"Walk with me?" Zeke asks, and it's not a demand. It's a question, soft and careful, like he's afraid I'll bolt if he pushes too hard.
I should say no. Every instinct I've honed over seven years screams at me to walk away, to get in my car and drive home and rebuild the walls he's been systematically dismantling all week.
But I don't.
"Okay," I hear myself say.
His smile is small, almost disbelieving, and he gestures toward the track that circles the field. Away from the crowd, away from the lights and noise and people who would watch us, speculate about us.
We walk in silence at first, the sounds of celebration fading behind us. The night air is cool against my heated skin, and I'm hyperaware of how close he is, how his arm occasionally brushes against mine.
"I didn't think you'd ac
