Chapter 3 What He Actually Looks Like Up Close

I have never spoken to Roman Mercer. I’ve been in the same building as him exactly four times , always at a distance, always with enough people around that he was background. A shape at the edge of things. Someone else’s story.

Today he is very much the subject.

I’m on the ice by seven.

I go early when things are bad. The rink is the one place my body’s logic overrides everything else , the problem becomes technical, the feelings become footwork, and I can locate myself inside something I’m genuinely good at. Right now I need that more than I need sleep.

My hip is worse this morning. Cold concrete last night, no sleep, and three days of pretending it’s fine have stacked up in a way my body is now refusing to let me ignore. I do my warm-up at three-quarter pace and tell myself I’ll ease into it.

I never ease into it.

Twenty minutes in I’m running the full program, pushing the combination entries, adding difficulty on the back half the way I always do when I need to feel competent at something. The ice is good. My edges are clean. For about ninety seconds at a time I am not thinking about Ethan or the forum post or Roman Mercer’s name three lines below mine on an email I should probably respond to.

Then I feel it.

Someone watching.

I don’t stop. The reflex is automatic , when someone watches, you skate better. I’ve been doing this since I was seven.

I catch him in my peripheral vision on the next pass. Upper observation deck. Arms crossed over the railing, jacket dark, expression unreadable from here. He’s not moving. Not pretending he’s doing something else. Just watching.

Roman Mercer. Who is not supposed to be at the rink during his suspension.

I take the next combination cleaner than I’ve landed it all week. I don’t look up again. I skate the rest of the program to the end, hold the final position for a full count, and step off the ice with my chin level.

My hip files a formal complaint. I ignore it.

He’s in the hallway outside the rink entrance.

I almost walk past him. My head is down, I’m unwrapping my skates, I’ve already started building the mental wall that’s going to get me through the day. Then he speaks.

“I know about the show.”

I stop.

I look at him properly for the first time at close range, and the first thing I register is that he’s bigger than he seems from a distance. Not just height , density. The specific kind that comes from years of conditioning, weight training, getting hit for a living. He has a bruise above his left cheekbone that’s yellowing toward the edges, old enough to be the one from the incident that got him suspended. His jaw is set in a way that looks structural rather than aggressive, like that’s just how his face works. A permanent readiness.

He meets my eyes without any of the performance most people put into it. No charm. No attempt to manage my impression of him. Just direct, like we’re already past the part where that matters.

“I know about Ethan,” he says. “I need the optics fixed before the scholarship board makes their decision in six weeks. You need a buffer before he finishes rewriting your story.” A pause. “This works for both of us.”

I stare at him.

“You want to fake date me.”

“I want a temporary arrangement that serves both our interests.”

“That’s the same thing.”

“It doesn’t have to be complicated.”

I look at him. Really look. The jaw and the bruise and the hands in his jacket pockets, the way he’s braced for rejection in a way subtle enough that he probably thinks I can’t see it.

I can see it.

I know the difference between people who expect to be told yes and people who’ve learned to function without it. Roman Mercer has the posture of someone who stopped expecting things a while ago.

I think about Ethan’s voice. The practiced calm of you were never really there. The forum post that was live before I’d even left my own room. Forty-nine likes. The number keeps sitting in my chest like a splinter.

I think: I need to be someone’s reason, not someone’s consequence.

Then I stop thinking that because it’s too much for a Thursday morning on four hours of sleep.

“Fine,” I say. “But I have conditions.”

Something shifts behind his eyes. Not his expression , his expression doesn’t move at all. Something smaller than that. Something that might, in a different person, look like relief.

“Name them,” he says.

“Not here.” I glance down the corridor. There’s a university film crew doing setup work at the far end, cables snaking across the floor, someone adjusting a light rig. “Somewhere without cameras.”

He follows my gaze, then looks back at me.

“Film room. Athletic complex, sub-level. Twenty minutes.”

“I have class.”

“I know. After class.”

I go still.

“How do you know my schedule?”

The briefest pause. Not long , barely a beat. But I catch it.

“The show sent everyone the other featured athletes’ schedules,” he says. “Standard production prep.”

I hold his gaze.

“Is that actually why?” I ask.

He looks at me for a moment. Something in his expression does something I can’t fully name , not a flinch, not a tell, just a slight recalibration, like he’s deciding which version of the answer to give.

He doesn’t give me either one.

“Sub-level,” he says. “After class.”

He pushes off the wall and walks away down the corridor, past the film crew, past the cables, past all of it , and doesn’t look back once.

I stand there with my skates in my hand and my hip throbbing and the absolute certainty that I just agreed to something I don’t yet fully understand.

The film crew guy glances over at me.

I turn and walk the other way.