Chapter 11
Dominic
The sky is that washed-out, late afternoon color that makes the stadium lights look harsher than they are, bleaching the field in a way that always makes me feel like I’m under a microscope.
I stand in the huddle with sweat running down my spine, ball in my hands, cadence rolling easily off my tongue. Everything here is simple and easy. I say the count, they move. I throw, they catch. I call, they listen.
Out here, no one questions that I’m in charge.
Coach Keller blows his whistle and calls practice, his voice cutting through the chatter like a knife.
“Bring it in!” he yells. “Volkov, my office.”
A couple of guys shoot me sympathetic looks. Colton claps my shoulder pad as we jog toward the sideline. “What’d you do this time?” he mutters.
“Maybe he found out I skipped that study hall last week,” I say.
He snorts. “If he’d found out, you’d be benched already. You’re not that sneaky, Dom.”
“Watch me,” I reply, smirking.
I drop my helmet on the bench, peel my gloves off, and jog up the tunnel.
The air shifts as soon as I leave the field; it’s cooler, and stale with cleaning supplies and old sweat.
My body is still humming from drills, muscles loose and warm, brain locked into that smooth, focused place that only ever really exists for me during games and kills.
Lately, there’s been a third category trying to wedge itself in, and it has a name and a soft fucking whine that plays on a loop in my head.
I shove that thought down as I reach Keller’s office. The door is half-open, light spilling into the hallway. I knock once out of habit and push it wide.
He’s behind his desk, tablet in hand, glasses perched low on his nose. He doesn’t stand up, but he jerks his chin at the chair across from him.
“Sit,” he says.
I drop into the chair, shoulders relaxed, trying not to drip too much sweat on his carpet. “What’s up, Coach?”
He taps the tablet, then looks at me over the frames. “Progress reports came in.”
There it is.
I keep my face neutral. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he repeats. “Last time we had this conversation, you were one bad quiz away from academic probation. You remember that?”
I smile a little. “Vaguely.”
He doesn’t bother hiding his eye roll. “You’re a pain in my ass.”
“Comes with the territory,” I say.
He shakes his head, but there’s a ghost of a smile tugging at his mouth now. “Well, congratulations, you’ve somehow managed not to tank our season and my reputation. Your Con Law grade is up to a B-minus. Ethics is at a solid B. Whatever that TA is doing with you, it’s working.”
I feel my mouth curve before I can stop it. “Told you I’d handle it.”
“I told you to let him handle it,” Keller corrects. “And for once in your life, you actually listened.”
If only you fucking knew.
Images flicker up without permission. Brendon at my dining table, pen in hand, eyes narrowed in concentration.
Brendon arguing with me before he leaves my place, pupils blown wide. That cuff on his wrist, snug against his skin, where it belongs. Brendon spying on me at the children's home this past weekend and pretending he wasn’t there just to watch me.
He’s been nothing but obedient these last two weeks. Shows up when I tell him to. Answers my texts. Picks up when I call. Stays late if I say I need more time. His mouth still runs when I poke the right spot, but he always does what I tell him to in the end.
And I haven’t laid a hand on him since that morning in his bed. Not the way I want to, anyway.
I can still taste his shame if I let myself think about it. The way it mixed with want on his tongue, sour and sweet. The way his breath stuttered when I tightened my fingers on his neck. It’s been driving me a little insane not to push further.
But restraint has its uses.
“Anyway,” Keller is saying, dragging me back. “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it. Scouts pay attention to this shit, even if you think they don’t. No one wants to invest millions in a guy who can’t keep his head out of his ass long enough to pass Ethics.”
“Got it,” I say. “I’ll keep letting him nag me about structure.”
Keller smirks. “He’s not nagging you. He’s saving your ass.”
“Same thing, far as I’m concerned,” I say, standing. “Anything else?”
“Don’t get cocky,” he says. “One good report doesn’t mean you coast the rest of the semester.”
“Me?” I put a hand to my chest. “Never.”
He snorts and waves me away. “Get out of my office, Volkov.”
I step back into the hallway feeling oddly loose. Coach isn’t wrong; the numbers on those reports matter. They’re another piece of the puzzle, another line in the narrative that looks better when it’s backed up by grades.
And yeah, Brendon’s part of that.
I could send him a text. I answer to him on paper, he answers to me in reality. It makes a balanced equation in my head. But this feels like something I should say to his face, if only to watch what it does to him.
I cut across campus after showering, hoodie on, headphones hanging around my neck. The afternoon crowd is thick with people spilling out of buildings, talking, laughing, stressing about exams.
I thread through them easily, eyes scanning out of habit.
There are always potential targets everywhere, if you know how to look: the guy shoving his girlfriend too hard when he thinks no one’s watching, the asshole shouldering past smaller students without apology, the drunk who won’t take no for an answer outside the bar…
There are always options, and I’ve been resisting the itch for two weeks.
I haven’t killed or fucked anyone since I tasted Brendon. It’s the longest dry spell I’ve had since I started doing either on a regular rotation.
I tell myself it’s discipline and containment, making sure nothing messy bleeds into the season. The truth is uglier: that nothing has sounded interesting next to the memory of him.
Every time I’ve considered going out, finding someone easy or eager—some nameless body to burn the edge off—all I can think about is how quickly they’d bore me compared to my Little Sin.
I push that thought aside for now and keep walking. I know the way to his door without thinking about it. I also know his office hours are technically over by now, but he usually stays late if some desperate undergrad begs hard enough.
As I get closer, I hear voices.
The door is slightly ajar, just enough that the sound leaks into the hall. I slow my steps automatically, letting my body fall into that quiet, watchful mode that’s served me well in worse places than this.
“…Bren, please,” a woman’s voice is saying in an urgent tone. “Just hear me out.”
“I am hearing you,” Brendon answers, and I can hear the strain in his voice even through the wood. “I just don’t have anything different to say.”
The woman sounds older than most undergrads: early twenties, maybe. There’s a familiarity in the way she says his name that pricks at me.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” she’s saying. “I’m asking you to let me try again. Just… coffee. An hour. That’s all.”
I stop just out of sight, shoulder resting against the wall. Eavesdropping isn’t polite, but I’ve never claimed to be polite.
Brendon sighs, and I can hear the exhaustion in it. “Hannah, we’ve talked about this—”
“No, you talked,” she interjects, her voice taking on a spoilt-little-girl tone. “You made a decision while you were angry. Your parents—your parents loved me, Bren. They still ask about us every time they call. They think this is just a rough patch, they said—”
“I don’t care what my parents think,” he cuts in, and there’s a hard edge there I don’t hear often. Interesting. “They didn’t have to live through it. I did.”
“I know I messed up,” she says, and her voice wobbles. “I know I hurt you. I’ve apologized a thousand times. I’ve gone to counseling, I’m in a better place now, and I’m trying, I promise. Can’t you at least trust that?”
“This isn’t about whether or not you’re in a better place,” he says, patience stretched thin but still holding. “It’s about the fact that I’m not going back there. I’m not interested in… whatever this is you’re trying to resurrect. It’s over.”
“So that’s it,” she says. “You’re just going to throw away everything we had?”
There’s a pause. I picture him rubbing at his forehead, the way he does when he’s done but still trying to be gentle.
“What we had wasn’t what you think it was,” he says quietly. “And it’s not fair to either of us to pretend it can be fixed. I wish you well, I really do, but I’m not the person you should be bringing this to anymore.”
“You’re the only person I want to bring it to,” she says. “They told me God restores all things, Brendon. That He can fix—”
“God doesn’t make me obligated to let you back into my life,” he says, and there’s that hysteria-laced edge again, buried under control. “Please. Don’t come to my office about this. Don’t bring my parents into it. Don’t bring my faith into it. This is my boundary.”
She’s quiet for a few seconds. When she speaks again, her voice is smaller. “I just… I miss you.”
He lets out another slow breath. “I know, and I’m sorry,” he says. “But my answer’s still no.”
The silence that follows is heavy, so I take it as my cue.
I knock once, then push it open before either of them can say anything else.
Brendon’s sitting behind his desk, hands folded tightly on the surface. He looks up, and the color drains from his face. His eyes flick to the woman, then back to my face.
She’s standing in front of the desk, turned slightly toward me when I enter.
She’s pretty, in a polished, small-town way: blonde hair styled just so, makeup done carefully enough to look natural.
Her cardigan and dress screams youth leader or teacher.
Someone’s vision of a pastor’s ideal future daughter-in-law.
Her eyes flick over me quickly, taking me in, lingering half a second too long on my chest, before she drags them away.