Page 65 of Unsteady

“You saw him, Reiner. He stared at the fucking door all night waiting for her.” Matt jerks back to me, eyes dark as he sizes me up again. “You’ve already hurt him once tonight. Considering your track record, I think it’d be better if I stop you now. You don’t give a shit about him.”

I don’t know him well enough for it to hurt as bad as it does, and maybe it’s his connection with Rhys that makes the words land like a slap.

I do wonder how much Matt Fredderic has divulged of our paths crossing last semester. How often he saw me take one of his athlete friends into a bathroom at one of the house parties, or grind into the lap of some overgrown football star just to feel nothing. I barely remember last semester, spiraling out of control and desperate not to feel so much all at once.

This year is different. Rhys is different.

“If I didn’t give a shit about him, Matt, I think you’d know. But this isn’t like last semester.” I push the words through clenched teeth, hating the vulnerability of it all. My eyes flicker to Bennett for a moment, but he’s just a stoic. “And Rhys is… different.”

“Please.” Matt snorts, rolling his eyes.

Fury ratchets up my spine. “I love sex just as much as you do,Freddy, and that’s not a fucking crime just because I’m a girl. But IguaranteeI care more about Rhys than you haveevercared about a girl you put your dick in.”

Now it’s Matt that looks like he’s been slapped, a little stunned.

“He’s in his room,” Bennet cuts in, jerking his shoulder a little.

I’m gone before either of them can try to change their minds and stop me.

I’ve never been in the Hockey House, that I remember—and definitely not while Rhys Koteskiy was one of its inhabitants. Still, I find his room on the first guess, a51poster taped to the wall and signed by all his teammates. I look a little closer and see all of the signatures are marked with “Get well soon,” or “Thinking about you” or “You’re stronger than this.”

“O Captain, My Captain,” written the largest and signed by Matt Fredderic in a script that looks ridiculous next to the size of everyone else's.

I raise my hand and knock a little beat against the wood.

“For the last time, Freddy…” He huffs, throwing his voice like he’s far from the door. “I knew she might not come, okay? You’re right. It was stupid of me to ask.”

My brow furrows and I knock again even as he’s still speaking.

“She’s not my—”

He throws the door open in the middle of his sentence, angry as he looks for the culprit of the knocking and only finds me. “... girlfriend.”

TWENTY-ONE

RHYS

She’s so goddamn beautiful, I feel every ounce of anger at her fade the longer I look at her.

Sadie Gray is in my house, in the doorway to my room, looking like every fantasy I’ve ever had, wrapped in a silk bow.

“Hey,” I choke out, throat hoarse as my eyes scan the expanse of her pale legs from knee to the high cut of her very short silk dress. I’ve touched that same silk before, I realize, and there’s some dark possessive part of me that warms at the sight of it.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she says, and I realize I’m smiling like an idiot.

I swallow back the immediate insistence I want to make, that this isfine. No worries, I’m just glad you’re here.

She could’ve showed up in a shirt that saidSTOP TRYING, HOTSHOT. I’M NOT YOUR GIRLFRIEND,and I’d still be as happy to see her.

Because I crave Sadie like an addiction.

“You’re here now,” is the best I can do, because I don’t want to waste any of the time I have with her on anything but comfort. She makes me feel warm and solid, whole again.

I step to the side and stretch my arm behind my head, cheeks going pink at the slight disarray of my room. It’s not messy, but it’s well lived-in, as I’ve barely left my room this week.

The anxiety has been worse. Enough that I skipped two days of classes, fully unable to get myself out of bed. I rolled through multiple nightmares, showering sweat off and washing my sheets every day because they were soaked through.

But now, everything seems still. And seeing Sadie standing in the middle of the room, sliding off her leather jacket and hanging it off my desk chair, there’s an innate rightness to it. Like she’s finally where she’s meant to be.

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