THREE MOVES AHEAD
1342 Words
I slipped my hand out of Sean's the moment we rounded the corner and Klaus was out of sight.
The guilt hit before I'd even fully let go. I had used Sean — genuinely kind, genuinely unbothered Sean who had no idea what was happening — to poke at a wound I wasn't even supposed to have. The irony of that sat heavy and uncomfortable in my chest and I deserved every bit of it.
But the jealousy had been real. I couldn't lie my way out of that part.
Seeing Julia's hands moving over Klaus's shirt like she'd never left, watching him stand there with that blank face after everything last night — it had cracked something open in me that I hadn't been prepared for. Those were the same eyes from the dare. The same ones that had been dark and desire-rimmed at my front door. And this morning they looked straight through me like I was nobody.
I twisted my fingers together by my sides, scolding myself to get it together.
I couldn't keep pretending otherwise. What I knew for certain was that Sean didn't deserve to be dragged into the middle of whatever this was.
"Ana."
I blinked. Sean was watching me with the expression of someone who had been talking to a wall for the last thirty seconds.
I winced. "I'm sorry. I zoned out completely."
He didn't look bothered, just mildly amused. "Where did you go?"
"Just stressed about an upcoming test," I said. "And I haven't seen Molly or Leticia all morning and it's been nagging at me."
Both of which are true.
"They're both in school," he said.
Something unknotted in my chest. "Then where are they? They always wait at the entrance for me but I didn't see them this morning."
"Molly had a run-in with Klaus in the parking lot this morning." We turned the corner toward my class and he kept his eyes forward. "He didn't pick you up like usual. Showed up with Julia instead. She wasn't happy about it."
A sharp uncomfortable feeling moved through me and I buried it before it had time to grow into something I'd have to name.
Of course he had.
"And Leticia?" I kept my voice light.
"From what I saw, Molly went for Leticia. Something about Ryan." He rolled one shoulder. "It looked like it got personal pretty fast between them."
I frowned at that. Molly and Leticia falling out over Ryan of all people was not something I had seen coming and I needed to get to the bottom of it before it extended bigger than it needed to be. Those two never fought. Not like that. Not over a boy.
"You can get the full story from them later," Sean added.
I stored it away. That conversation was happening today whether anyone was ready for it or not.
"You seem very informed," I said, glancing sideways at him. "Considering you and Klaus act like you'd rather not breathe the same air."
Something shifted in his face. A flicker of something snug and swift that disappeared before I could properly catch it, replaced by that trouble-free smile he always had on. "Come watch me practice today."
I blinked. "Sorry?"
"Hockey practice. It's just for an hour." He glanced at me. "Come watch me."
Nobody from the hockey team had ever asked me to watch practice. Not once in all the years I'd spent in Classic High. Even Molly never attended or deemed it fit to go. According to her, it wasn't a match, it wasn't a big deal, it was just practice.
But Klaus would be there.
The thought dropped and my throat tightened in a way that greatly annoyed me because I had just spent the last ten minutes thinking about him and trying to tell myself I was done rearranging my life around that.
I was tired of it. I was going and that was that.
"Okay," I said. "I'll come."
His face broke open into a full grin and he was already reaching into his bag before I'd finished agreeing, pulling out a red sleeve shirt and holding it out toward me. The school crest threaded on the front, his name running bold across the back.
I looked at it and then at him. "What am I supposed to do with this?"
"Wear it. You're coming to watch me so I want you to wear my number."
My nose wrinkled. "Sean it's not even a match—"
"Other girls wear them to watch."
"I have never witnessed that."
"Because you've never been to practice before." He raised both brows like the argument was over.
I looked at the shirt in his outstretched hand, thought about Klaus playing and Julia wearing his number and cheering for him, and took it.
"It better actually be worth watching," I told him, slinging the material over my shoulder.
He let out a low whistle and dipped into a small bow. "I guarantee you won't regret it." Something ran underneath those words that I couldn't quite pull apart, layered and pointing in a direction I couldn't see yet, and then he waved and headed toward the male locker room.
I stood there, his shirt in my hands, watching him disappear behind the doors of the locker room.
🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷🪷
SEAN'S POV
The grin fell off my face the moment the locker room door swung shut behind me.
There were two promises I'd made myself since everything between me and Klaus Brennan burned to the ground.
The first was to leave Classic High as the best player this school had ever put on the ice. Better than him. Better than the golden captain everybody built shrines to and nobody questioned. Still working on that one.
The second was less complicated. Whatever he decided he wanted, I wanted too.
And Klaus wanted Adriana Coleman.
I'd clocked it before he'd probably admitted it to himself. Three years of being his best friend — yeah, his best friend, take a moment with that — had left me knowing how to read him in ways nobody else could.
Well, except Adriana. She looks at him like she sees more than she should.
I scoffed, slinging my backpack off my shoulder.
I saw it at Madison's party, the way his body went taut when Tyler's gaze tracked her across the room during the dare. That particular brand of stillness that looked like composure from the outside but was anything but. I heard it when he called her phone and I answered, that hairline fracture underneath the flat tone he deployed whenever something actually mattered to him as he asked where she was. Why did I have her phone? He didn't sound angry but worse than that.
And this morning. The way his hands had curled into fists at his sides when she pressed her lips to my cheek. Knuckles draining white before he'd even registered he was doing it.
Klaus Brennan was head over heels for this girl and broadcasting it to anyone paying attention.
Which was exactly why I'd handed her my shirt.
I needed him to lose control and go haywire like he does when his head was messed up about something and she is the perfect trigger point.
I pulled out my phone and typed the message I'd been thinking about all morning.
*Get ready. It's time to play*
Watched it tick delivered.
Klaus thought this was about hockey. About the captaincy, the team, what happened between us two years ago. And yeah, part of it was.
But he'd taken enough from me.
I was almost at the door when my phone buzzed. I pulled it out and looked at the screen.
The name sitting in my notifications made me stop walking.
I stared at it for a second, something cold and certain settling in my chest, and then the corner of my mouth lifted.
I clicked it open and started reading.
Klaus Brennan had absolutely no idea who was already three steps ahead of him.
- Writer
