Ethan’s POV
She opens the door in an oversized t-shirt and sleep shorts, hair loose around her shoulders, and for a moment I forget why I came. She's beautiful like this—unguarded, soft, none of the armor she wears during the day. The sight of her makes my chest ache in ways I'm still learning to name.
"Hey." Her voice is quiet, careful.
"Hey." I'm standing in the hallway like an idiot, suddenly unsure what to do with my hands. "I probably shouldn't have texted."
"Probably not." But she steps aside to let me in anyway.
Her hotel room is small and neat, bed still made, laptop open on the desk with tournament brackets glowing on the screen. She's been studying game film—of course she has. Even at midnight, even after the chaos of today, she's still preparing for tomorrow.
We're supposed to talk about nerves, about the championship, about strategy and pressure and all the things that matter for tomorrow. Instead, somehow, we end up lying side by side on her bed, shoulders almost touching, staring at the ceiling like teenagers at a sleepover.
"Tell me something," she says quietly. "Something real."
So I do.
I tell her about my mom—working three jobs so she could afford basketball camps, the way her hands would shake with exhaustion when she drove me to early morning practices. I tell her about watching her cry when I got my scholarship, those gut-wrenching sobs that were half joy and half relief, and how I swore in that moment I would never let her down. I tell her about the terror that lives in my chest constantly, the fear that one bad game, one injury, one wrong move could destroy everything she sacrificed for.
"She's coming to the championship," I say, my voice rougher than I intended. "First game she's been able to attend since I transferred. I keep thinking about her face if we lose."
"You won't lose." Harper's hand finds mine in the darkness between us. "You're too stubborn to lose."
"What about you? What keeps you up at night?"
She's quiet for a long moment, her fingers tracing patterns on my palm. Then she starts talking—about the pressure of being a Calloway, the perfect daughter performing for parents who see her as a brand extension rather than a person. About feeling invisible in a family of overachievers, about proving herself in a career where her last name opens doors but her gender closes them.
Hours pass. We talk about childhood memories and stupid fears and dreams we've never told anyone. The walls between us thin with every confession, every whispered secret, every moment of honesty we've been too scared to share.
I turn my head to look at her, and she's already watching me. The moonlight through the window catches her features—the curve of her cheek, the shadow of her lashes, the soft part of her lips.
"I need to tell you something." My heart hammers against my ribs. "About senior year."
Her breath catches audibly.
"The breakup wasn't because I stopped loving you." The words come out rough, scraped raw from years of holding them back. "I never stopped loving you, Harper. Not for one second."
She doesn't move. Doesn't speak. Just watches me with those green eyes that see too much.
"Senior year, there was a gambling thing connected to our basketball team. Older players, guys with connections to people who didn't play by normal rules." I turn onto my side, facing her fully. "They figured out pretty quick that your family had money, reputation, things that could be destroyed with the right rumors planted in the right places."
Her breath catches, confusion flickering across her face.
"They made it clear—as long as I loved you publicly, you were leverage. A way to control me, to make sure I played the games they needed me to play." My voice cracks slightly. "The only way to protect you was to make everyone believe I didn't love you at all. So I did. I broke your heart in front of everyone so they'd have no reason to come after you."
"Ethan..." Her voice is barely a whisper.
"I was a coward. I should have told you the truth, should have trusted you to handle it with me. Instead I made a choice for both of us and I've hated myself for it every single day since." I reach for her face, thumb brushing her cheek. "I'm so fucking sorry, Harper. For everything."
She stares at me, and I watch everything reframe behind her eyes—every harsh word, every cold shoulder, every wall she built to survive what I did.
Then she kisses me.
Not for cameras or contracts or anyone watching. This is something else entirely—deep and slow and full of three years of wanting that neither of us could bury deep enough.
Her hands slide into my hair, pulling me closer, and I roll us so she's beneath me without breaking the kiss. My weight presses her into the mattress and she arches up to meet me, a soft sound escaping her throat that makes my blood catch fire.
"Harper." I pull back just enough to see her face. "We don't have to—"
"I want to." Her fingers curl into my shirt, tugging. "I want you."
I kiss her again, deeper this time, my hands finding the hem of her t-shirt and sliding underneath. Her skin is impossibly soft beneath my palms as I trace the curve of her waist, the dip of her spine. She shivers when my fingers brush her ribs, and the sound she makes is something I want to hear for the rest of my life.
Her hands push my sweatshirt up and I pull it over my head. Her palms flatten against my stomach, tracing the lines of muscle with deliberate slowness that makes me groan.
I kiss down her neck, her collarbone, the soft skin above her neckline. Her back arches off the bed when my mouth finds a sensitive spot, and her nails dig into my shoulders hard enough to leave marks.
"This is real now." Her voice is breathless, trembling. "For me. This is real."
"It's been real for me since the moment I saw you again." I press my forehead to hers. "It never stopped being real."
My hand slides lower, fingers hooking into the waistband of her shorts, and she gasps against my mouth. I'm about to lose every shred of self-control when her palm presses flat against my chest, pushing me back.
"Wait." She's breathless, flushed, lips swollen from my kisses. "Wait, wait, wait."
I freeze immediately. "Too fast? I'm sorry, I—"
"No." She laughs, light and teasing, nothing like the heavy emotion of moments ago. "Not too fast. Just bad timing."
"Bad timing?"
"You have a championship game tomorrow." Her fingers trace down my chest, deliberately slow. "I think you need proper motivation."
It takes a second for her meaning to land. When it does, I groan, dropping my forehead to her shoulder. "You're kidding."
"Consider it incentive." She pushes me onto my back, rolling on top of me, hair falling around us like a curtain. "You win tomorrow, and the rest of this..." She rolls her hips once, just enough to make me curse under my breath. "Happens."
"That's cruel."
"That's strategic." She kisses me quick and teasing. "Unless you don't think you can win?"
I grab her hips, flipping us so she's beneath me, and kiss her hard enough to make her moan. "I'm going to win that championship," I growl against her lips. "And then I'm going to collect."
"Promises, promises."
We stay tangled together for hours—kissing, touching, driving each other crazy with what we're not quite doing. When exhaustion finally pulls us under, she's curled against my chest, her breath warm on my skin.
Tomorrow is the championship. Tomorrow is everything we've fought for all season.
And now I have one more reason to win.