Nerds Don't Date Athletes

Chapter 5

SLOANE

I can't stop thinking about the way he looked at me.

Not at the party. Not the dancefloor moment. Not even the hallway.

The wrist thing.

The way Noah saw Chase's hand on me and didn't explode, didn't perform, didn't make it into some big territorial thing. Just stood there and looked at Chase with that completely still expression until Chase let go and didn't know what to do with himself.

That's the part I keep coming back to at 2am staring at my ceiling.

Chelsea is asleep across the room, breathing slow and even, completely unbothered by the universe. I've been lying here for two hours.

He looked at you like he wanted to eat you alive.

I press my palms over my eyes.

This is a problem.

---

Chelsea is annoyingly cheerful for someone who drank three cups of whatever was in that punch bowl last night.

She's sitting cross legged on her bed eating cereal when I wake up, laptop open, already deep in something on her screen. She looks up when I sit up. Looks at my face.

"You didn't sleep," she says.

"I slept."

"How many hours."

"Enough."

"Sloane."

"Three." I reach for my water bottle. "Maybe two and a half."

She puts her cereal down. "Was it Chase or was it Noah."

I don't answer.

"That's a Noah insomnia," she says. "Chase insomnia looks different. Chase insomnia is angry. This is-" She tilts her head. "This is confused."

"I'm not confused."

"You're absolutely confused."

"Chelsea I swear-"

"He texted you didn't he." It's not a question.

I look at my phone on the nightstand. At the notification I've been pretending I haven't seen since I woke up.

Chelsea sees me look at it. "What did he say."

I pick it up.

Noah: You good?

Two words. Sent at 7:14am which means he was up at 7am on a Saturday thinking about last night.

I don't know what to do with that so I put the phone face down.

"Two words," I tell Chelsea.

"Which two."

"'You good.'"

Chelsea is quiet for a second. Then - "That man drove to a rival campus party, stood in a hallway and watched Chase back down without saying a word, and then texted you at 7am to check on you." She picks her cereal back up. "Just so we're clear on what's happening here."

"He plays for Ridgemont."

"You keep saying that like it means something."

"It does mean something. We play them in less than a week Chelsea. Chase is their opposing-" I stop. Rub my face. "This is complicated."

"Most things worth having are."

I look at her. "When did you get wise."

"I've always been wise. You just don't listen." She points her spoon at me. "Text him back."

"I'm not texting him back right now."

"Sloane-"

"I need coffee first." I get up. Grab my hoodie off the chair. "And a shower. And approximately forty five minutes of not thinking about Noah Sinclair."

"Good luck with that," Chelsea calls after me.

---

I don't get forty five minutes.

I get twelve.

I'm in the shower, water hot, hair full of conditioner, when my brain just - goes there. Replays the hallway. The way he looked at me in that dress. The way he said you look good like it was the most obvious thing in the world and he couldn't understand why he'd need to dress it up.

The way he watched me on that dancefloor.

Dark and steady and not even trying to hide it.

I turn the water to cold.

It helps approximately nothing.

---

I text him back at 10:23am.

Me: I'm fine. You?

Immediate response. Like he was waiting.

Noah: Good now.

I stare at that.

Good now.

My roommate makes a sound from across the room. I look up. Chelsea is watching me with the expression of someone trying very hard not to say something.

"Don't," I say.

"I didn't say anything."

"You were about to."

"I was going to say you're smiling."

I press my lips together.

I am absolutely smiling.

I put my phone face down and open my laptop and try to be a normal person who has assignments due and a degree to finish and a life that does not revolve around a text from a hockey player from the wrong campus.

My phone buzzes.

Noah: What are you doing today.

Me: Studying. I have an assignment due Monday.

Noah: Come study somewhere that isn't your dorm room.

Me: I'm fine in my dorm room.

Noah: You've been in that room since Monday.

I stop typing.

How does he know that.

Me: How do you know that.

Noah: Chelsea.

I look up slowly from my phone.

Chelsea is very focused on her laptop screen. Too focused. The specific focus of someone who knew a question was coming and has prepared to ignore it.

"Chelsea."

"Hmm?"

"You've been talking to Noah Sinclair."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Chelsea Marie-"

"He texted me last night to make sure you got home okay." She looks up finally. Unbothered. "I told him you were fine. We talked for a bit. He's actually really funny."

"You- he-" I close my eyes. "You gave him your number."

"He asked nicely."

"That is exactly what he said about you the first time."

"Because it's true. We're both very polite people." She smiles. "Text him back Sloane. Go study somewhere else. Get out of this room."

I look at my phone.

At the assignment sitting half finished on my laptop.

At the four walls of this room that I have genuinely barely left all week.

Me: Where.

The response comes in under ten seconds.

Noah: I'll send you the address. One hour.

---

The place is called Ember.

I almost walk past it because there's no sign out front worth noticing - just a dark wood door on a quiet street exactly between Crestwood and Ridgemont like someone calculated the midpoint deliberately.

I push through the door and stop.

It's warm inside. Dark wood everywhere. Low amber lighting. Floor to ceiling windows along the back wall looking out onto a private courtyard. Small tables, leather chairs, the kind of quiet that feels intentional rather than empty.

And it is empty.

Every table. The whole place.

I look around. Look at the door. Look around again.

Noah is at a table at the far end of the room, leaning back in his chair, watching me take it all in. He's in a dark grey henley and he looks - annoyingly good for a Saturday afternoon. Relaxed in a way that takes up space without trying.

I walk over.

"There's no one here," I say.

"Quiet day," he says.

"It's Saturday afternoon. In a coffee lounge." I look around one more time. "There's literally no one here."

"Good for studying." He nods at the seat across from him. "Sit down."

I sit down.

A staff member appears almost immediately - just one, which strikes me as odd - and takes our order. I ask for black coffee, one sugar. Noah doesn't order anything, just nods at the staff member who disappears without another word.

Something about the whole thing is slightly off but I can't put my finger on what.

I open my bag. Pull out my laptop. Notebook. Highlighter.

Noah watches me set up without saying anything.

"You're staring," I say without looking up.

"I know."

"It's weird."

"Probably."

I look up. He's got his elbows on the table, hands loosely linked, watching me with that direct unbothered attention that I have not yet figured out how to be normal around.

"Why do you do that?" I ask.

"Do what."

"Look at people like that. Like you've already decided something."

"I have already decided something."

"What."

He looks at me. "That you're worth paying attention to."

The coffee arrives before I have to figure out what to do with that. I wrap both hands around the cup and look at my laptop screen and try to remember what an assignment is.

---

I work for forty minutes.

Or I try to work for forty minutes.

The problem is Noah Sinclair across the table being completely quiet and completely still in a way that should be easy to ignore and is in fact impossible to ignore. He's on his phone, reading something, occasionally typing. He doesn't try to talk. Doesn't interrupt. Just sits there existing and somehow that is more distracting than anything else he could possibly do.

I shift in my chair. Cross my legs. Reach for my coffee.

I look up and catch him watching me.

Not my face.

Lower.

His eyes are on the neckline of my sweater - where it's slipped slightly off my shoulder - and he's not pretending he wasn't looking. He holds it for one second after he knows I've caught him. Then his eyes come back up to mine.

No apology. No embarrassment.

Just that jaw. Tight. Working.

Something moves through me that I'm not going to name in a public place.

I look back at my screen.

My brain is not on my assignment anymore.

I shift again. Uncross my legs. And then - I don't know why I do it, some part of me that has clearly stopped listening to the sensible part - I reach down and push my jeans up slightly at the knee. Just enough. Cross my legs again so the exposed skin sits right there at the edge of the table.

I keep my eyes on my screen.

I feel him go still.

Not moving. Not shifting. Just - completely still the way he goes when something has his full attention.

I take a slow breath. Keep reading the same sentence I've read four times.

The table makes a sound.

I glance up.

Both his hands are flat on the surface. Pressed down. His jaw is set and his eyes are on me and there is nothing casual or unbothered about his expression right now. That easy stillness he always carries is completely gone. He looks like a man who has been very patient for a very long time and is deciding right now, in real time, whether he is going to continue being patient.

"Sloane." His voice comes out lower than usual.

"Hmm?" I look up like I've been focused on my work this whole time.

His eyes drop to my leg. Back up. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

He looks at me for a long moment.

Then he pushes back from his chair.

Closes the distance in three steps.

I barely have time to process it before he's there - one hand on the back of my chair, the other on the table beside me, leaning down, and I have to tilt my head back to look at him and he is right there, close enough that I can see the exact line of his jaw, close enough that when I breathe in I can smell his jacket.

"You think that's funny," he says. Low. Not a question.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I say.

His eyes drop to my mouth.

Stay there.

"Last chance," he says quietly. "Tell me to go back to my seat."

My heart is going too fast. My hands are gripping the edge of the table. Every sensible thought I have is lined up telling me to say it - go back to your seat, this is a bad idea, you just got out of a two year relationship, he plays for Ridgemont-

I don't say any of it.

He kisses me.

Not soft. Not a question. His hand comes up and grips my jaw and he kisses me like he's been deciding whether to do it since a fountain on a Tuesday night three weeks ago and has finally stopped deciding. Like he already knows exactly how he wants to do this and has been waiting for permission.

I grab his henley with both hands.

He makes a low sound against my mouth that does something to my entire nervous system and pulls back just enough to breathe, forehead dropping to mine, his hand still on my jaw.

Neither of us says anything for a second.

Just breathing.

"That was-" I start.

"Yeah," he says.

I release his henley slowly. Look down at my hands. Look up at him. He's watching me with an expression I haven't seen on him before - still intense, still completely focused, but something underneath it that's rawer than anything he's shown me yet.

"We have a problem," I say.

"Several," he says.

"The game is in six days."

"I know."

"Chase is going to-"

"I know."

"This is going to make everything-"

"Sloane." He straightens up. Looks at me. "I know all of that."

"And?"

He looks at me for a long moment.

"And I don't care," he says simply.

I stare at him.

He goes back to his seat. Sits down. Picks up his phone like he didn't just rearrange something fundamental about the last three weeks of my life.

I look at my laptop.

At the assignment I have not made a single word of progress on in the last hour.

At the coffee that's gone cold.

At Noah Sinclair across the table, who is very deliberately not looking at me now, jaw still tight, phone in hand.

"Noah," I say.

"Yeah."

"What are we doing."

He looks up. Holds my gaze.

"I don't know yet," he says. "But I meant what I said."

"Which part."

"I don't care," he says. "About any of the reasons this is complicated. I don't care about the game or the rivalry or what Chase does when he finds out." His eyes are steady. Direct. "I meant it."

I look at him for a long moment.

Then I look back at my screen.

My hands are not steady when I start typing.

And the lounge is still completely empty around us.

Which I still haven't figured out.

I look up at Noah one more time.

He's already looking at me.

He never stopped.

"Noah."

"Yeah."

"Why is this place empty."

He looks at me for a long moment.

The corner of his mouth pulls up.

Just barely.

"Finish your assignment," he says.

He picks his phone back up.

And doesn't answer.