Chapter 49 - 1AM

I stood there in the dark doorway, my breath hitching as Knox’s hands remained firmly clamped around my upper arms.

My heart slammed against my ribs. He was shirtless, and his bare chest was warm against my knuckles where I had bumped into him. The cold air from the sitting room washed over my bare feet, making me shiver violently against his touch.

"T-The heating broke out there," I stammered, my teeth clicking together softly. "I was coming in to get another blanket."

Knox didn’t make a sarcastic joke. He didn’t scoff or tease me about giving up on my couch stance.

He looked down at me shivering in front of him, then dropped his gaze to the thin throw blanket wrapped around my shoulders like a cape. Slowly, his dark eyes flicked down to the plush spare duvet resting over his arm.

"I was coming out to bring you this," Knox said, his low voice raspy with sleep.

I blinked, looking from the heavy comforter back up to his unreadable face.

Knox held my gaze for two long seconds, then let out a low, resigned breath. He released his grip on my arms, stepped back into the dark bedroom, and tossed the extra duvet onto the foot of the massive king-sized bed.

"Get in, Bennett," Knox said, turning around to face me. "You’re going to freeze out there."

I stood in the doorway for three long seconds, my stubborn pride fighting a losing battle against the icy draft creeping up my ankles.

Without saying another word, I walked across the plush carpet, set my pillow down on the empty side of the bed, and climbed under the heavy comforter.

The warmth under the covers hit me instantly, washing over my shivering body like a hot bath.

I pulled the comforter up to my collarbone, shifting as far to the edge of the mattress as humanly possible without falling off onto the floor. There was a full foot of empty space between us, but I could still feel the sheer, radiating heat of his broad frame beside me in the dark.

The room went dead silent.

The quiet hum of the hotel corridor outside seemed miles away. I lay flat on my back, staring straight up at the dark ceiling, my heart beating at a fast, uneven rhythm against my ribs.

I held my breath as every nerve ending in my body was hyper-aware of his presence beside me. The familiar scent of his cedar cologne drifted through the warm sheets, filling the dark room.

"You’re hovering on the edge," Knox’s rough voice broke the silence in the dark.

"I’m fine right here," I replied, keeping my eyes fixed stubbornly on the ceiling.

A long beat of silence passed. Then I heard the soft rustle of the sheets as Knox shifted on his side, turning his head toward me in the dark.

"I failed a standardized reading test in seventh grade," Knox said quietly.

I blinked, turning my head slightly on the pillow to look at his silhouette in the dim light.

He wasn’t looking at me. He was staring straight ahead at the dark wall, his broad shoulders resting against the wooden headboard and his facial expression lost in the shadows.

"What?" I asked softly in a whisper.

"Seventh grade," Knox repeated flatly, devoid of any drama or self-pity. "Statewide reading assessment. They put a test booklet in front of me with like four hundred lines of dense, single-spaced black text. I sat in that classroom for two hours while everyone around me finished, turned their booklets over, and left the room."

I held my breath, listening to his quiet words. He had never talked about his past like this. Not once since I had known him.

"The letters kept shifting," Knox continued in a calm tone, almost detached, as if he were reading an official report about someone else. "The lines bled into each other. I couldn’t make out the words fast enough. My eyes kept jumping across the page. When the timer went off, I had answered five questions out of fifty."

My chest tightened as I looked at his sharp side profile in the dark.

"My father got called in the next morning," Knox said, a faint, bitter edge touching his low voice. "He didn’t believe in learning differences or reading struggles. He stood in the principal’s office and told everyone that a Sheridan doesn’t fail basic reading."

"Knox..." I murmured, the word slipping out before I could stop myself.

"He hired three private tutors that summer," Knox said, turning his head slightly until his dark eyes met mine in the dim light. "They all tried to force me to read printed blocks of text line by line for four hours a day. It was hell. They thought if they pushed harder, the letters would magically stop moving on the page."

He stopped talking and the heavy silence settled back over the bedroom.

I lay there in the dark, replaying his words in my head over and over again. He hadn’t asked for sympathy, and he hadn’t made an excuse. He had simply told me the truth... a piece of his past he had kept hidden behind arrogant smiles and his #19 jersey for as long as I had known him.

"They were teaching you wrong," I said quietly. "Your brain isn’t broken, Knox. It just processes structure spatially instead of linearly."

Knox didn’t answer right away. He just stared at me through the shadows, his dark eyes searching my face, his breathing slow and deep.

"Yeah," Knox murmured softly after a long pause. "I guess it does."

The air between us was filled with a quiet, real closeness that had nothing to do with our fake-dating deal or athletic waivers. For the first time since we had collided in that hallway, the wall between us felt like it had completely disappeared.

I turned back onto my back, pulling the warm comforter tighter up to my chin.

Neither of us spoke again.

The quiet rhythm of his breathing slowly filled the room, and for the first time all week, the lingering tension in my shoulders completely melted away.

I let out a soft breath, my eyes heavy, finally settling into the warmth of the bed.

Just as my eyes were beginning to flutter shut, a bright light suddenly flashed on the nightstand beside my pillow.

BZZZ.

My phone vibrated against the wooden surface, the screen glowing brightly in the pitch-black room like a flare.

I turned my head instantly.

Sitting on top of the nightstand right next to me, the lit-up screen cut through the dark. The bold text notification was fully visible:

Drew: Can’t stop thinking about you. Good night, Nora.

The bright screen stayed lit for five long seconds. Knox turned his head on his pillow, his dark eyes catching the glow of the text.

I saw Knox’s dark eyes shift slowly from the phone back to my face.

His jaw set in a tight, hard line. Every trace of the quiet vulnerability from moments ago vanished in a single instant, replaced by a cold, sudden stillness that chilled the room.

"Persistent, isn’t he?" Knox said in a cold, slightly amused after a few seconds. "Didn’t he get the memo already that you’re dating me?"

"Fake-dating," I corrected softly, my breath hitching.

Knox turned onto his back, staring up at the dark ceiling. "Right. Fake-dating."

He paused, his jaw tightening before he shot me a dark, unreadable look. "Well, until our contract is up, Bennett... tell your real boyfriend to wait his turn."

Before I could even open my mouth to respond, he turned his back to me completely, pulling the comforter over his shoulder and leaving me frozen in the dark.