Chapter 120: Trust-Fund Kid?

NORA’S POV

In the pitch-black silence of room 314, the glare of my phone screen felt blinding.

I stared at Knox’s name under the missed call log. 10:14 PM.

A sharp pang twisted in my chest. He had spent ten grueling days recovering from a concussion and waited out the evening to celebrate his clean bill of health with me, only for me to pass out on a stack of economic tables like an irresponsible child.

It was two-fifteen in the morning. Calling him now was out of the question... hockey players had mandatory six-thirty morning skates, and the last thing he needed was his sleep disrupted.

With unsteady fingers, I opened our message thread and typed:

Nora: Knox, I am so, so sorry. I sat down at my desk after closing the diner to check my thesis datasets and completely blacked out from exhaustion. I hate that I missed your call. Good luck at morning skate today. I promise I’ll make it up to you xx.

I pressed send, locked the screen, and crawled under my duvet without even bothering to change out of my sweater.

My sleep was thin and plagued by restless dreams of missing deadlines and empty bank accounts.

When my alarm buzzed at seven, I felt as if I hadn’t slept at all. My temples throbbed with a dull, gritty ache, and my reflection in the communal bathroom mirror looked ghostly pale.

I splashed cold water over my face, brushed my teeth, and checked my phone while tying my hair into a fresh clip.

A text from Knox was waiting, timestamped 6:18 AM:

Knox: Stop apologizing, Bennett. You’re running yourself into the ground. Meet me at The Roost at 11:30 after my skate. You’re eating real food.

The blunt, commanding tone was pure Knox Sheridan. But beneath the swagger, the undercurrent of concern was unmistakable.

My morning classes passed in an anxious blur.

I spent two grueling hours in Applied Mathematical Statistics, where we were drilled on multivariate hypothesis testing and standard error distributions until my calculator battery flashed red.

That was followed immediately by Financial Markets and Capital Structures in the business wing, before I had to rush back across the quad to Hallstead Hall for my senior honors advising check-in.

There, Professor Hastings paced between the tiered rows, casually dropping reminders that the departmental review committee would not tolerate half-baked empirical models.

Every word felt like an anvil hanging over my head.

By eleven-twenty-five, I was hurrying across the November quad toward The Roost, the brick-and-timber coffeehouse on the edge of campus.

The bell above the entrance chimed as I pushed through the thick timber door, the warm scent of roasted espresso and cinnamon pastries washing over me.

I spotted Knox immediately.

He was sitting at a corner booth near the back windows, completely commanding the space. He had showered after practice, his dark curls damp and curling slightly at the nape of his neck.

He wore a heather-gray long-sleeve henley under his dark Briar varsity jacket, his broad shoulders relaxed against the wooden booth.

He looked vibrant, and undeniably healthy. The contrast between his effortless athletic vitality and my frazzled, coffee-stained exhaustion couldn’t have been sharper.

The moment he saw me, his gray eyes softened. He stood up, towering over the table, and pulled out the wooden chair opposite him.

"Hey, Bookworm," he murmured, his voice low and warm.

"Hey, Captain," I said, offering a tired smile as I slipped into the seat.

Before I could reach for my bag, Knox reached out. His large, warm hand cupped the side of my neck, his thumb tracing the faint purple shadow beneath my left eye.

The tenderness in his touch made my throat tighten dangerously.

"Look at you," he said softly, his brow furrowing. "When was the last time you slept more than four hours, Bennett?"

"I slept fine," I lied, leaning into his palm for a single, stolen second before pulling back to sit upright. "Just a lot of reading. How was morning practice? Theo still giving you grief about your aim?"

Knox smirked faintly, though his eyes stayed searching. "Theo got a slapshot off his shoulder and shut up for twenty minutes. But we’re not talking about my slapshots."

He turned the table setting toward me.

Sitting on the polished wood was a large, steaming hazelnut latte, a warm breakfast sandwich with folded eggs, melted cheddar, and smoked bacon on thick sourdough, and a ceramic bowl of fresh berries.

My stomach let out a traitorous, audible rumble.

"Eat," Knox instructed, pushing the plate closer. "You look like a strong gust of wind could blow you into the lake."

I didn’t have the pride to argue with food. I took a massive bite of the sandwich, the warm cheese and crisp bacon tasting like heaven after twenty-four hours of black coffee and greasy diner scraps.

"Delicious," I mumbled around the bite, taking a long sip of the hot latte. "Thank you, Knox. Truly."

"Don’t thank me for feeding you," he replied, resting his forearms on the table and watching me eat with quiet intensity.

He waited until I had finished half the sandwich before speaking again.

"What time did you actually leave the diner last night, Nora?"

I paused with the crust halfway to my mouth. "Around ten."

"Ten," he repeated flatly. "Your shift was supposed to end at eight-thirty."

"A high school basketball bus pulled up right before closing," I explained, setting the sandwich down and wiping my fingers on a paper napkin. "Rusty was drowning. He offered double overtime on the floor, and I needed the hours."

Knox frowned, the sharp line between his eyebrows deepening. "You worked a twelve-hour day between lectures, four hours of tutoring, and then five hours on your feet carrying platters. Then you collapsed on your desk."

"I was just tired, Knox. It happens to college students."

"It shouldn’t happen to you," he countered immediately, his tone shifting from gentle to fiercely protective. "You’re killing yourself, Bennett. For what? A couple extra twenty-dollar bills?"

A prickle of defensive heat flared under my collar.

"Those twenty-dollar bills pay for my groceries, Knox. They pay for my textbook access codes, and they keep a buffer in my account in case my mom has an emergency at the bakery."

"Your mom is running her shop," Knox pointed out, leaning forward. "You told me she handled the suppliers."

"She did," I said, my voice tightening. "Because she works fourteen hours a day. I’m not going to sit around acting like a princess while she carries everything alone. And I have ten days to finish my project."

Knox stared at me for a long beat.

Then, with an ease that made my stomach drop, he reached into his jacket, pulled out a matte-black metal credit card, and slid it across the table. It came to a rest right next to my coffee mug.

"Drop the diner shifts," Knox said evenly. "Call Rusty right now and tell him you’re off the schedule until finals are over."

I stared down at the card. The name KNOX G. SHERIDAN was embossed in sleek silver lettering across the front.

"What is that?" I whispered.

"It’s an unlimited line," Knox replied as if he were discussing the weather. "Use it for whatever you need. Groceries, bills, your mom’s bakery, whatever. Just stop running yourself into an early grave."

The silence between us turned instantly ice-cold.

To Knox, it was the simplest equation in the world. He had millions sitting in trust funds and NIL endorsement reserves; solving a problem by throwing capital at it was as natural as breathing.

But sitting across from him in my thrifted sweater, smelling like diner dish soap, the gesture felt like a slap in the face. It stripped away every ounce of my effort, reducing my sleepless nights, my academic grind, and my dignity to a balance sheet error he could erase with a swipe.

I slowly slid the card back across the wood, pushing it until it touched his knuckles.

"Take it back," I said quietly.

Knox blinked, caught off guard. "Nora, be rational for five seconds..."

"I am being rational," I snapped. "I am not your dependent, Knox. I am not a charity case you can sponsor so you feel better about having more money than God."

"That’s not what this is!" Knox retorted. "I’m trying to keep the girl I love from having a physical breakdown! Why do you make taking care of you feel like pulling teeth?"

"Because you’re not taking care of me, Knox! You’re trying to buy my problems away!"

My chest heaved as the exhaustion of the past two weeks rose to the surface.

"You don’t understand what it’s like," I whispered, feeling tears sting the corners of my eyes. "You’ve never had to wonder if you could afford next semester’s tuition. You’ve never had to balance four jobs and a GPA just to prove you deserve to sit in the same classroom as people who were born with silver spoons. I earned my spot at Briar. And I am going to finish this degree on my own two feet."

Knox went completely still.

His face hardened, and his jaw set in a cold line. The warmth in his eyes vanished, replaced by a distant, icy stare.

"Is that what you think of me?" Knox’s voice dropped, chilling me to the bone. "That I’m just a trust-fund asshole throwing money around because I don’t know any better?"

"Knox, that’s not..."

Before I could finish, my phone vibrated sharply on the table.

A loud reminder chimed across the screen:

11:50 AM – Mandatory Econometric Lab Session: Hallstead Hall Room 204.

I looked at the screen, then looked back at Knox.

He didn’t move. He sat rigidly in the booth, his matte-black card sitting untouched between us, his hands curled into tight fists against his thighs.

"I have to go," I whispered, the words tasting like ash in my mouth.

Knox didn’t say a word. He didn’t tell me to stay, and he didn’t reach for my hand. He simply held my gaze with an unreadable expression.

I grabbed my canvas bag, pushed out of the booth, and walked out of the coffeehouse into the freezing wind, leaving half of my breakfast behind.