Chapter 17
Dominic
The stupid thing is, I’m still smiling when the water hits me.
I’m standing under a stream of hot water in the locker room shower stall with maybe half a brain cell turned on. My mouth keeps tipping up, like I’m some lovesick idiot, instead of a man who got flattened by a teammate because he made eye contact with his obsession in the stands.
Water sluices over my shoulders, steaming where it hits skin still humming from practice. My muscles ache in the good way—used, stretched, and worked.
It’s loud in here with the sound of the other guys, someone singing off-key at the far end and someone else arguing about fantasy points; the general roar of bodies decompressing.
I tune most of it out and brace my palms against the wall, letting the heat soak in.
I can still see him midway up the bleachers, knees pulled up, his forearms resting on them, hoodie on and eyes locked on me.
He thought he was being subtle, but I’ve been tracking defensive schemes in crowds since I was a kid—one stubborn little law student in the middle of a bunch of undergrads isn’t hard to find, when I know what I’m looking for.
The moment I saw him up there, everything in me stuttered.
I’d been dialed in, mind running on clean lines: hear the call, adjust at the line, read the safety, throw. Rinse, repeat.
Then, I glance up between snaps, just checking the stands out of habit before shoving my helmet on again, and boom—green eyes right there, pinning me, wide and hungry and way too intent. I stalled for a fraction of a second, and got my shit rocked for it. Deserved.
The guys laughed. I laughed. Keller yelled. On film, it’ll look like a timing misread or a blown protection, depending on how harsh he wants to be.
Nobody will know the real reason my footwork went to shit is that my brain went ‘oh, he came just to see you,’ and promptly forgot what a linebacker is.
I rinse the last of the shampoo out of my hair, and roll my head under the spray, eyes closed. The smile’s still there. Persistent fucker.
I’ve had people in the stands for me before. Hookups, jersey-chasers, the occasional guy I’ve fucked in secret, who wanted to see what I look like when I’m throwing something that isn’t them against a wall.
None of them ever did more than stroke my ego. It’s nice to have an audience, sure. Nice to know who I can text later if I want a body and noise to clear my head. But it never lingered. As soon as I hit the showers, they evaporated from my mind.
Brendon doesn’t.
Brendon is not noise.
He’s my Little Sin, and the reason I slept through the night for the first time in years.
That’s the part that really screws with me.
I slept. I went to bed without swallowing anything to drag me under.
Without replaying kills in my head until I finally crashed from exhaustion.
Without waking up drenched in sweat and ready to put my fist through a wall, because my brain decided to send old ghosts at me in high definition.
My body just… let go. No nightmares and no restless tossing. No lying there, waiting for the urge to go out and find someone stupid enough to follow me into a dark corner. Just one long, solid stretch of sleep that felt like falling into deep water and not caring if I came back up.
I woke up to my alarm eight hours later with no lingering nightmares. That is not normal for me.
Brendon Lane somehow managed to get inside my sleep cycle. He’s not a hookup or some nameless body I can slot into a rotation; he’s a specific problem with a name, a cross, a cat, and a brattiness that keeps dragging me right up to the edge of things I promised myself I’d never care about.
In no universe is this a good sign. Addictions are never good; I know that.
I’ve had enough of them to recognize the pattern.
My mother’s addiction to pain made me, and my father’s inability to say no put ten million in my account and left me with a car he loved more than his life.
I know exactly how quickly this can go sideways.
Brendon Lane is an addiction.
There’s no way this ends neatly. There’s no version where I walk away with my life intact and he walks away untouched. I should be putting distance between us. I should be keeping him in the safe little box I carved out: TA, tutor, amusing toy.
Instead, I’m standing here with soap rinsing off my shoulders and a stupid smile stuck on my face, all because he came to watch me run drills and nearly got me flattened in front of Keller.
My smile gets worse when I remember it, which isn’t helping my argument that this is a bad thing.
“Fucking great,” I mutter in Russian. “That’s exactly what I need: a walking habit in a cross necklace.”
“Talkin’ to yourself again, Volkov?” one of the linemen calls from a couple of stalls down. “Need us to get you a therapist before draft day?”
“Blow me, Reyes,” I shout back.
“You couldn’t handle it,” he shoots back.
“Man, what the fuck are you grinning at?” Connor’s voice echoes from the next stall, muffled by tile and steam. “You look like you just got laid.”
I huff a laugh and tilt my head back under the spray. “What, I can’t be in a good mood?” I call back.
“Not your kind of good mood,” he says. “Your kind of good mood usually ends with someone crying or limping.”
“Fuck off,” I say, but there’s no real heat in it. It’s easy; I can do this banter in my sleep.
I twist the faucet off, grab my towel, and step out. The air feels colder than it is when it hits my wet skin, but the grin still hasn’t left my mouth. I towel off, trying not to think about green eyes in the stands and failing.
In the mirror, my reflection scowls back at me. My hair’s a dark, damp mess, yanked back with my fingers, my jaw rough with stubble, my shoulders still tense from practice. But I look… happy. The fuck.
“Fuck. You’ve got me so whipped over you,” I mutter as I head to my locker.
After getting dressed, I shove my gear into my duffel, sling it over my shoulder, and nod at a couple of guys as I head out.
“Good work today,” Keller grunts as I pass his office.
“Always,” I say, flashing him the easy grin I’ve perfected. “Try not to miss me too much before film.”
He snorts and waves me off.
I finally pull my phone from my pocket as I walk out. Though I’m not expecting anything, an annoying little dip still hits my chest when I see no new messages from him. He didn’t text after practice, or even send a snarky comment about me eating turf.
He came, he watched, and he left; that’s what normal people do. Nobody’s obligated to wait for the star player to finish showering.
Still, some part of me was apparently expecting something. A text, a stupid emoji, him hovering near the exit, pretending to be there for someone else. The fact that he’s not makes me feel fucking stupid.
The Charger sits where I left her, sleek and black and humming with the history under the hood. I slide into the driver’s seat, the leather familiar and worn in all the right places, and start her up, the engine rumbling through my bones.
Normally, the sound calms me—a reminder that there are pieces of my life I control completely—but today, the only thing I can think about is the empty space Brendon’s not occupying.
Rationally, I know that’s good. Rationally, I know keeping distance in public is smart. Rationally, I’m the one who told him no one can know, that I can’t risk the whispers. Still, I catch myself scanning the edges of the lot when I pull out, looking for his car.
I grind my teeth, irritated at the stupid tug of disappointment in my chest, and take it out on the gas pedal instead, letting the Charger eat the road. The route to the cottage is muscle memory now, turns taken automatically, trees blurring past.
I tell myself he has other things to do, that he’s probably grading papers, or leading some study group where everyone hangs on his every organized word.
That he has a life outside of being my toy.
I tell myself that’s good, that it means he has anchors I didn’t build; which will make it easier to let him go when I have to.
I don’t believe a word of it.
The gravel crunches under my tires when I pull into the drive. From a distance, the cottage looks the way it always does: squat and isolated, trees crowding around trying to hide it from the world.
What’s different is the car parked next to my spot.
Small, familiar, and a little beat-up. The figure leaning against it has a bag slung over one shoulder, head tipped back and eyes closed.
Either he’s soaking in the last scraps of sunlight, or he’s praying.
Either way, my heart does a weird lurch that would piss me off if it didn’t feel so good.
Brendon opens his eyes when the Charger’s engine cuts off.
He straightens, pushing off the car, and I watch the way he tries not to smile.
He’s in dark jeans and a soft-looking navy sweater over a white collar, hair a little mussed from the breeze.
The cuff is still on his wrist, visible where his sleeve has ridden up.
My cuff on my boy. Hell of a welcome home.
The earlier disappointment about him not waiting at the stadium drains out of me.
Of course he didn’t—of course, my Little Sin came straight here to wait in my shadow, instead of trying to cling to me in the sunlight.
I get out of the Charger, slam the door shut, and start toward him; his eyes track me the whole way. When I’m close enough to smell his shampoo over the faint tang of exhaust, his mouth opens, some prepped speech ready to tumble out.
“You’re…” he starts. “Hi. I know I’m early, I just—”
I cut him off with my hand at his throat and my mouth on his.
There’s no finesse in it, no slow build, no teasing brush. It’s a hard, bruising press of lips, teeth scraping. His breath catches, body going rigid for half a second, then he folds into it so fast it’s not even funny—bag thudding against the side of his car as his hands fly up, catching my hoodie.