Chapter Five
KIERAN WASN’T SURE which was making him more nervous—the game his team needed to win, or the fact that someone in the audience knew about his other job.
“C’mon, captain!” Bowen slapped him on the back, pushing past where Kieran had been peeking out of their locker room door to make sure the coast was clear.
Not that Sammie would be hiding in the dim hallway outside of the men’s locker room. Still. Just in case.
“Move, bro!” Another voice, one Kieran had been waiting for. He hadn’t wanted to confront Atticus in front of the rest of their team, but now it was just the two of them left. Kieran knew he didn’t have long, they both needed to be on the court in the next two minutes. He turned to face his setter.
“Nope,” Atticus said, trying in vain to push his way out of the locker room. Kieran made his best attempt at turning into a wall. Atticus rolled his eyes, sighing.
“She’ll kill me if I say anything to you.”
Kieran swallowed, his mouth dry, his words almost sticking in his throat. “So she told you?”
Atticus winced. “In her defense, we don’t really do secrets.”
A small laugh bubbled out of Kieran. “Oh, I’m aware. Is she okay?”
Atticus cocked his head to the side, a tiny smile beginning to spread across his lips. “My sister drops a bomb on you, and you’re asking if she’s okay?”
“Well.” Kieran shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Huh,” Atticus mused. “She’s great. You should definitely find her after the game.”
The thought made Kieran’s stomach twist into something unfamiliar, even though he knew Atticus was right.
He’d ignored Sammie’s messages, and was a little afraid she might punch him for it.
His intention, from the moment she’d asked him, had always been to take her up on her offer to meet after the game.
However, every time he’d tried to type out a response, nerves had won out.
As much as he liked the modern ability to hide behind a screen, bigger conversations were always easier for him in person.
He could read others better that way, watch their expressions and mannerisms, look for tells that might reveal feelings and intentions he could never seem to parse out through text.
“You’re right,” he mumbled, nodding more for himself than for Atticus’ sake. “I’ll talk to her after the game.”
“Good!” Atticus slapped him on the shoulder, shoving him through the door and down the hallway, toward an evening that might change things in more ways than one.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Sammie’s nails dug into her palms, her eyes glued on the court. The current volley was going long, both teams desperate for the point. Eric, the Cats’ libero, had hit the ground hard, but had managed to just get a fist under the ball, sending it careening wildly toward the opposite sideline.
“Come on!” Ivy was nearly screeching from the bench, gripping her clipboard hard enough that Sammie feared it might shatter. Sammie’s attention had been flitting toward her friend all evening, looking for any sign that Kai’s hunch was correct. So far, Sammie hadn’t come up with much evidence.
Ivy’s gaze did stray toward her, though, more often than Sammie would have realized if she hadn’t been watching for it.
A smile thrown her way after the Cats scored.
A commiserating look of fear when the opponent landed two service aces in a row.
Lingering looks that Sammie couldn’t help but notice again and again.
Atticus sprinted toward the sideline, turning, twisting his body in the air as he lunged, managing to get his hand on the ball by some miracle. Sammie held her breath. It wasn’t going to work. There was no way he could control where the ball went after such a hasty play.
Sound fell away as Sammie watched her brother. She saw it, the moment that everything clicked into place. Atticus was focused, and before the ball even made contact with his hands, Sammie could tell that he knew exactly where to send it.
His trust wasn’t misplaced. Kieran was there, center net, legs shoving off the ground, arm swinging in a calculated movement. The opposing blockers caught on, but they were a heartbeat too late. Even up against a triple block, Atticus and Kieran were unstoppable.
The ball cracked against the wooden floor, and the volley ended with a point for the Cats. Sammie was about to launch into a cheer when her pocket vibrated. She pulled out her phone as the teams reset. Bowen would still be serving, and he was on a three point-streak.
“Hi, Mr. McCullough,” Sammie said, sinking into her seat and curling around her phone so she could hear over the din of the crowd.
“Sammie,” the man said, a small laugh coloring his voice. “We’ve talked about this. My father was Mr. McCullough, I’m just Grant.”
“Sure,” she said, smiling softly. “What’s up?”
“It’s that window.” Sammie’s stomach sank. The window at the old house, the one that was broken. The one that he’d told her needed to be fixed sooner rather than later.
“Did something else happen?” There’d been a little rain earlier in the week, but no more thunderstorms.
“Looks like there was more damage to the frame than we realized,” Grant continued.
“Some water got in.” He paused, letting out a rough breath, and Sammie knew what was coming.
“We gotta get it fixed, Sammie. I messaged Kieran, but he doesn’t look at his phone before games.
Told him to get his ass down here and help you out. ”
“No!” The word left Sammie too suddenly, too forcefully, and she winced. “No, that’s okay. He’s busy, you’re busy. I’ll call someone to look at it this weekend.”
Grant chuckled. “Nonsense. We’ll save you a few bucks and get it taken care of.”
Sammie knew that arguing would be useless, but the idea of Kieran helping her fix up the old house after what she had discovered was more than a little mortifying. “Thanks, Grant. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Another laugh, more boisterous this time. “You’d be fine. Greta did good with you kids. But she’d rise from the grave to haunt me if I didn’t help you when I can. Same for my boy. Tell him to check his phone when you see him after the game.”
A cheer went up from the crowd, but Sammie had missed the last couple of plays. A quick glance at the scoreboard showed that the Cats had just taken the set, which meant they only needed one more for the win.
“I’ll tell him,” Sammie promised, even though the impending conversation made her limbs feel tingly.
“Talk to ya later, kid. Tell Atticus hi for me.”
The teams had switched sides by the time Sammie ended the call, slipping her phone back into her pocket with hands that threatened to shake.
She had a better view of the Cats, her brother pointing a finger at her as he took his place, smiling that crooked, mischievous smile that he was known for.
Sammie waved, offering up a smile to match his, even if it felt false, plastered across her face.
She could feel another set of eyes on her. Sammie briefly met Kieran’s gaze, both of them looking away quickly like they were still in fucking middle school.
This was ridiculous. Sammie wasn’t the nervous, unprepared kid she’d been back when she’d told Kieran about her feelings for him.
Okay, maybe she was still nervous and unprepared. But it was like her brother and Kai had said. All they had to do was talk about it.
That couldn’t be too hard, right?
The Cats won, leaving only one more win necessary to secure a spot in the championship tournament.
Bowen and Eric bounced around the locker room, whooping and hollering, dragging Aaron into their party. Eric seemed so small, sandwiched between the other two, all of them sopping wet from their showers. He shook his head, spraying Aaron with drops of water, pulling a boisterous laugh from him.
Aaron played one of the early sets, when Atticus had landed a little too hard on one ankle.
They’d lost that one, but not because of Aaron’s setting.
He was getting better, had been watching Atticus like a hawk all season.
Not to compete or make a grab for the starting setter position.
No, Aaron wanted to learn from the best, and Atticus was damn near close to being exactly that.
Atticus saw it too, tugging Aaron into a hug, slapping him on the back. “You did great, man! Thanks for covering for me.”
Kieran liked to think that he’d contributed to the easy camaraderie between all his teammates.
Sure, there had been a hiccup at the start of the season, when some of the guys—Bowen in particular—had taken to teasing Atticus for his playboy ways, but they’d been able to squash that quickly, at Kieran’s insistence.
When he’d left Seattle to play closer to home, it had been hard to leave behind that team, the friends he’d made there. Kieran had feared he would be an outsider, that he would never find the same easy comfort with his new team.
The Cats were special though. Kieran didn’t quite have the words for it, but they made him feel at home, as if this weren’t his second season with them, as if he had instead always been a part of their group. They were more like a family than a team, something Kieran hadn’t seen coming.
It made the contract, with its blank signature line that loomed over him, all the more menacing as his mother’s words echoed in his mind.
We just want to make sure your future is secure.
Could Kieran truly call these guys his family, if he was just going to end up abandoning them?
“That last spike was a work of art,” Bowen said, stars in his eyes as he landed a light punch on Kieran’s bicep.
“It was nothing special,” Kieran chuckled, running his fingers through his own shower-damp hair.
“Don’t sell yourself short, man,” Bowen continued. “Takes precision to cut it between the blockers like that. You should have seen the looks on their faces when they realized you were faster than they thought.”