The storm didn’t break immediately.
It lingered.
Heavy. Suffocating. Waiting.
Three days had passed since the message appeared on Sheila’s phone and since the kiss neither of them had spoken about again. Three days of distance that felt louder than any argument they had ever had. Three days of Atticus watching her like he was memorizing every movement she made while pretending he wasn’t.
And three days of Sheila pretending she didn’t feel the echo of his lips every time she closed her eyes.
Practice that evening was brutal.
Not in the usual competitive way. This was something sharper. Harder. The kind of energy that made veterans uneasy and rookies quiet. Atticus pushed through drills with mechanical precision, every movement calculated, every shot fired with punishing force. He didn
