Page 50 of Ruthless Edge

"Owen makes sense off paper too. Owen just makes sense."

"He does," I say. And then, because I can't leave it there, because I've been carrying the relay race around in my chest all week and not saying it out loud hasn't made it smaller, I add, "Knox stayed with me the whole race."

Paige waits.

"He could have gone ahead. He's an athlete, he runs obstacle courses like it's nothing. But he stayed. The whole time, even when I was slow, even when I fell in the mud and it was embarrassing, he just— stayed." I look at the wall across from me. "And the bars over the mud pit. I couldn't finish. My arms were done and I couldn't make myself drop into the mud and I was trying not to cry about it, and he just appeared beside me and talked me through it. Didn't make a big deal of it. Didn't try to carry me so he could be the hero, just gave me a break. Just stayed beside me until I could finish it myself."

Paige is quiet.

"He's been like ever since we crossed paths again," I say, and then I stop, because I didn't mean to say that much.

"Emma." Her voice has changed. Less certain than it was a minute ago.

"You can say it."

She pulls one knee up. "I've always thought Knox was a good guy. Like, genuinely. My brother has never had a single bad thing to say about him, and Declan doesn't like half the people he plays with."

I look at her. "I know."

"That doesn't mean⁠—"

"I know," I say again. "I know it doesn't mean anything. I know there's a full history of reasons I shouldn't trust him and one good obstacle course doesn't cancel any of them out." I take a drink. "I just don't like hearing it."

"That he's a good guy?"

"That I can't dismiss him as easily as I want to."

Paige opens her mouth, and then someone comes through the front door and she looks up and her expression changes. I follow her gaze.

Declan Hayes comes in first, which tracks, because he’s her brother and is as comfortable in this house as he is in the hockey house. Behind him come several others, and my stomach drops on the third one.

Knox.

Of course Knox.

People immediately seem to notice their presence, not that I blame them. They’re a group of tall, good-looking guys. The girls near the kitchen notice particularly. One of them, tall with dark hair, gravitates toward Knox with confidence, and within seconds she has her hand on his arm.

I look at my drink. I take several long gulps.

That's who Knox Carter is at a party. That's the default version of him. Someone is always moving toward him, always finding an excuse to touch him, and him being warm and easy about it because that's how he is with everyone.

Paige makes a small sound beside me and I look up.

Knox is looking across the room.

At me.

His face… I don't know how to describe it except that it does something when he sees me that it doesn't do for the girl with her hand on his arm. He says something to her, brief and with a smile, and she drops the arm, and he's already moving.

He comes straight across the crowded room.

"I need you to not make this a thing," I say quietly to Paige.

"I'm just sitting here," she says, entirely too innocently.

Knox gets to us. He looks at me and he's already smiling, the easy settled kind, and he glances down at my cup.

"You're almost out," he says.