Page 22 of Guarding the Star

“Try.”

“I don't want to.”

She says it looking me straight in the eyes, and I stop breathing.

“Everyone sees the girl who scores goals. The viral Instagram videos. Shows up late to practice and cracks jokes. And they give that Iris a like or a comment and move on with their day, because it's easy… it's what they want to see.”

The car passes under a streetlight. The light crosses her face. Then shadow again.

“But they don't see the one who stays up until three in the morning with the TV on because the quiet scares her. I see that Iris,” she breathes.

I don't know how much time passes. Ten seconds. Twenty. The car rolls through wet streets, but my throat has closed shut and my hands are shaking in my lap.

“How do you do that?” I ask finally.

“Do what?”

“Leave me with nothing to say. Nobody does that.”

Paula doesn't smile. But the corner. The millimeter. There it is.

“So now what?” I ask, because if it were up to me, I'd teleport us both to my bedroom right now.

“Now we get home. Each of us to our own room. And tomorrow we talk.”

“Talk for real, or talk professional?” I push.

“Talk for real.”

“Promise me. Because if you wake up tomorrow and act like this conversation never happened, if you leave me shaking and then pretend none of it was real, I—”

“I'm not going to do that,” she tells me.

The car stops in front of our building. Rain hammers the roof. Paula gets out, walks around, and opens my door.

“I already told you I can open my own doors,” I grumble, even though I secretly love that she does it.

At my apartment door, she doesn't kiss me. She doesn't touch me. She doesn't do anything that crosses a single line.

And that's precisely why I'm shaking.

I lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling.

I don't turn on the TV.

I don't put on a podcast.

I don't look for noise.

I stay in the silence.

Chapter 8

Paula

My protocol breaks the second I lock myself in my room.

I can't sleep. All night thinking about the dance, my hand on her hip, her mouth an inch from my neck. About the short conversation we had in the car on the way back to her apartment.