Chapter 126: Our Paper

NORA’S POV

"You look amazing, Nora," Knox said, his deep voice carrying over the noisy bar.

Before I could reply, he lowered his head and kissed me.

It wasn’t a hurried greeting or a quick peck. It was slow and possessive, his large hands resting against the curve of my waist as he claimed my mouth right in the middle of the crowded floor.

A loud whistle pierced the air from the corner.

"Get a room, Cap!" Milo yelled over the music, banging an empty pint glass on the table.

Knox pulled back just an inch, his lips brushing mine as a genuine grin touched the corners of his mouth. "Shut up, Milo," he called over his shoulder without looking away from me.

He laced his fingers with mine, steering me through the crowd toward the large leather horseshoe booth. He slid in first, pulling me down beside him so that my thigh was pressed tight against his, his arm naturally draping along the seatback behind my shoulders.

Bear slid a tall glass of hard apple cider across the dark wood toward me.

"Look who finally left the four corners of her dorm room," Bear grinned, raising his pint. "Priya swore we’d have to physically drag you out of your desk chair."

"I gave the books a rest," I laughed, taking a cold, crisp sip of the cider.

"Believe it when I see it," Jake said around a basket of loaded waffle fries. "She probably has index cards hidden in her boots."

Priya slid into the open spot on the other side of the table, tossing her jacket over the booth divider. "No index cards tonight. Strictly off-duty."

"Good," Knox murmured, his fingers gently squeezing my shoulder. "Because she’s not thinking about work tonight."

I reached into my leather jacket pocket, pulling out the folded brochure Priya had given me earlier, and smoothed it flat over the wooden tabletop.

Knox leaned down, his chin nearly resting on my collarbone as his gray eyes scanned the raised gold lettering: THE ANNUAL TRI-COUNTY ARTISAN BAKING SHOWCASE & WINTER GALA — GRAND PRIZE: $50,000.

"Fifty grand?" Knox murmured, reading the header. "What is this?"

"It’s a regional culinary competition at Emerald Pines Resort," I explained, looking up at him. "The commercial stone-deck ovens at Sugar and Spice are rattling and about to give out completely. A replacement unit costs twenty thousand dollars, and Mom is already drowning in supplier invoices. If we enter this showcase and win, the prize money clears every dime of debt and replaces the equipment for good."

Knox looked up from the cardstock. "Then you’re entering," he said without a second of hesitation.

"Knox, it’s brutal," I cautioned, tapping the requirements. "High-end patisseries from Boston and Providence are entering. They have professional culinary degrees and corporate backing."

"I don’t care about their degrees," Knox answered firmly, his hand covering mine against the table. "I’ve tasted the pastries you baked for the fall festival, Nora. The entire campus was fighting over those pumpkin spice muffins and cinnamon rolls. Nobody touches your talent. You enter, you bake, and you take that trophy."

"Those glazed cinnamon rolls from the charity festival alone could take the fifty grand," Bear said, thumping a solid fist onto the table. "I’m not even joking. If you make those, nobody else in the state has a prayer."

"And the lemon curd tarts," Milo added, pointing a waffle fry at me. "Bennett, you have to enter. But only if I get designated as the official team taste-tester."

Bear pointed a thick, blunt finger directly at my face. "I will personally load a truck with fifty-pound sacks of King Arthur flour and drive it to this mountain resort myself. You need muscle? You’ve got the entire starting defensive line."

"And I’m serious about the taste-testing," Milo insisted. "Purely for athletic nutritional recovery."

The entire booth broke into loud, easy laughter.

I took another sip of my cider, leaning into Knox’s side as the conversation drifted to hockey lines and upcoming practice drills. It was good to just sit here without a looming deadline hanging over my head.

Around ten o’clock, the jukebox shifted into a slow, bluesy guitar track that hummed through the wooden floorboards.

Knox leaned down, his lips brushing the sensitive skin below my ear. "Come here," he murmured, his breath warm against my neck.

He slid out of the booth, catching my hand and guiding me away from the noise toward the dimmer brick hallway near the back patio doors.

Cool air blew from the door, but it felt warm where Knox pressed me against the brick wall. He put one hand flat against the brick next to my head, completely blocking me from the rest of the room.

"You really think we have a shot at that showcase?" I asked softly, looking up into his eyes.

"I don’t think," Knox whispered, his voice dropping to a low, intimate rasp that sent a shiver straight down my spine. "I know."

His knuckles lightly grazed the line of my jaw, tucking a stray curl behind my ear. "You fought for your grades, you fought for me, and you never back down from a damn thing. You and your mom are going to win."

"And what about you?" I asked, a teasing smile touching my lips. "What’s the captain doing while I’m baking?"

"Whatever you tell me to do," he murmured, his gaze dropping to my mouth. "Carrying flour. Washing pans. Standing right in your corner."

He leaned in, closing the distance between us.

His mouth found mine in a kiss that was slow, deep, and intoxicating. Every beat of my heart thudded in sync with his, making all the noise in the bar fade into nothing. I reached out and pulled him by his shirt, bringing him closer until there was no space left between us.

Then, a sharp tone pierced the air.

Ping.

It was the high, distinct chime of a phone notification.

Then another went off. Ping. Ping.

Within two seconds, the entire bar seemed to erupt into a chorus of ringing, buzzing phones. Dozens of notifications pinged in overlapping waves, echoing through the room.

I pulled back slightly from Knox’s lips, blinking in the dim hallway light. "What was that?"

Knox’s jaw tightened, his eyes narrowing as he turned his head toward the main room. "Probably a weather advisory."

The chatter in the pub didn’t just quiet down. It died completely.

The jukebox kept humming, but the laughter, the shouting, and the clinking of pint glasses vanished in an eerie hush. Across the bar, people were staring down at their glowing phone screens in disbelief.

A loud, violent crash shattered the silence.

Someone near the taps had dropped a full pint of beer. Glass exploded across the hardwood floorboards, foam splashing over boots, but nobody moved to clean it up.

"Holy shit," a guy near the dartboards whispered. "Look at the signatures... look at the numbers."

"What the hell is going on?" Knox muttered, taking my hand and stepping out of the hallway.

At the horseshoe booth, Bear and Jake were both on their feet. Bear was staring down at his phone, his face drained of all color, his knuckles white around the casing.

Before Knox could take another step, Priya came sprinting toward us from the front of the bar, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

Her phone was clutched in her hand, her eyes wide with unmasked panic.

"Nora," Priya choked out, her voice trembling. "Knox. You need to look at this right now."

She thrust the phone between us.

The screen was open to the Briar Buzz live forum, the headline pinned in bold, glaring red text across the top of the feed:

THE CAPTAIN’S BOUGHT GIRLFRIEND: BRIAR HOCKEY CAPTAIN PAID HONORS TUTOR $6,000/MONTH TO FAKE RELATIONSHIP AND FIX GRADES.

Below the headline was a high-resolution photograph of a creased, folded sheet of notebook paper.

My stomach dropped into a bottomless, icy pit.

It was our paper. The terms we had drafted in his bedroom.

"No," I whispered, the air turning to jagged glass in my throat as my knees went completely hollow. "No, no, no..."

Knox stared at the phone, his whole body going completely still.

One by one, everyone in O’Malley’s turned to look at us.