Chapter 71: Late Night Knock

NORA’S POV

My phone had not stopped vibrating since the moment I stepped off the campus shuttle outside my residence hall.

Dozens of missed calls. Hundreds of text messages. Thousands of tagged notifications on social media.

The video was everywhere.

SportsCentral, Briar Buzz, all social media platforms that were popular on campus.

The footage of thirty varsity hockey players stripping their purple sweaters on the ice in a full-blown mutiny had already racked up over one million views in less than three hours. Regional sports anchors were calling it the most unprecedented act of player solidarity in collegiate athletics history.

And right at the end of the broadcast clip was Knox.

Knox Sheridan, bare-chested under his black padded base layer, skating across the ice, hooking his massive arms around my waist, and lifting me over the glass dasher boards to kiss me on the player bench in front of three thousand screaming fans.

I pushed open the door to Room 304, tossing my backpack onto my desk chair.

Priya was sitting cross-legged on her bed with her laptop balanced on her knees and a giant bowl of buttery popcorn in her lap. The moment I walked in, she looked up over the top of her screen, her dark eyes sparkling with pure, unadulterated amusement.

"Well, well, well," Priya drawled, setting her bowl down on the comforter. "If it isn’t the most famous girl in collegiate hockey."

"Don’t start, Priya," I groaned, kicking off my sneakers and dropping face-first onto my mattress.

"Don’t start?" Priya echoed, laughing as she turned her laptop screen toward me. "Nora, you are trending number one across all regional sports feeds! Harold Orwell is getting dragged on national television, Knox kept his captaincy, and the boy hoisted you over a four-foot wall of plexiglass like you weighed ten pounds! Look at this headline: Briar Varsity Stuns Donor Board In Historic On-Ice Strike. And right below it: Captain Sheridan Seals Victory With Center-Ice Kiss."

I rolled over, pressing a pillow over my face with a muffled groan. "It was high-adrenaline PR deflection. Knox was running on pure defiance. He did it to seal the team’s victory and show the donors they couldn’t intimidate him."

Priya pulled the pillow off my face, giving me a long, deadpan stare.

"Nora, I am a pre-law student, but you don’t need a law degree to see through that flimsy defense," Priya said bluntly. "I’ve been scrolling the comments on Briar Buzz for the last hour. The entire student body is convinced you two are madly in love. One of the top comments literally has twelve thousand upvotes and says: ’Find someone who looks at you the way Knox Sheridan looks at his tutor.’ Another one says: ’Power couple of the century.’"

My chest tightened, and a hot flush rushed straight up my neck to my cheeks.

"It’s part of the contract," I insisted, trying desperately to cling to my logic. "We’re playing the room. The bigger the public spectacle, the less power Harold and Garrison have to touch his sweater."

"Right," Priya said sarcastically, raising a single sculpted eyebrow. "And when he pulled you flush against his chest and kissed you like he’d die without oxygen, was that strictly an administrative clause in your contract, Bennett? Because from where I was sitting, that didn’t look like legal strategy. That looked like a man staking his claim."

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

Because the memory of Knox’s mouth against mine... the rough, demanding heat, his long fingers tangled in my hair, the scent of cedar and cold ice was still scorching my skin like branding iron.

I stood up, walking over to the small vanity mirror above the sink to splash cold water on my face.

My reflection looked back at me in the glass; my lips were still slightly swollen, my cheeks flushed pink, and my hazel eyes wide with a restless, unsettled energy I had never felt before in my entire life.

Every single time Knox touched me, my analytical brain short-circuited.

I walked back to my desk, pulling open the top drawer to put away my notebook.

Resting right at the front of the drawer was the small, handwritten note that had arrived with Sunday’s delivery of white daisies and Kingston chocolates:

’I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you, Nora. Some things haven’t changed since AP Chem. — Drew.’

I stared at Drew’s neat handwriting for a long, quiet beat.

Drew offered a sense of security... a predictable, uncomplicated comfort rooted in high school nostalgia.

Knox, on the other hand, was a Category 5 hurricane that had torn through my structured life, shattering every wall I’d spent years building.

I pushed the drawer shut, leaving Drew’s note in the dark.

I grabbed my towel and fresh clothes, heading into our attached bathroom for a steaming hot shower to wash the chill of the arena ice off my skin.

The hot water cascaded over my tense shoulders, but even the steam couldn’t wash away the phantom sensation of Knox’s large hands gripping my waist.

I dried off, pulling an oversized gray t-shirt over my head and padding back into the bedroom barefoot.

"I’m going to sleep," I murmured, pulling an oversized gray t-shirt over my head. "I have class at eight tomorrow."

"Suit yourself, lover girl," Priya teased, slipping her noise-canceling headphones over her ears. "Try not to dream about number nineteen."

I turned off my desk lamp and climbed under the heavy comforter.

The room was cool and dim, illuminated only by the faint silver glow of the campus streetlights outside our window.

I closed my eyes, letting the exhaustion of the past seventy-two hours pull me down into a heavy, drifting slumber.

I don’t think it was up to ten minutes that I closed my eyes when a rhythmic knock sounded on our dorm room.

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

I blinked my eyes open, groggy and disoriented from sleep, the digital clock on my nightstand glowing red: 11:45 PM.

Across the room, Priya took off her headphones, frowning in annoyance as she pushed off her bed. "Who the hell is knocking this late?"

Priya walked across the linoleum floor, unlocking the deadbolt and pulling the heavy wooden door open.

She froze.

Her jaw literally dropped open.

Standing in the dimly lit hallway, his broad, six-foot-three frame taking up nearly the entire doorframe, was Knox.

He was dressed in a dark charcoal hoodie with the sleeves pushed up his forearms, gray athletic sweatpants, and his dark curls were slightly tousled from the late-night autumn wind.

"Is Nora awake?" Knox’s deep, gravelly voice echoed into the quiet room.

My heart did a violent, breathless flip inside my chest.

I scrambled upright in bed, pulling the comforter tightly up to my collarbones, my eyes wide in sheer disbelief.

"Knox?" I breathed. "What are you doing here?"