The Wolves' Captain And Me

Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Crossing the Line

His apartment was nothing like I expected. No trophies lined up to prove his greatness, no posters of himself plastered on the walls the way I'd imagined a campus legend might decorate. Just clean lines, dark furniture, and a quiet that felt heavier than the noise we'd left behind at the bar.

The walk over had been quiet too, the two of us cutting through empty streets without much conversation, my heels clicking against the pavement while he kept an easy, unhurried pace beside me like he had nowhere else in the world to be. A few times our hands brushed and neither of us pulled away.

He unlocked his door and held it open for me, waiting until I stepped inside before following. The apartment smelled faintly like laundry detergent and something warmer underneath, cedar maybe, and everything about the space felt deliberate, like a person who had built a life around control down to the smallest detail.

"You live alone?" I asked, mostly to fill the silence, because now that we were actually here, my nerve was starting to waver.

"Team captains don't get roommates," he said, shrugging off his jacket. "Coach's rule. Keeps us focused."

"Must get lonely."

Something shifted in his expression, quick and quiet, gone before I could read it fully. "I manage."

He moved through the apartment with an ease that told me he'd lived here long enough that every step was memorized, flipping on a single lamp instead of the overhead light, softening the room into something warmer than I expected from a guy with his reputation. He set his keys down on a small table by the door, the only cluttered surface in the whole place, and for a second I caught a glimpse of something underneath the confidence, a kind of careful order that felt less like control and more like armor.

He didn't reach for me right away, which surprised me. I'd expected this to move fast, reckless and messy, fueled by whatever anger and hurt had brought me here in the first place. Instead he crossed the room slowly, giving me time, giving me space to change my mind if I wanted to.

I didn't want to.

"You sure about this?" he asked, close enough now that I could feel the warmth radiating off him. "Because once we do this, I don't do quiet regrets in the morning. If you want to walk away, walk away now."

For the first time all night, I let myself really look at him, not as Derek's idol, not as a weapon to swing at my ex's pride, but as a person standing in front of me who had, for some reason, decided I was worth this much patience.

Up close, the campus legend disappeared and something more human took its place. A faint line of tension around his eyes that never fully relaxed. The way his hand hovered near mine like he was still leaving me room to change my mind, even now, even after everything that had led us here.

"I'm sure," I said, and this time I meant it completely, without the anger or the spite that had carried me out of that bar.

His hand came up slowly, brushing a strand of hair back from my face, and the gentleness of it caught me off guard. I expected rough. I expected the reckless energy that matched the storm still raging in my chest. Instead he touched me like I might break, like there was something worth being careful with.

"Tell me if I do anything you don't want," he said quietly.

"You won't," I said, and I meant it, because for the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt completely safe with someone whose reputation should have terrified me.

What happened next wasn't about revenge anymore. Somewhere between the bar and this apartment, this had stopped being about Derek entirely. It became about the way Kaiden looked at me like I mattered, the way his hands were careful even when the moment turned intense, the way he kept checking in with small questions and quiet reassurances that no one had ever bothered giving me before.

Afterward, I lay curled against his side, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the guilt to hit. It didn't come the way I expected. Instead there was something else entirely, a strange, unfamiliar peace, the kind that comes after finally being seen exactly as you are and not being found lacking.

The room was dark except for a sliver of streetlight slipping through the blinds, and I listened to the quiet hum of the city outside, so different from the chaos I'd run from hours earlier. My mind kept circling back to how careful he'd been, how nothing about tonight had felt like the reckless mistake I'd braced myself for. It felt like something closer to being chosen, even if I knew better than to believe that.

"You're thinking too loud," Kaiden murmured, his voice thick with sleep, his arm tightening slightly around me like he didn't want me slipping away even in his half-conscious state.

"Just thinking about tomorrow," I admitted.

"Don't," he said. "Not tonight."

I didn't answer. I just listened to his heartbeat slow into the steady rhythm of sleep, felt the unfamiliar weight of his arm around me, and told myself that this was exactly what I'd wanted it to be. One night. Nothing more.

But even as I thought it, some small, stubborn part of me already knew I was lying to myself.

Because as I lay there in the dark, memorizing the warmth of a boy who was supposed to mean nothing, I realized with a jolt of panic that I hadn't thought about Derek once since we'd left that bar.

Not once.

And that terrified me more than anything that had happened in my bedroom back at the dorm.

I lay there a long while after that thought settled in, staring at nothing, trying to talk myself back down. It was just a night, I told myself. Just a body remembering warmth after two years of settling for less. Nothing about the way my chest tightened at the sound of his breathing had to mean anything at all.

I almost believed it. Almost.