Page 3 of Depths of Desire (The Saints of Westmont U #4)

THREE

LENNOX

I told myself it wasn’t a big deal.

It wasn’t a date. It wasn’t a hookup. It was just a ride. A favor. A long-ass road trip through a Nebraska snow globe with someone I used to kind of know, who barely acknowledged me on campus and probably hadn’t thought about me in years.

And yet, my palms were sweating.

I adjusted the heater one click higher and rubbed my hands over the steering wheel.

The heat was blazing, warm enough that I’d already shrugged off my coat and hoodie, sitting in just a long-sleeved thermal and jeans.

The windows were beginning to fog faintly at the corners, and the sky outside was still the deep, silent blue of almost-morning.

Snowflakes drifted in lazy swirls across my windshield, lit by the headlights that gave them a whole other glow.

Downtown was quiet. A few cabs slid by. Streetlights blinked yellow. I turned onto Oliver’s block and spotted the building. It was a modern high-rise, with glass balconies and a sleek entrance that screamed athlete housing.

I parked just outside the main doors and checked the time. 6:03 a.m. I’d said I’d be there at six. I was three minutes late. I was never late.

Great start.

I cut the engine but left the heat running and texted Lena.

Me: Here. Hope he’s awake.

No reply. Fair.

I sat in the silence, the car ticking faintly as it settled. I tried not to check my reflection in the rearview mirror. I tried not to wonder if Oliver would say anything at all beyond hello.

And I definitely tried not to wonder why I gave a fuck.

This wasn’t a thing.

He was just someone from the same town, a familiar name, a face I used to glance at when I wasn’t supposed to. He was also a silver medalist. For whatever reason, this intimidated me. I tried to shake this off and remind myself that he was just a guy.

Still, when the building door opened and Oliver stepped outside, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, I sat up straighter without meaning to.

He looked exactly the way I remembered, only sharper around the edges, more angular, less soft. His jaw was set, eyes unreadable, posture taut like he was walking onto the starting block instead of into my car.

He opened the passenger door and ducked in without ceremony.

“Hey,” he said, voice gravel-thick from sleep. He pulled the door shut behind him with a muted thunk.

“Hey,” I said, aiming for casual. “Right on time.”

He nodded and dropped his bag at his feet. The car instantly fogged a little more from the cold air off his body, but that wasn’t what made the temperature shift.

It was him.

The stillness and the quiet gravity.

I pulled out slowly, turning up the heat a notch. A few blocks later, Oliver shifted in his seat and muttered, “Jesus, it’s boiling in here.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t want to freeze while I waited.”

He was already unzipping his coat. He peeled it off like it offended him, then pulled his sweatshirt over his head in one motion, revealing a white T-shirt underneath that clung to his torso like it was painted on.

In the movement, the T-shirt lifted up his back, and I let go of the gas pedal while my gaze wandered over his bare skin.

He fixed it and tossed the layers into the back seat without looking at me.

The tension between us buzzed like static.

I cleared my throat, trying for light. “So, uh…you packed light.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Only need a few days’ worth.”

Right. Of course. Because he was efficient and focused and apparently incapable of making small talk without sounding like he was doing math in his head.

I merged onto a feeder road and headed toward the interstate. The city thinned around us. Streetlights gave way to open stretches of dark road and blank fields dusted with snow. The world was still half-asleep. Everything moved slowly.

Except for my heart.

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. He stared straight ahead, arms crossed, jaw tight. His profile was all sharp angles and impossible control.

“So,” I said. “How’s training going?”

He paused. “Good.”

“That’s it?”

“It’s going fine,” he said, not unkindly, just tight in a way.

“Coach happy with you?”

“Apparently.”

I waited, but that was it.

Polite. Distant. The conversational equivalent of a locked door with a do not disturb sign taped to it.

I adjusted my grip on the wheel and blew out a quiet breath.

Okay then. This was going to be a long drive.

I turned up the music slightly, lo-fi, chill, something wordless to keep the silence from pressing too hard. The heater hummed. The road curved gently, leaving Chicago behind and heading into the open stretch beyond, headlights casting long glows on either side of us.

It wasn’t awkward.

Not really.

Oliver placed his hands on his legs, palms flat and fingers spread, and looked ahead.

His face was unreadable. Thick locks of hair flopped over one another, and as the night slowly paled into morning, they had a chestnut sheen I remembered from years ago.

His eyes were the same shade of brown, corners sharp and lines defined.

We’d been on the road for about two hours, and I still couldn’t get a full sentence out of him.

Every time I tried, Oliver gave me short responses like he was checking boxes in a social etiquette handbook.

I didn’t want to take it personally. He was always like this, quiet and hyperfocused, made of tension and drive and something a little sharper than the rest of us were built for. But knowing that didn’t stop me from overthinking everything I said.

I adjusted the heat again, just for something to do.

My coat was still in the back seat. Oliver’s was, too, tangled up with his sweatshirt, and now he sat in his white T-shirt like he didn’t feel cold at all.

Like cold couldn’t touch him. I didn’t want to think of anything touching him.

His bare arms and taut skin stretching over hard muscles made my face heat up.

The world outside the windshield was all white hills and flat stretches of pale-blue snow under a thin winter sun. It looked peaceful. It didn’t feel that way.

I spotted the blue and white sign for a rest stop half a mile away and decided we needed it. If not for gas, then for my nerves.

“We’re stopping,” I said, signaling.

Oliver didn’t argue. He just nodded once and kept his eyes ahead.

I pulled into the lot, which was only half-plowed, with patches of slush that sent the car bumping gently as I eased into a spot. The building was small, beige brick with a handful of vending machines outside and a neon OPEN sign hanging crooked in the window.

Inside, the place smelled like overbrewed coffee and something fried hours ago. It was warm, though, and quiet. There was just one old guy in a booth, half-asleep with a newspaper open on the table in front of him.

We grabbed coffees and sandwiches from a glass counter manned by a cheerful woman in a holiday sweater, then sat across from each other at a booth by the window.

I watched Oliver unwrap his sandwich in silence. His fingers were methodical, like he was preserving the paper for something important. He took a bite and chewed slowly, gaze flicking toward the parking lot.

I cleared my throat and nudged my cup closer. “So…the Olympics.”

He didn’t look at me, but his jaw locked around the bread like I’d asked something offensive.

I waited.

He swallowed. “What about them?”

“You got silver,” I said carefully. “That’s incredible.”

A muscle jumped in his cheek. “Yeah.”

I searched his face, but it was locked down again, eyes distant.

I waited another second. Two. Three.

He didn’t elaborate.

“Okay,” I said, raising both hands in mock surrender. “Not a medal talker. Got it.”

He didn’t laugh. Didn’t even smile. But his posture softened just a little, and that was something.

I picked up my sandwich, took a bite, then leaned back. “I remember Lena,” I said after a pause, trying another angle. “She and my sister used to hang out. April and Lena were like…matching chaos gremlins.”

That got something. The corner of Oliver’s mouth twitched, barely there, but real.

“She still is,” he said. His voice had a warmth to it I hadn’t heard all morning. “She’s smarter than me. Always has been. She doesn’t have to work for it, either, not like I do. It just happens. Tests, essays, anything. She knocks it out and moves on.”

“She wants to go to Westmont, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah. She’s been obsessed with it since I got in. But she wants pre-law. Not sports or anything I do.”

“And you’re proud of her.”

That made him look at me, finally. Just for a second.

“Yeah,” he said. “I am.”

His gaze dropped back to his coffee, but something had shifted. His shoulders were less tight. His fingers didn’t clench around the paper cup like it might try to escape.

We had our sandwiches in the silence that was a little less uncomfortable.

I wasn’t sure if I subscribed to that phrase.

I didn’t know a comfortable silence. Tolerable, at best, but not something you shared with a person and felt grateful for.

Either way, it felt as though the sheet of ice between us had cracked a teeny, tiny bit after I’d mentioned Lena.

Oliver Hayworth wasn’t a robot, after all.

We got back into the car with warm hands and full stomachs, and the silence was different now. Not relaxed, exactly, but less brittle. Like we’d made it through something minor and now didn’t need to flinch every time one of us cleared our throat.

Oliver buckled in, eyes fixed straight ahead, and I stole a quick glance as I turned the engine over.

He was…ridiculous.