Chapter 4. The Rules

Tessa’s POV

Do you want Cole to see us together? Or do you want him to see you?

Nobody has ever asked me a question that fast and that precisely. Not my professors. Not my debate coach. Definitely not Cole, who in fourteen months never asked me anything he didn’t already know the answer to.

I could lie. I’m good at arguing. I’m not good at lying, and something tells me Wyatt Cooper can smell the difference.

“Me,” I say. “I want him to see me.”

He’s quiet for a beat.

“He cheated on you.” It isn’t a question. His nostrils flare once, barely. “This morning. That’s whose hands those were.”

Heat crawls up my neck. “Is there anything you can’t smell?”

“Not much.” The gold in his eyes doesn’t fade. “Did he hurt you?”

“He grabbed my wrist. That’s all.” I lift my chin. “And then he told me no wolf on this campus would ever want me. That I was nobody before him.”

Something moves through Wyatt’s face. Not pity. Something colder, and much more dangerous. For a second, he looks less like a hockey player and more like the stories people tell about the Pendant wolves when they think no one from Pendant is listening.

Then he blinks, and it’s gone.

“I don’t do girlfriends,” he says. “There’s a reason for that, and it’s not the one people think.”

“I’m not asking you to do a girlfriend. I’m asking you to do a performance. Four weeks until midterms. You need two Bs. I need one very public boyfriend.” I hold out my hand. “Win-win.”

He looks at my hand, then at me.

“You’re so annoying,” he mutters.

“Is that a yes?”

He sighs like I’m costing him something. Then he takes my hand and shakes it once.

“It’s a yes.”

I almost squeal. I bite it back so hard my jaw aches. Wyatt Cooper has never had a girlfriend in the history of Cadston College, and in about three days, the entire campus is going to watch him chase me.

“Then we need rules,” I say, and pull a pen from my bag.

“Of course we do.” He drops onto the couch. “Go ahead, Professor.”

The only paper within reach is his Business Ethics syllabus. Fitting. I flip it over.

“One. This ends at the winter solstice. We break up, mutually and nicely, and you go back to your redheads.”

“Generous.”

“Two. No one else. For either of us. If anyone catches you with Brooke, this is over.”

His jaw shifts. I wait for him to walk.

“No one else,” he says.

“Three. Touching.” My neck heats. “Hands, shoulders, waist. In public.”

“And kissing?”

“Only if I say yes.”

He studies me for a long moment, and then he says, very quietly, “Only if you say yes.”

I didn’t realize I’d been bracing for him to laugh.

“Four. Either of us can stop it anytime, no explanation. We need a word.”

“Overtime,” he says immediately.

“Overtime?”

“You say it, the game’s over.” He shrugs. “Hockey guy. Sue me.”

I write it down. “Five. We tell Knox ourselves. Together.”

He actually winces. “God, yes.”

“Six.” I tap the pen against the paper. “Nobody falls in love.”

He laughs, low and easy, and for the first time since I walked in, he looks his age. “Lucky. That’s the easiest rule on the list.”

“Good.” I fold the syllabus and tuck it in my bag next to my label maker. “Your part. Friday, the Den, in front of your team, you ask me out. Properly. I wear your jacket on campus. One home game a week. And you come to one of my debates.”

“Debate,” he repeats, like I’ve asked him for a kidney.

“Debate.”

His phone buzzes on the coffee table. He glances at it, and I see the name before he can turn it over.

BRYAN: Heard my ex is tutoring you. Careful, bro. She’s broken. Dad says hi.

Wyatt doesn’t swear. He doesn’t throw the phone. He just turns it face down with one finger, very gently, and the silence in the room gets so heavy I can hear the fridge hum.

“Seven,” he says.

“There is no seven.”

“There is now.” He looks at my wrist. “If he puts his hands on you again, you tell me.”

“No.” It comes out fast and hard. “Seven is: you don’t fight my battles. I didn’t make this deal so another Cooper could decide things for me. If Cole touches me again, I’ll handle it. If I need you, I’ll say so.”

For a second I think he’ll argue. His jaw works. The gold flares and settles.

“Fine,” he says finally. “Seven. You’ll say so.”

I pull the syllabus back out of my bag and write it under rule six, and I don’t let him see that my hand isn’t quite steady.

He reaches over and his hand lands on my shoulder, tugging me closer.

I go rigid. Every nerve locks.

“See, that’s a problem,” he says. “Cole’s a wolf. If you flinch when I touch you, he’ll smell it from across the quad.”

“Then we practice,” I hear myself say. “Holding hands. So it looks natural.”

His lips twitch. “Practice. Okay.”

He holds out his hand, palm up, and waits. He doesn’t reach for me. He just waits.

Slowly, I put my hand in his.

The moment our skin touches, a jolt shoots up my arm, sharp enough that I gasp and pull back.

He felt it too. He doesn’t tease me. He stares at his own palm like it bit him.

“Static,” I say. “The rug.”

“Sure,” he says, in a voice that isn’t sure at all. “Again.”

This time he laces his fingers through mine and doesn’t let go when the jolt comes. It changes under our hands, from a spark into a slow, deep hum. And somewhere under my ribs, in the empty place where every Evans is supposed to have a wolf, something turns over. Like a sleeper rolling toward a warm wall.

I stop breathing.

His thumb moves once across my knuckles. He’s watching my face like he’s waiting to see if I’ll bolt.

“Not that hard,” he murmurs. His voice is rougher than before.

He shifts closer. His shoulder touches mine, and his scent fills my head: cedar, cold air, something sharp and bright, like orange peel twisted over ice.

“Now,” he says, low. “Next on the list of physical contact is kissing.”

I should say overtime.

It’s right there on the syllabus in my bag, in my own handwriting. One word, and this whole thing stops.

I look at his mouth. I don’t say it.

And that’s when I understand what actually scares me.

It’s not that Wyatt Cooper is going to kiss me.

It’s that I’m going to like it.