CROSSING THE BLUE LINE

He was already there when she arrived.

Sloane spotted him the moment she walked through the seminar room door, not because she was looking for him specifically but because Marco Reyes was the kind of person a room reorganized itself around without asking permission. He had taken the seat directly across from where she had sat last week, which she recognized as either coincidence or strategy, and she had learned enough in twenty years to know that men who looked like that rarely operated on coincidence.

He glanced up when she entered.

He smiled like he had been expecting her.

She picked a different seat.

Riley, sliding in beside her thirty seconds later, leaned over and whispered, "He watched you walk across the entire room."

"I know," Sloane said.

"And you sat as far away as possible."

I know.

Just checking that you're aware of your own behavior and not just running on instinct.

"Riley."

Present.

Stop talking.

Riley opened her notebook with the expression of someone who was absolutely going to keep talking, just not out loud, and began writing observations in the margin that Sloane could read from the corner of her eye and chose not to.

Dr. Vance opened the session with a discussion on source development, the ethics of proximity, how close a journalist could get to a subject before the relationship compromised the reporting. Sloane found this choice of topic so specifically uncomfortable that she briefly considered whether the universe had a personality and whether that personality was mean.

Twenty minutes in, Dr. Vance broke them into pairs for a practice interview exercise.

Of course she did.

"Mr. Reyes, Miss Calloway. You're paired."

Of course they were.

Marco picked up his chair and moved it across the circle toward her with the easy physical confidence of someone who had never once been uncertain about how he would be received. He set it down, sat, and extended a hand.

"Marco Reyes," he said, like it was the opening line of something he had been rehearsing.

"I know who you are," Sloane said, shaking it briefly.

"Good start." He settled back. You're Jaxon Calloway's sister.

"I know who I am too."

He smiled at that, wider this time, genuine. "Fair enough. You want to go first or should I?"

"I'll go," she said. She clicked her pen. "What made you transfer mid-program?"

The smile adjusted slightly, something recalibrating behind his eyes. He had expected small talk first. She noted that.

"Better program," he said. Better coaching staff. Better shot at being seen by the right people at the right time.

And it had nothing to do with leaving something behind?

He studied her for a moment. "You're good at this."

"I asked a question."

"And I'm considering it." He leaned forward slightly, elbows on knees. Everyone transfers toward something and away from something else at the same time. I don't think those are mutually exclusive.

She wrote that down.

"Your turn," she said.

He did not look at his notebook. He just looked at her, easy and unhurried, like he had all the time that existed.

"How long have you been doing the thing where you make yourself harder to read than you actually are?" he asked.

She looked up from her notes.

"That's not a journalism question," she said.

"Dr. Vance said to practice source development. I'm developing."

Try again.

He tilted his head. "What do you want out of this semester?"

"The credit."

Besides that.

"That's all."

"Okay," he said. He said it the way people said okay when they did not believe you but had decided to let it go for now, filing it away for later. She recognized that move too.

The exercise ended. The room reshuffled. Dr. Vance assigned a short profile piece due in two weeks, subject of their choice, and dismissed them with ten minutes to spare.

Sloane was packing her bag when Marco stopped beside her, not hovering, just present.

"Good interview technique," he said. Seriously. You went for the real question before I had my guard up.

She glanced at him. "That's the point."

"I know. I'm paying you a compliment."

I noticed.

You're not going to say thank you, are you?

"Thank you," she said, and slung her bag over her shoulder.

He laughed, short and surprised, and she was almost to the door when he said, "There's a team breakfast thing Saturday morning. Unofficial, just the new and returning players mixing before the season ramps up. Caden runs it every year." A beat. Jaxon's guys were invited as a goodwill thing. You should come.

She stopped with her hand on the doorframe.

Why would I come to a team breakfast?

"Because you're new here and you don't know very many people yet and it's just breakfast." He said it simply, without angle, which was almost more disarming than if he had pushed. No obligation. I just thought you might want something that felt normal.

She looked at him for a moment.

"I'll think about it," she said.

She walked out into the corridor and nearly collided with Caden Mercer for the second time in a week, except this time there was no backyard and no shadows and no convenient chaos to dissolve into. He was standing in the hallway outside the seminar room with Theo, who was exactly as tall as advertised, and he caught her by the arm on reflex the same way he had the first night.

He let go immediately.

They stood a foot apart in the bright corridor light.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," she said.

Behind her she heard Marco step out of the room. She felt the moment Caden registered with him, not dramatically, just a small shift in his posture, the kind that happened below the level of conscious decision.

"Marco," Caden said evenly.

"Cap," Marco said, with a smile that knew exactly what it was doing.

The hallway held all three of them for one long uncomfortable second.

Then Sloane said, "I have class," which was not true, and walked away from all of it.

She made it twenty feet before Theo's voice carried down the corridor behind her, loud and entirely unaware of the damage it was doing.

"Dude, is that Jaxon Calloway's sister? The one from the party?"

A pause.

"The one you kissed?"

Sloane stopped walking.

The corridor was not empty.

Three people she did not know had just heard that.

She did not turn around.