# Chapter 21: The Night Garrett Played Prince Charming—and Nearly Lost His Crown
Hello everyone, it’s me again! How are you all doing? Today I will continue to walk with you and review Chapter 21 of “The Deal: Off Campus.” This is one of those chapters that mixes laughter, heat, and heartbreak-adjacent mystery all in one late-night blur. Garrett Graham is about to learn that being a good guy is a lot harder than being a hockey star—especially when the girl he can’t stop thinking about is drunk, beautiful, and determined to test every ounce of his self-control.
The chapter opens at one in the morning, and the party has migrated from the bar to Garrett’s house. Hannah is completely wasted. Not tipsy. Not cute-drunk. Wasted. And she absolutely refuses to go home. Garrett’s living room is packed with hockey players and puck bunnies, all of them sliding past the point of smart decisions. The last thing he needs is Hannah caught in that chaos.
Then Dean drags a laughing Hannah to the center of the living room, and they start dancing to an R&B track blasting at full volume. Earlier, Hannah had been playful—Disney Channel Miley. Now she’s full-on twerk-mode Miley, and Garrett knows he has to shut it down before things spiral any further. He marches over, breaks them apart, and tells Hannah he needs to talk to her. Dean protests, but a willing partner appears almost instantly, and Garrett uses the distraction to pull Hannah upstairs.
In the quiet safety of his bedroom, Garrett announces that the party is over. Hannah whines that she was having fun. He tells her she was having too much fun. She calls him mean, flops onto his bed, and starts making snow angels. His bed is so big and comfy, she says. Then her eyes flutter closed, and Garrett realizes she’s seconds away from passing out. He decides it’s safer to let her sleep it off here and drive her home in the morning. If she got a second wind at the dorm, he wouldn’t be there to keep her out of trouble.
“Stay here and sleep it off, Cinderella,” he tells her. She snorts and asks if that makes him her prince. “Damn straight,” he says.
He goes to the bathroom, finds ibuprofen, pours water, and returns to make her sit up and take the pills. He’s done this before—usually for teammates, especially Dean, who treats drinking like an Olympic sport. Hannah obeys, then collapses back onto the mattress.
Then she says she’s hot. And before Garrett can process it, she starts wiggling out of her leggings. The material snags on her knees, and she groans his name. He chuckles, takes pity, and helps peel the pants off—trying desperately to ignore how smooth her skin feels under his fingertips. He grabs an old T-shirt for her to sleep in, turns around, and finds her shirt already off.
Fortunately, she’s still wearing a bra. Unfortunately, it’s black, lacy, and see-through. Garrett forces his gaze away, shoves the T-shirt over her head, and hopes she isn’t one of those girls who hates sleeping in a bra. Then Hannah babbles happily that she had so much fun tonight. “See?” she says. “I might be broken but I can still have fun.”
Garrett freezes. Broken? What does that mean? But she doesn’t answer. She kicks at the blanket, rolls onto her side, and passes out within seconds. Unease rushes through him as he turns off the light. Her cryptic words echo in his head, but he doesn’t get to dwell on them. Downstairs, Logan and Dean drag him into the kitchen for shots. It’s someone’s birthday, they insist. He caves. One shot becomes another. After the third, he’s no longer thinking about how confused he is. After the fourth, he’s not thinking at all.
At two thirty in the morning, Garrett finally drags himself upstairs. The party has fizzled. Dean is tangled with puck bunnies on the couch. Tucker is asleep at the kitchen counter, still holding an empty beer bottle. Logan disappeared with a brunette, and the noises from his room make his activities very clear. Garrett’s bedroom is dark, and there’s a Hannah-shaped lump on his bed. Too tired to follow his own hangover-prevention routine, he strips to his boxers and climbs in beside her.
He tries to be quiet, but the rustling sheets stir Hannah. A soft moan ripples through the darkness. She rolls over, and a warm hand presses against his bare chest. Garrett stiffens. Down below, he’s softer than pudding—whiskey dick, as tragic as it is predictable. But that doesn’t mean he can’t feel arousal, and when Hannah’s lips latch onto his shoulder, his pulse takes off.
“Hannah…” he says warily. She murmurs a throaty “Uh-huh?” that is sexy as hell. He asks what she’s doing. Her lips travel from his shoulder to his neck, and she sucks on a sweet spot that sends heat straight to his balls. He groans, touches her shoulder to still her, and tells her she doesn’t want to do this. She says she totally does. Then she climbs on top of him, her firm thighs straddling his, her hair tickling his collarbone. She tells him to stop being difficult and kisses him.
Garrett should stop her. He really, really should. But she’s warm and soft and smells so good he can’t think straight. He kisses her back hungrily, wrapping his arms around her, stroking her lower back. She tastes like piña coladas, and the sounds she makes are the sexiest he’s ever heard. She pulls on his tongue like she can’t get enough.
“Hannah,” he mumbles against her lips. “We can’t.” She licks his bottom lip, then bites it hard enough to summon a growl from his throat. She breathes that she loves his chest, rubbing her breasts against his pecs, her nipples poking through her shirt. He wants to rip that shirt off. He wants to draw those puckered nipples deep into his mouth and suck. But he can’t. He won’t.
“No,” he says, thrusting a hand into her hair. “We can’t do this. Not tonight.” She whispers that she wants to, that she wants him so bad. Every guy wants to hear those words, but she’s drunk, and he can’t let her do this. Her tongue circles his earlobe, and his hips shoot off the bed. It takes superhuman strength to push her off his body. She whimpers in protest, but when he gently touches her cheek, the whimper turns into a happy sigh.
“We can’t do this,” he says gruffly. “You trusted me to look out for you, remember? Well, this is me looking out for you.” She sounds surprised as she says, “Oh.” Then she nestles closer, rests her head on his chest, and says good night. She’s out like a light again. Garrett, meanwhile, is left staring into the dark, ignoring the hot lust pulsating in his groin. It’s a long, long time before he falls asleep.
This chapter is a brilliant balancing act. It’s funny—Garrett’s Miley Cyrus internal monologue, the Cinderella exchange, the image of Hannah doing snow angels while wasted. It’s also incredibly tense. The heat between them is undeniable, but the real power of the chapter is Garrett’s restraint. He wants her. He’s aroused. He’s confused. And yet he refuses to take advantage of her. That moment when he says, “You trusted me to look out for you,” is everything. It shows who Garrett really is beneath the cocky hockey-player exterior. But the chapter also drops a quiet bombshell: “I might be broken but I can still have fun.” That line lingers like a bruise. What happened to Hannah? What does she think is broken? And how will Garrett handle the fact that he now cares far more than he bargained for?
**Reader’s Impressions & Star Rating:**
I loved this chapter. It made me laugh, it made my heart race, and it made me ache for both of them. Garrett’s protectiveness is swoon-worthy, but it’s his honor that truly wins me over. The chapter doesn’t shy away from the messiness of desire and alcohol, but it draws a clear line: consent matters, and Garrett respects it. Hannah’s vulnerability, even in her drunken haze, adds a layer of mystery that makes me desperate to know more. The only reason it’s not a perfect five is that I wanted just a little more of Hannah’s perspective, but Garrett’s voice is so strong that it hardly matters.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.9 / 5 Stars
**Next Chapter Prediction:**
Morning after. Hannah will wake up hungover, mortified, and probably wearing Garrett’s T-shirt with no memory of how she got there. Garrett will be exhausted, frustrated, and unable to stop thinking about that kiss—and about the word “broken.” I predict an awkward, tension-filled conversation where Hannah tries to joke her way out of it, but Garrett won’t let her. He’ll ask what she meant, and she’ll deflect. Their deal—and their careful boundaries—will start to crack. This could be the turning point where Garrett stops pretending he’s just helping her and admits he wants something real. And Hannah? She might finally let him see the parts of herself she’s been hiding.
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