wants everyone there.

I shoved the phone in my pocket and headed to fifth period. The hallway thinned out fast once the bell rang. I turned the corner by the gym and stopped.

Jaxon stood by the equipment room door, shirt off, someone's hands pressing into his shoulder. Coach Reyes. His face was tight, jaw locked, breathing through something.

"It's fine." Jaxon's voice wasn't fine.

"It's not healing right. You need to sit out."

"I'm not sitting out."

I stepped back before either of them saw me. My shoulder hit the lockers behind me. The sound was small but it carried.

Jaxon's head turned.

I didn't wait to see his face. I walked fast, out the side door, into the courtyard. Didn't stop until I hit the tech lab.

I sat at the back terminal and didn't open my files. My hands were still shaking a little. I didn't know why.

The rest of the day moved past me in pieces. A pop quiz I barely finished. A hallway full of eyes that had mostly moved on to someone else's mistakes. By the time the final bell rang I'd almost forgotten about the text.

Almost.

The car ride home was quiet. My mother talked about the dinner menu, about Mrs. Ryder's request for something simple, about how she'd found a recipe from her own mother's kitchen. I gave her one-word answers and watched the gates roll open.

I went straight to my room and dropped my bag by the desk.

At 6:45 I came down for dinner. The kitchen smelled like garlic and something roasting. Mrs. Ryder was setting the table herself, sleeves pushed up, humming under her breath. My mother stood beside her, laughing at something I'd missed again.

Jaxon came in last. He'd changed out of his practice clothes. He moved careful, like his shoulder was something he was managing instead of ignoring.

He caught me watching.

I looked away first this time.

Dinner started easy enough. Mrs. Ryder asked about my classes. I gave short answers, polite enough to pass. My mother filled the rest of the space the way she always did, telling a story about a mix-up at the grocery store that made Mrs. Ryder laugh for real.

Jaxon barely touched his plate.

His mother set down her fork. "You're not eating."

"Not hungry."

"You had practice for three hours."

"I said I'm not hungry."

The table went quiet. Mrs. Ryder's face didn't change, but something behind her eyes did. My mother reached for her water glass like she needed something to do with her hands.

I kept my eyes down and ate.

After dinner I helped clear plates because it felt wrong not to, even though nobody asked me to. Jaxon carried his own plate to the sink and rinsed it without a word to anyone. His shoulder moved wrong when he lifted his arm. Small, but I caught it.

He caught me catching it.

"Something you want to say?"

"No."

"You've been staring at me since the gym."

My stomach dropped. He'd seen me after all.

"I wasn't staring. I was walking to class."

"Sure." He set the plate in the rack. "You always walk that slow past the equipment room?"

I didn't have an answer for that. He didn't wait for one. He grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and headed for the stairs, favoring his right side the whole way.

I stood at the sink a long moment.

My mother came up beside me, drying her hands on a towel.

"You okay?"

"Fine."

"You've got that look."

"What look?"

"The one you get when you're carrying something you don't want to carry." She bumped my shoulder with hers. "You don't have to tell me. Just don't pretend you're not carrying it."

I didn't answer that either. She let it go, the way she always did when I needed room.

Upstairs, I sat at my desk and opened my laptop. The code sat there waiting, patient, the only thing in the house that didn't ask anything of me.

My phone buzzed once more before I shut it off for the night.

ask jaxon about his shoulder

Same words. Same blocked number. Whoever it was hadn't stopped watching.

I deleted the message and turned my phone face down.

Down the hall, water started running. Jaxon's shower, probably, something to numb whatever his shoulder was doing to him in private. I stared at my screen without seeing it.

Whatever was wrong with him, it wasn't my business.

I told myself that twice before I believed it enough to keep working.