22. Chapter 21 #2
I flip the laptop around so they can see the charts.
"Look at Vegas. We played one game without him and the entire left side collapsed. Bailey isn't a bad player. He's just not the person holding that line together."
I close the laptop.
"And there's one more thing." My heart is going like a stopwatch. "I've watched Beck Morrison up close for weeks now. Closer than any analyst has ever watched any player, probably. So close that somewhere in the middle of all that data collection, I fell in love with the man."
Diego makes a sound like a teakettle. Declan's head snaps toward me. Mason just smiles, like he knew exactly where this was going weeks ago when he witnessed it from a balcony.
"And I want to be extremely clear," I press on, before anyone can speak, "that is not why I'm changing the recommendation.
I'm changing it because it's the correct hockey decision, and I will defend that math against any analyst in this league.
But I'm telling you the other part because Beachside deserves to know what they have.
Because given the chance, this whole town is going to fall in love with him exactly like I did. If they haven't already."
For a second, the only noise in the entire mansion is the ocean and Biscuit's tail restarting against the floorboards.
Then Colin rubs his forehead.
"Darcy. That's... look, that's a hell of a report. Genuinely. Best work I've seen from you." He winces. "But the process has just moved beyond the report. You heard what I said… the teams agreed to terms overnight. The framework for the contract is done."
The kitchen explodes the second the words leave his mouth.
"BEYOND THE REPORT?" Declan launches to his feet, chair screeching backward and falling to the floor. "The report was the whole POINT! You made him do weeks of six AM runs and therapy and audits. And now you're telling me the homework didn't COUNT?"
"Declan, the league timeline—"
"Screw the timeline!" Mason is standing now too, and the whole room flinches, because Mason raising his voice is like witnessing the furniture talking.
"You don't get it. Our parents are splitting up.
Our family is coming apart at the seams. This house, this team…
this is what's left! And you want to mail a third of it to the desert because some spreadsheet said so and nobody had the guts to hit pause when the spreadsheet CHANGED HER MIND? "
"Um. I resent being called spreadsheet in that tone," I say, standing as well, "but he's right, Colin.
What is the point of hiring me if my professional judgment stops mattering the moment it becomes inconvenient?
I did the work. I did it honestly, which cost me more than you will ever know.
And I am telling you the trade is a mistake—"
"It's not that simple—"
"IT'S EXACTLY THAT SIMPLE—"
Biscuit starts barking. Coach Pearson stands up and says something about everyone taking a knee, which makes no sense in a kitchen.
Pete calmly moves the croissants out of the blast radius.
Declan and Colin are shouting over each other about contract law, and Declan clearly knows nothing about contract law but is compensating with volume.
Diego is clutching his cleaning cloth to his chest like a Victorian widow who just discovered the handsome duke has died without updating his will.
And then that goddamn tablet mounted on the kitchen wall lights up and starts ringing.
Diego lunges for it like a man reaching for a fire alarm.
"Oh thank GOD," he breathes, and accepts the call.
Zoey Morrison's face fills the screen. She has flour on her cheek, a Butter Batch apron on, but her eyes already narrowed like she could hear us all the way from Chilmore.
"Why," she says, "does my group chat have fourteen messages, two of which are just Declan typing and deleting, and why can I already hear screaming?"
"ZOEY." Diego angles the tablet at the room like a news correspondent breaking live news. "Please, help. Restore civilization. I'm begging you."
"They're trading him, Zo," Declan says, storming over to the tablet. "It's done. They did it overnight, behind everyone's back—"
"It is NOT done, there's a contract—"
"A CONTRACT, he says—"
"Where's Beck?" Zoey asks.
"—and the report doesn't even COUNT anymore, which, by the way, Darcy just torched her whole career reversing—"
"HEY." Zoey's voice cracks through the kitchen like a wooden spoon on a countertop, and every Morrison in a five-mile radius goes silent on pure childhood instinct. Even Biscuit sits. "All of you. Zip it."
The kitchen zips it.
Zoey's eyes find me through the screen. Eight hundred miles away, and somehow, this woman is still the most authoritative person in the room.
"Darcy."
"Yes?"
"Where's Beck?"
I shake my head. "I don't know. I thought he'd be here."
Declan looks toward the empty chair, then at Mason. "How the fuck does he keep doing this?"
Mason frowns. "Doing what?"
"Disappearing."
"You're right." Mason almost smiles. "He's getting good at that."
"It's not funny."
"Little bit funny. We've spent twenty-seven years knowing where Beck is because he's usually yelling from three rooms away. Now the bastard just leaves."
Declan grunts.
But something warm blooms beneath my panic.
Because maybe Beck isn't disappearing anymore.
Maybe he's finally learned he doesn't need anybody's permission to go somewhere.
"HELLO!?" Zoey's voice cuts through my thoughts. "Has anybody actually heard from him?"
"No."
"Alright. Then forget the contract. Forget Colin. Forget your report." Her voice gentles, and somehow, that's worse. Because she's looking directly at me again. "Darcy. Do you love him?"
I look at the screen. "Yes."
No qualifier. No decimal places. Just the truth, said out loud.
Zoey nods, satisfied, like she's checking a loaf she's pulled fresh from the oven.
"Okay. So help me figure it out… where is my brother?"
Everyone looks at everyone. Declan looks at Mason. Mason looks at the stairs. Colin looks at his papers like Beck might be filed underneath them.
Then, right beside me at the kitchen island, Diego clears his throat.
"Um… Mr. Beck left some time ago." He folds his cloth with terrible calm. "Before any of you were awake. He said he was going for a walk, and begged for me not to say a word."
A walk?
Beck Morrison does not walk. Beck Morrison bounces, sprints, dances, rolls across the hoods of vehicles. Beck Morrison only walks when the noise in his head gets louder than the noise in his mouth.
And I know, with the certainty of a woman who has spent weeks studying one man closer than any subject in her entire career, exactly where he goes when that happens.
I still come here sometimes. Usually when I need to think.
I can hear him saying it now, leaning against that weathered railing on our first date. The place he goes when he wants to disappear. Where his whole life fell apart on a livestream, and where he took me anyway, on the best night of my life.
The pier.
Zoey is watching me through the screen. She sees it land on my face. This woman raised three boys, and she can read a person like a fucking recipe card.
"I know where he is," I whisper.
One eyebrow goes up.
"Then why are you still standing there?"
She's right.
My heart kickstarts in my chest, as I launch out of the chair, nearly sending my cappuccino across the table as I grab my handbag.
"Where are my keys?"
"Front table," Diego calls immediately, hands flapping. "They're on the front table!"
Declan strides across the kitchen, snatches them from the bowl and tosses them straight at me.
I catch them against my chest.
"Go," he says.
Colin pushes to his feet. "Nobody is going anywhere! We haven't finished—"
Declan turns his enormous body sideways and plants himself directly between Colin and me.
"Pretty sure she has."
For once in my life, Declan Morrison's overprotective bullshit is working beautifully in my favor.
"Darcy—" Colin starts, trying to peer over Declan's blocking shoulder.
"Meeting's adjourned," I tell him. "Go surfing. Go… play golf. I've got to go and find my boyfriend."
I hit the front doors at a run, Biscuit barking joyfully behind me, and sprint for my convertible with my heels in my hand and my heart going faster than the data can track.
I need to find Beck Morrison.
Because he isn't data anymore.
He's the man I love.