Page 1 of Hero After Midnight (Gibson Hollow)

Alia

“ T hat’s your reading for next week.” Professor Kline rapped his knuckles on the table with the finality of a gavel strike. “And no, you can’t skip it just because you think you understand privacy.”

A couple of people laughed. I didn’t.

I underlined the case name in my notes even though I’d already highlighted it twice. My fingers cramped around the pen, but it was easier to focus on that than the hollow gnaw of my stomach and the two-mile walk ahead of me.

Kline’s voice cut through the rustling bags and the clatter of closing laptops. “Next week, we argue application, not history. Come prepared.”

We always did. He ensured it by making an example of anyone who didn’t, as though putting them on the stand in the courtroom he no longer presided over. After seeing it once in the second week of class, absolutely no one wanted to endure that humiliation.

Chairs scraped. Someone yawned loud enough to earn a glare from the retired judge turned professor.

I closed my laptop and sat still for a beat, just long enough to breathe.

Three classes, four hours at the firm, and a night seminar had turned my brain to mush.

My feet ached in the boots that, while cute, had been a piss poor choice of footwear for the day.

My to-do list still had eight unchecked boxes.

And instead of going home and falling face-first into bed, I was headed to a bar.

Because Jeff had asked.

I’d begged off to begin with because of my insane schedule and the coursework I’d still need to knock out when I got home.

He hadn’t made an issue of it, but he’d made The Face.

That kicked puppy disappointed look I’d been seeing more and more over the past few months because this semester was kicking my ass.

“No” was becoming my default answer instead of the exception, because I couldn’t do anything to risk my academic scholarship.

I absolutely hated that face. Hated the creep of guilt it made me feel over doing what I needed to survive and keep all the many, many balls in the air.

It was the guilt that had me turning toward the west side of campus that led into downtown instead of taking the shorter route back to the apartment I shared with my twin brother.

I’d surprise Jeff, get a bite to eat, smooth ruffled feathers, then head home.

I’d made an art form out of doing All The Things. I could do this, too.

After sitting through three hours of Constitutional Law and Civil Liberties, the walk gave me a chance to clear my head and stretch my legs.

The October night air was cool and refreshing.

Back home in Gibson Hollow, the nights would already be bordering on cold.

Amazing what a few thousand feet of elevation could do.

I missed the mountains, but I didn’t mind Wellington.

It was bigger than home but not quite a city.

It had been a good place to spend the last two and a half years at Carolina Southern University.

Close enough for visits, and far enough away that I got a break from the responsibilities of being the eldest of eight.

A handful of cars passed me as I crossed the bridge that separated CSU’s campus from Wellington proper.

Streetlights trailed along Main Street, illuminating the shopfronts of businesses long closed for the day.

At the corner, I took a left and cut over two blocks to Ashby Street.

The length of it was packed with vehicles and foot traffic, a stark contrast to the rest of Wellington.

This was the student district, full of coffeeshops, bars, and other student hangouts that stayed open well after everything else shuttered.

Even from the corner, I could hear music and voices spilling from Whiskey Jack’s.

My whole body tensed. It was half-off loaded fries night, plus cheap drinks—guaranteed chaos.

The scarred dance floor would be packed.

Not my scene, but Jeff fed on that kind of energy.

Everyone insisted him dragging me out was good for me.

And usually, despite my raging introvert status, I ended up having a good time.

Bracing myself, I dragged open the door to the bar and stepped into a wall of sound. It was like being hit by a tidal wave of input. Whimpering, I almost turned back around. He didn’t actually expect me to come. I’d already said no. If I dipped now, he’d never know.

My stomach chose that moment to growl, reminding me that it had been more than nine hours since I’d had food. The loaded fries did sound good.

Just find Jeff and get a bite to eat. Then you can go home.

I began weaving my way through the crowd, scanning for my boyfriend.

Whiskey Jack’s drew the football crowd, so I saw quite a few familiar faces.

My brother, Bodie, played guard for CSU on a football scholarship.

Jeff was one of his teammates—a linebacker for the Ravens.

But he didn’t seem to be hanging with any of the usual crowd tonight.

I nodded greetings but ask anyone if they’d seen him.

The last thing I wanted was to get pulled into conversation.

After a full circuit of the bar, I was about to give up when I spotted his jersey at the edge of the dance floor.

Barrett. Number 43. God bless his desire for attention.

I took half a step in his direction before I registered the rest of what I was seeing in the flashing lights of the bar.

He was caught in a lip lock with some other girl.

And it definitely wasn’t a case of some random drunk girl throwing herself at him.

He wasn’t trying to push her off. His arms were wrapped around her, one hand buried in her hair.

No effort to hide. In fact, he seemed very intent on examining her tonsils with his tongue.

Just out there for everyone to see. As if I didn’t exist. As if we hadn’t been dating for the better part of a year.

I froze.

For a long moment, my brain refused to catch up with my eyes, like if I just stood still long enough, the scene in front of me would rewrite itself. But Jeff was still there, arms locked around someone who definitely wasn’t me, kissing her like he was starving.

The world didn’t go silent—if anything, it got louder.

The pounding music, the laughter, the screech of a stool scraping the floor behind me—it all surged in a dizzy, disorienting rush.

I wasn’t invisible. People had seen me come in.

People saw this. And if I did anything—if I so much as flinched—there’d be whispers and speculation and looks.

A wild part of me wanted to march across the room and yank him away, demand to know how long this had been going on, and ask if he was really so stupid that he thought no one would tell me.

I imagined the scene, every eye swiveling to watch.

His friends, my brother’s teammates, the girls who already hated me. Everyone would be watching the show.

I couldn’t do it.

Not because I wasn’t angry—I was. Not because I didn’t deserve an answer—I did. But because giving him that moment, that attention, would make it worse. It would make me the story, not him. I could already feel the heat of too many eyes, the whisper of gossip winding itself into place.

No. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

So I turned on my heel, head down, heart clawing its way up my throat?—

—and crashed directly into a wall.

Only it wasn’t a wall.

It was a man.

Big. Solid.

Two hands came up fast to catch my arms, grounding me with a gentle, instinctive grip. “Hey—easy.”

I looked up.

Ramsey.

Of course. Of course, it was him.

His brows drew together the instant he saw my face—just a flicker of concern before his gaze shifted over my shoulder. I didn’t have to turn to know what he was seeing.

His jaw tightened and rage leapt into his eyes, even as his fingers flexed around my arms, as if his grip could somehow protect me from what was happening. “Alia…”

Hearing my name in that quiet tone cracked something in my chest. Not enough to break. Just enough to ache.

I shook my head and stepped back. I couldn’t talk. Not here. Not yet. And especially not to the one person I really didn’t want to see me like this.

A muscle jumped in that scruff-covered jaw, and his hands curled to fists as he glanced back toward the spectacle on the dance floor.

I had five brothers. I knew exactly what a man who wanted to beat the shit out of someone looked like.

A part of me wanted to let him. But that would bring even more attention to this, and I couldn’t bear it.

My hand shot out, curling around Ramsey’s muscled forearm. “Please, don’t. It’s not worth the scene. I just want to go home.”

His fingers flexed and curled several times before he seemed to get a grip on his temper. With a short nod, he pressed a hand to the small of my back. “C’mon. I’ll walk you.”

Outside, the cold hit harder than it had on the walk over.

The wind wasn’t strong, just enough to knife through my thin sweater and sting my cheeks.

I wrapped my arms around myself, fingers tucked into the opposite sleeves.

My backpack shifted with the motion, biting into my shoulders with familiar weight.

Funny how I hadn’t been cold before. Not even walking from class. But now it felt as if the heat had bled out of me entirely. I was frozen and humiliated, and somehow the shame made it worse. Like I deserved the cold for being stupid enough to walk into that bar in the first place.

I should’ve trusted my instincts. Should’ve stayed home. Should’ve seen it coming.

I hated this.

I hated him .