Page 51 of Freestyle
I step out of my last lecture, the weight of the day pressing into my shoulders as I adjust my bag. Cybersecurity, my entire course load is built around it now. Deep dives into network defense, ethical hacking, encryption protocols. It should have my full focus. It usually does.
But today, my mind is elsewhere.
I unlock my phone, thumb hovering over the app I installed on Rowyn’s device when she was asleep. The tracking software is seamless, invisible. It wouldn’t even register as unusual unless someone knew exactly what to look for.
I shouldn’t need it.
But after what happened at the bar, I know better than to assume she’s safe just because she thinks she is.
Her location pings.
She’s still on campus, exactly where she should be.
I exhale through my nose and slide the phone back into my jacket pocket. It should calm me. It doesn’t.
I should be thinking about VPN exploits or brute-force defense models. My last lecture just ended, Cybersecurity IV, but every word blurred against the echo of her name still stuck in my head.
I tug the strap of my bag higher on my shoulder and head down the stairs, barely dodging a couple underclassmen. My mind is racing before I reach the bottom landing. I jog back to the swim team house, needing to burn off the extra energy that’s coursing through me.
I grab my laptop from my room then my feet carry me down the side wing of the mansion, past the weight room, past the echo of someone blasting music in the hall bathroom. I stop outside Grayson’s door before I even think twice.
I knock once.
“Yeah?”
His voice, low, familiar. Steady in the way mine isn’t.
I push in.
Gray’s sitting on the edge of his bed, laptop glowing in front of him, long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle. He’s wearing that black tank, the one that shows the scar across his left collarbone from the diving board accident two years ago. He glances up as I close the door behind me.
“You check her location again?” he asks. Not mocking. Just knowing.
I nod.
He shuts the laptop without a word.
There’s something about him right now, barefoot, calm, like the eye of a storm I’ve been stuck circling for years. For a moment, I think about telling him everything. About how I woke up in a cold sweat last night thinking she was gone. About the way I dreamt she was screaming and I couldn’t get to her.
But I don’t.
Instead, I sit on the bed next to him.
Too close.
Not close enough.
His shoulderbrushes mine—accidental probably, but I don’t move.
I don’t want to move.
And when he turns his head just enough to glance at me sideways, I feel it again. That same gravity I’ve always attributed to Rowyn, magnetic, dangerous, consuming.
Except this time…
It’s him.
He doesn’t move away.
