Burke’s Little Secret

C-6 P-2

The stadium parking lot was starting to empty out by the time Lily had to leave, meaning I was left stranded without a ride back to campus. With no other options, Noah and Levi practically dragged me onto the team bus, shoving me into a seat near the middle of the aisle.

The atmosphere on the bus was loud, packed with sweaty, exhausted players celebrating the massive win, but the space around me felt entirely suffocating.

Sitting just two rows ahead, facing backward to talk to my brothers, was Isaac.

The setup was excruciatingly awkward. Noah and Levi were leaning over the headrests, animatedly breaking down the best plays of the second half, and Isaac was nodding along, completely immersed in the post-game analysis. But because of how they were positioned, Isaac was looking directly down the aisle—right in my line of sight.

Every time Noah or Levi paused to catch their breath, Isaac’s eyes would inevitably drift past them, locking onto mine.

There was nowhere for me to look. If I stared out the window, I could see his reflection in the dark glass. If I looked straight ahead, I was staring right at him. He looked completely drained, the dark circles under his eyes contrasting with the lingering adrenaline of the game, but the intensity in his gaze hadn't faded at all. He was trying to act completely normal, tossing out casual jokes to my brothers and analyzing defensive lines, but the rigid set of his shoulders told a completely different story.

Noah kept throwing quiet, cautious glances back at me, clearly remembering what he’d witnessed in the stadium. He kept his voice steady, intentionally steering the conversation away from anything personal, acting like a buffer between Isaac and Levi. Levi, completely oblivious to the silent warfare happening across the rows, was just riding the high of the victory, occasionally throwing an arm around Noah's shoulder.

I pulled my knees up to my chest, burying my chin in the collar of my jacket. The hum of the bus engine vibrated through the floorboards, a long three-hour drive stretching out ahead of us, with nothing but the suffocating weight of Isaac's unspoken intentions filling the quiet spaces between my brothers' laughs.

The shift in the bus happened suddenly when we stopped at a rest area to stretch our legs. Levi, eager to keep the post-game high going, spotted one of the cheerleaders walking down the aisle and stepped away to talk to her, leaving Noah and me in our row.

The sudden absence of Levi’s loud presence left a heavy, noticeable quiet between us.

Noah didn't waste any time. The moment Levi was out of earshot, he spun around in his seat, resting his elbows on the headrest and looking directly at me. His expression was serious, his eyes sharp and completely focused.

"Alright, Annabeth," Noah said, his voice dropped to a low whisper so nobody else on the bus could hear. "Levi's occupied, so talk to me. What exactly is going on between you and Isaac?"

My stomach did a violent flip. I tried to maintain a completely blank expression, looking down at my hands. "Nothing is going on, Noah. We're just friends."

"Don't do that," Noah said gently but firmly, shaking his head. "I watched him in the stadium today. He spent half the game looking up at the bleachers to find you. And at the party the other night, he looked ready to take Carter's head off just for standing in the kitchen with you. I know my friends, and I know Isaac. He doesn't look at anyone else the way he looks at you."

He paused, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Levi was still distracted before turning back to me. "But then he acts like he’s completely freezing you out, and I see him around Jasmine. It's making your head spin, isn't it?"

Hearing Noah lay it all out so clearly made the lump in my throat grow tighter. I couldn't even find the words to deny it anymore. My thoughts were already a jumbled mess, and having my brother validate exactly what I’d been feeling only made the confusion more real.

"I don't know what his intentions are, Noah," I whispered honestly, finally looking up to meet his eyes. "One day everything is fine, and the next, he won't even look at me. I'm tired of guessing."

Noah sighed, rubbing the back of his neck as he glanced down the aisle toward where Isaac was sitting a few rows away. He looked conflicted, caught between his loyalty to his friend and his protective instinct as my brother.

Noah stared at me for a long beat, the tension melting out of his shoulders as a heavy wave of guilt washed over his face. He let out a rough sigh, rubbing his palms against his jeans.

"Damn it," he muttered, shaking his head. "Annabeth, this is my fault. All of it."

I blinked, completely thrown off. "What do you mean your fault?"

"A few weeks ago, I was the one who practically begged you to do that one-off tutoring session with Isaac so he wouldn't drop under the GPA line for the season," Noah confessed, his voice dropping even lower. "I set the whole thing up. But I didn't think about what would happen next. I didn't think about how Levi would react if he found out Isaac was hanging around you."

He glanced down the aisle, ensuring Levi was still completely engrossed in his conversation with the cheerleader.

"You know how Levi is," Noah continued, turning back to me with a fiercely protective but stressed look. "He’s always been dialed up to an eleven when it comes to you. He views every single guy on the team as a threat to your safety, and honestly, he doesn't trust anyone around his sister—not even our closest friends. Isaac knows that. He knows exactly how defensive Levi gets, and he knows the kind of absolute hell Levi would rain down on the locker room if he thought Isaac was crossing a line with you."

The pieces suddenly started crashing into place in my mind. The sudden distance, the rigid posture, the way Isaac looked at me like he was trapped behind a glass wall. It wasn't that he didn't care. It was that he was terrified of what would happen to our circle if he leaned into whatever was growing between us.

"Isaac is trying to protect you from the drama, and he's trying to keep the peace with Levi," Noah whispered, looking at me with pure apology in his eyes. "I put him in your orbit, and now he's suffocating trying to stay away from you because of us."