Chapter 4
Grayson
I kill the engine in the private underground parking at work and sit there for a second, staring at the concrete wall in front of the hood.
The big S logo is painted there in bright orange and blue, the same colors that used to be on my jersey.
I remember standing on an actual field with eighty thousand people screaming my name.
Now my name’s painted on a building, sewn into the waistband of compression shorts, stamped on tags and shipping crates.
High school valedictorian. Full-ride to CU Boulder. Four years as a starting wide receiver for the Buffaloes, then four seasons with the Denver Broncos.
The ACL tear happened two weeks before preseason practice year five.
That was the end of that chapter of my life.
But then I built Sparkks Sports from a custom-training-gear idea in my garage into a multi-million-dollar brand. On paper, it looks like a clean, upward trajectory. Win after win. It’s odd how success feels a lot like exhaustion when it piles up high enough.
I grab my gym bag from the passenger seat, shrug into my coat, and head for the elevator.
The underground level is quiet at this hour, just the echo of my footsteps and the faint thrum of ventilation.
I punch the button for the ground floor, hoping to get a coffee from the cafe before I have to be a human, run my hand through my hair, and mentally start shifting from dad-mode to work-mode.
I need to meet with product development about the new fabric samples. Legal wants me to sign off on the language in the NFL proposal. The board wants reassurances about timelines. And I need to talk to design.
More specifically, I need to talk to her.
Carly Drake.
She landed fully on my radar from the board meeting last week.
Brunette hair up in a messy knot that somehow looked intentional, likely half my age, sitting halfway down the table while the head of design held court at the front.
He’d stood there with a stack of mock-ups and a clicker, talking the board through “Carly Drake’s new concepts” while he pointed to slides of pieces she’d drawn.
She’d barely said a word, just went pink when he gestured down the table and gave her the credit.
But she’d been wearing her own work — one of the sample tennis sets from the athleisure capsule, skirt hitting mid-thigh over opaque tights, fitted zip-up with striped cuffs.
It made half the room sit up a little straighter.
Her sketches had that same quiet confidence. It was all bold, unfussy shapes, movement built into the seams.
While the board murmured approval and moved on to margins and projections, I’d found myself watching her instead of the numbers, tracking the way she smoothed a hand down the front of that jacket like she still couldn’t quite believe she’d been the one to design it.
That night, after Penelope was asleep, I’d pulled out the packet she’d handed out and looked at it again. And again. Somewhere between the third and fourth time I flipped through those pages, I realized I was done pretending we could keep her buried under a mediocre line lead.
Sparkks Sports is about to step into a different league. We need designs that actually deserve to stand on the field.
I just haven’t had time to tell Carly that yet.
My ears pop as the elevator rises from the parking level to the ground floor.
It slows, then dings.
I step forward as the doors slide open—
Something slams into my chest hard enough to rock me back a step.
“Shit—” I grunt, grabbing the door frame on instinct as hot liquid splashes across my shirt, my tie, my coat. The coffee cup she’s holding folds, the lid popping off.
“I-I’m so sorry—”
I look down.
There’s a brown stain blooming across the front of my shirt, seeping into the cotton.
But more importantly, it's Carly Drake.
She’s stumbling back from me, eyes wide, mouth parted, both hands still clutching the cup like she can catch the spill after the fact.
For a split second, all I can do is stare at her in her trousers that are definitely from last year’s yoga line, her black top tight, her zip-up the same one from the meeting.
Her brunette hair falls around her shoulders in waves, her makeup light, her cheeks bright pink, and she looks just as attractive as she did last week.
It shouldn’t affect me.
It does.
Then the slow burn of hot coffee seeps through to my skin, and my brain kicks back on.
“It’s fine,” I say, moving sideways from the puddle that formed beneath me. “You alright?”
“Yes. No. Maybe? I don’t—I’m fine.” She steps back quickly, cheeks flaming, grabbing for a stack of tissues from the little cart by the elevator. “You’re not fine. I ruined your shirt. And your coat. And your entire morning. I am so, so, so sorry, Mr. Sparkks.”
The last part comes out small, like she’s just realized who I am.
Around us, life moves as normal. The receptionist glances over, then looks away in that practiced “I saw nothing” way. Someone in a Sparkks puffer jacket detours around the coffee spill.
“It’s fine,” I say again, looking down at the spreading stain. The fabric sticks unpleasantly to my skin. “Accidents happen.”
A strangled noise escapes her, halfway between a laugh and a whimper. She dabs at my coat with shaking hands. “I’ll pay for dry cleaning. Or a new jacket if this doesn’t come out. Or I’ll—”
“Carly.” I say her name evenly.
She freezes. Her eyes flick up to mine. “You know my name?"
“I do. And you can stop blotting my chest, now. I have another shirt upstairs.” I glance down at myself once, then back at her. “Not like you’re going to get a coffee stain out in the lobby, anyways."
“I—” She swallows. “You’re sure?”
No. I’m late, I smell like the entire building’s coffee order, and I had a very different morning in mind. But she looks like a wounded animal backed into a corner with her mouth parted and her breath coming too fast.
There’s a haunted look in her eyes I don’t remember from the board meeting, and I don’t like it.
“I’m sure,” I say. “Come upstairs with me.”
Her eyes widen all over again. “With you?”
“To my office.” I nod toward the elevator. “You can walk with me.”
“You want me to come with you,” she repeats faintly. “To your office.”
I blink at her. Why is this so hard to comprehend? “Yes,” I confirm.
I can practically see the firing squad forming in her head. She nods jerkily. “O-okay.”
We file into the elevator and I hit the button for the executive floor. The doors slide shut, sealing us in a small box that suddenly feels even smaller.
Carly presses herself into the far corner like she’s trying to merge with the wall. She wraps her arms over her chest in a way that is both self-protective and, unfortunately for me, hard to ignore with the way her breasts press together at the V of her neckline.
I force myself to look at the numbers ticking upward instead.
“Rough morning?” I ask. My voice comes out more neutral than kind, but it’s the best I can do with my day already off-script.
She gives me a breathy, humorless laugh in return. “You could say that.” She bites her lip, eyes gluing themselves back to the stain on my shirt. “I swear I don’t usually assault people with coffee. This is… a first.”
The elevator dings. Executive floor. I don’t bother to respond to her joke. “Come on,” I say, stepping out.
She follows, eyes flicking around like she expects someone to jump out and tell her this is all a test. My name is on the glass door at the end of the hallway, SPARKKS in big block letters, CEO in smaller ones underneath. I feel her stiffen when she sees it.
I lead Carly into my office and close the door behind us.
The city spreads out beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, snow clinging to the Flatirons in the distance. My office smells faintly of leather and the citrus cleaner the night crew uses.
And now coffee.
There are framed jerseys on one wall, photos on another — me catching passes, me holding Penelope as a baby on the fifty-yard line of the college stadium, Penelope clutching a football to her chest.
Carly stands just inside the door, clutching her coffee-less cup like a talisman. “I am so, so sorry,” she says again, voice cracking. She stares at me like I’m about to lift a gun to her head. “Please don’t fire me.”
I blink at her, realizing just how bad she thought this was. Probably my fault. “No one’s getting fired over a spill,” I reassure her, shrugging out of my ruined coat and draping it over the back of a chair. The shirt underneath is a lost cause. “That isn’t how I run this place.”
She doesn’t look convinced.
“Carly.” I undo the first couple of buttons on my shirt, fingers working automatically. Hot fabric peels away from my skin. “You’re not in trouble.”
Her gaze drops to my hands.
Then my chest.
She goes very still.
And color floods her cheeks.