Chapter One #2
My name looks strange up there, sandwiched between two other guys I’ve played against. I know their games, their strengths, the scouting reports. I know I could fit there. I also know it’s across the country. If they call me, I’ll go. I’ll smile. I’ll shake the commissioner’s hand. I’ll do my job.
But my chest squeezes at the thought of it.
On-court, I can lock down an assignment and block out everything else. Off-court, I’ve never been good at pretending my choices aren’t calculated around the people I let myself care about.
Rafe once told me that was the difference between us. “You calculate,” he’d said, leaning back against his headboard, picking absently at his strings. “I just jump.”
“I jumped into a wedding,” I’d said.
He’d smiled, slow and sure. “Best jump you ever made.”
The crowd noise swells. My agent, Eric, leans slightly toward me.
“Remember,” he says, low, so only I hear, “whatever happens, you react naturally. Don’t force it. Teams watch this stuff. They want to see composure.”
Composure is the one thing I know I have.
The clock hits zero for the first pick. The commissioner walks back to the podium with a card in his hand. The arena holds its breath.
“With the first pick in the draft,” he booms, “the Atlanta Pilots select…”
Not me.
The camera flashes to another table. A player I’ve known since AAU stands up, face breaking into disbelief and joy. His family swarms him. There are tears. There’s a lot of noise. He puts on a blue-and-silver cap.
I clap. I mean it. He’s worked for it. We all have.
My parents clap too. My mother’s smile stays fixed. My father nods once, like he’s evaluating a stock he didn’t buy.
My phone buzzes again.
Rafe: Not first pick? Their loss.
Rafe: Still breathing?
I type back under the table.
Me: Yeah. Congrats to J. He deserves it.
Rafe: So do you. Top three is still top three.
Rafe: You good?
Me: I will be.
The second pick goes. Another name. Another table. Another family celebrating.
Then it’s the Monarchs.
LA.
The graphic shows their logo. The crown. Their record last year. The words Needs: interior defense, leadership, halfcourt scoring flash across the screen.
The commentators talk over highlights—mine this time. Blocks. Put-backs. High-low feeds. Me shouting in a huddle, clapping my teammates on the shoulders. Wearing the Panthers jersey one last time, in that game where everything clicked and the arena felt too small to hold the noise.
“He’s a culture guy,” one analyst says. “You bring in Oliver Marshall, you’re telling your locker room this is how we do things.”
“He’s also coming out a year early,” the other counters. “Could’ve stayed and finished his senior season. His parents aren’t thrilled from what I hear.”
I flinch internally. I shouldn’t be surprised that got out. Nothing stays private when enough people dig.
My mother’s nails press into my suit pant leg for a second, then release.
I knew they weren’t happy when I told them I’d overloaded my classes to graduate this spring instead of next.
I knew it when my father told me that “real commitment” meant seeing things through in the right order: degree, job, maybe pro ball if I insisted on chasing “the phase.” I knew it when my mother said, “We’ll spin it,” like my life was a press release.
They didn’t yell. My parents don’t yell. But the disappointment was there, humming.
When I told Rafe, my voice shook. I’d gone to his place straight from my advisor’s office, clutching the confirmation letter like proof that I was allowed to choose something for myself.
He’d taken one look at me, plucked the paper out of my hand, read it, and grinned so wide I thought his face might split.
“You did it,” he’d said. “Holy shit, Ollie. You did it.”
“You’re not… mad?” I’d asked. The echo of my father’s lectures was still buzzing around my skull.
He’d stared at me like I’d grown an extra head. “Mad? You’re chasing the life you want. I’m proud of you.”
He’d been the first person to say that.
He texts it a lot now. Hell, he has since the moment we met. I read the word so often that sometimes it feels like a shield.
The commissioner walks back to the podium, card in hand.
My heart rate jumps. I force my face calm.
If it’s not me, it’s not me. I’ll adjust. I always do.
But if it is…
I think of Rafe’s hands on my face, his voice hoarse as he told me in the dark, “Whatever city you end up in, I’ll meet you there if I have to sell my guitar to do it.”
Please, I think. Let him meet me at home.
“With the third pick in the draft,” the commissioner announces, “the Los Angeles Monarchs select…”
There’s a half second of silence where it feels like the whole arena is holding its breath.
“…Oliver Marshall, center, University of California Panthers.”
The world tilts. There’s noise, but it’s muffled for a beat. My vision tunnels. For a second, all I can hear is my own pulse. Then the roar slams back in.
My mother’s hand flies to her mouth. My father exhales sharply, a small sound that might be satisfaction, might be something else.
I’m on my feet before I realize I’ve stood.
My agent’s hand is on my shoulder, steering me. “Smile, Ollie,” Eric murmurs. “You did it.”
I did. I’m staying.
LA.
Everything tight in my chest loosens all at once. My eyes burn, but I blink hard. No tears. Not here. Not now.
My mother stands and hugs me, careful, like we’re posing. “Congratulations, sweetheart,” she says, voice bright. “This is… wonderful.”
My father pats my back twice. “Good work, son.”
Good work. Not I’m proud of you. But I don’t need those words anymore. I’ve heard them enough from someone else that I can carry them into this moment.
I hug them both, because I do love them, beneath all the control and pressure and politics. I hug Eric. I shake a few hands.
Then I walk. Down the row. Along the path they’ve carved through the tables, up toward the stage.
The Monarchs cap is in the hands of a league staffer. Black. Gold crown. LA stitched on the side.
He hands it to me, and my fingers close around the brim. It’s heavier than it looks.
I put it on. The fit is snug. It feels right.
Flashbulbs go off. People are shouting my name. The commentary rolls over the speakers—something about “anchor in the paint,” “local star stays home,” “instant defensive presence.”
I hear none of it clearly, because I’m focused on one thing.
The camera.
There’s one directly in front of the stage, red light glowing. I walk up the steps. The commissioner sticks out his hand. We shake. We pose with the jersey. The logo looms behind us on the giant screen.
And for a heartbeat that stretches long enough to feel like a promise, I turn my head and look straight into that camera lens.
I don’t blink.
I don’t smile too wide.
I just look.
If he’s watching—and I know he is—he’ll know.
This is for you.
I did it.
We’re still in the same city.
I want to say his name out loud. I want to thank him for every late-night phone call, every text that started with You okay?
and ended with I love you, every song he played for me before anyone else heard it.
I want to tell the world that the man who held my face in his hands in a Vegas chapel is the reason I didn’t crack under the weight of all this.
Instead, I do what I’m supposed to do. I shake the commissioner’s hand again. I hold up the jersey. I answer the quick hallway interview questions from the sideline reporter.
“How does it feel to stay in LA, Oliver?”
“It feels… incredible,” I say, truth sliding easily into the polished answer. “This city’s been my home the past few years. I’m excited to represent it at the next level.”
“What can Monarchs fans expect from you?”
“A guy who shows up. Who does the work. Who leads. Someone they can count on.”
“Anyone you want to thank tonight?”
My parents’ faces hover in my peripheral vision. My agent. Old coaches. Teammates. Lindy, sitting on the couch in Madison screaming at the TV. My mom’s best friend, the governor, probably watching from some donor’s living room with canapés on silver trays.
And Rafe. Always Rafe.
“I want to thank my family,” I say, because that’s what they expect. “My coaches. My teammates. Everyone who’s believed in me along the way.”
The reporter nods. We wrap. When the camera pulls back, I exhale slowly.
On the way back to the table, I feel my phone buzz again. Multiple times. I don’t check it yet. Cameras are still on me. People want to shake my hand, clap my shoulder, call out congratulations.
I do all the right things. Smile. Nod. Speak clearly. Sit down between my parents again. My mother dabs at the corners of her eyes with a tissue. My father straightens my cap for me.
“You did well,” he says. “Handled yourself properly.”
“Thank you,” I answer.
It’s not the praise I used to crave. It doesn’t have to be.
I slide a hand into my pocket, shielded by the tablecloth, and unlock my phone.
Five messages.
Rafe: YOU FUCKING DID IT!
Rafe: LA.
Rafe: L FUCKING A, OLLIE.
Rafe: I’m yelling so loud security’s gonna kick me out of this hotel.
Rafe: I love you so fucking much. So proud of you I can’t see straight.
My chest aches in the best way. My eyes sting for real this time.
I type, fingers clumsy.
Me: I’m staying. I’m not leaving.
Rafe: Damn right you’re not. You’re coming right here after this. I’m making you dinner.
Rafe: Okay, ordering you dinner.
Rafe: Kiss the camera again later. Pretend it’s me.
I huff a laugh that I turn into a cough. My mother frowns, then goes back to her careful watching of the proceedings, probably already thinking about statements and appearances and the Church’s opinion on pro sports.
My father sits straighter, already in conversation with Eric about “brand strategy.” I tune them out, because for the first time in a long time, the noise around me doesn’t feel bigger than the thing I’m holding inside.
I’m an LA Monarch now. I’m still a husband. I’m still the same guy who sat on Rafe’s bed with a guitar in his lap and let himself be a little freer than he’d ever been at home.
Everything’s about to change. Schedules. Pressure. Money. Media. Expectations.
But the two things that have kept me going—basketball and the man on the other side of that camera lens—are still here.
I rest my hands flat on my knees, cap brim low, lights hot on the back of my neck, and breathe.
I can’t fucking wait.
Continue Ollie and Rafe’s story in Shattered Hoops (Chords & Courts #2). Be warned it’s a cliffhanger ending, but you can pick up the trilogy final, Mending Hearts (Chords & Courts #3) for Ollie and Rafe’s hard-earned HEA.