Chapter 2
OLIVER
The weight room always smelled like rubber and heat.
Burned chalk, old sweat, iron plates that never quite stopped rattling.
It was the only space in the building that didn’t demand anything from me.
It didn’t care if I was starting this week, didn’t ask about protocols or vitals or how many steps I took before my chest tightened. It didn’t pretend, and I needed that.
I wiped my palms on my shorts and loaded another forty-five onto the bar, checking the grip grooves without looking up.
Everything in here had a place, a rhythm, a purpose.
That was what I liked most—no room for interpretation.
You either moved the weight or you didn’t.
You either showed up or you didn’t. Nothing vague or unsure like my daily life.
I pulled the bar off the rack and let it settle across my shoulders.
The familiar bite of pressure steadied me, quieted everything else.
I didn’t want to think about a dozen things: the way Sloane looked at me yesterday like she already knew the truth, the file I knew she’d read, the cold clinical log of my problems. But under the weights, none of that mattered.
I did four reps. Five. Then I racked it and leaned forward, breathing through my nose, hands braced on my knees.
I wasn’t tired. Not physically. But my head wouldn’t quit.
It hadn’t since college, since the symptoms started, since the cardiologist said you’ll need to keep an eye on this like it was a privilege and not a countdown.
I didn’t tell my mom for three months, and when I finally did, she looked at me like she was waiting for the punchline.
My dad said nothing at all—walked into the kitchen and refused to talk about it.
I was twenty. I told myself I didn’t need them to understand.
My sister was the only one who grieved with me, that the life I wanted wasn’t an option.
But if I talked about it with my parents, they wouldn’t hear it.
That was the first time I learned how to bury something deep enough it stopped getting in the way.
“Early start today,” Ivy said from behind me. Her voice didn’t surprise me—she always had this way of entering a room like she’d been there the whole time. She wasn’t sharp with me. She never was. Not unless I deserved it. Which I sure had a few times in our eight years of friendship.
I turned, grabbed my towel off the bench, and gave her a small nod. “Beats traffic.”
She raised one brow and stepped into the room like it belonged to her.
Because it did. Clipboard under one arm, Rampage-logo thermos in the other hand.
She was in her usual gear—black-on-black sneakers, perfect posture, her signature glasses, and a ponytail.
Ivy Emerson didn’t wear polish, but she never looked unkempt.
Everything about her said: I know exactly what I’m doing. Try me.
Ivy wasn’t warm, not in the way people expected from friends, but she was loyal.
Brutally honest. The kind of person who didn’t flinch when things got ugly.
She saw people fully—even when they didn’t want to be.
When she looked at you, it wasn’t to measure how useful you were.
It was to ask, Are you good? And if you weren’t, she’d help you until you were.
“You’re already sweating,” she said, her tone light but layered. “Trying to out-lift the ghosts again?”
I wiped the back of my neck, catching my breath even though I wasn’t physically winded. “Clearing my head.”
“You say that every time,” she replied. “Doesn’t mean it’s not true, but it does mean I know when you’re lying.”
She stopped a few feet away, not bothering to keep her distance like most people did when I got like this—quiet, tense, slightly too still.
She’d seen me like this before. Not only this year.
Ivy had been there the first time I blacked out, junior year.
Callum O’Toole, my best friend and her fiancé, had been the one to tell me to see a doctor and that I was a damn fool to play through this pain. We were close, the three of us.
She stood in front of me, arms crossed, green eyes worried. “Oli, please. The staff is freaking out about your episode, and it’s getting harder to convince myself you should even keep playing.”
“Ivy.” I snapped my gaze to hers, my heart surging. “Of course I can keep playing. Jesus. I need to find the balance. It’s what I do. Toe the line.”
“Sure, but almost passing out during a practice? Elevated heart rate without working out?” She pinched her nose. “I love you, Oli, but we need to talk reality. Soon.”
“I had a session with Mercer,” I blurted out, not even dignifying her statement with a response. I would never walk away from football. It was my dream, the financial stability our family needed. It was who I was. Without football… no. Just, no.
She nodded once. “I know. She doesn’t give me details, but she flagged your file. Said something wasn’t adding up.”
I looked away, eyes tracking the row of kettlebells across the room. All lined up. Uniform. Easy. “I don’t like talking about it. I don’t want to talk to her about it.”
“No shit,” she said, not unkindly.
A pause stretched between us. Not awkward. Just… old. Familiar. She let it breathe.
“I don’t want to lose this,” I said quietly. “I don’t want to fall apart right when my life seems to be coming together, Ivy.”
Ivy shifted slightly, enough for her knee to knock against mine.
“You’re not falling apart, Oliver. You’re holding your breath.
And if you don’t exhale soon, it’s going to break something that doesn’t heal.
Since you won’t stop physically, you need to work on what’s in your head.
Stop trying to do everything alone. You don’t have to shoulder this solo, you know? ”
I didn’t look at her. Her words hit me hard. I wanted to be the one people depended on, not the pathetic guy who needed help. My jaw clenched hard enough I felt it in my molars. “I know what I’m doing, Ivy.”
“No,” she said. “You know how to hide things. There’s a huge difference.”
I wanted to argue. Wanted to push back, joke, change the subject. But this was Ivy. She’d heard every version of my deflection before. She was the one who’d sat next to me in the hospital hallway, waiting for the first test results years ago.
She saw through me long before Mercer ever walked through the door.
“Callum’s worried,” she added, softer now. “He didn’t say anything, but I could hear it in his voice when I told him you were pushing again. He said you haven’t texted back all week.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“You’ve been avoiding the people who know you. Fuck off with the ‘I’ve been busy’ act.”
My throat tightened. My hands curled around the towel in my grip.
She didn’t reach for me. Didn’t try to soften the blow.
That wasn’t Ivy. Instead, she said, “You don’t have to do this alone.
You have us and Noah. You have people you can lean on.
You never do though. You’re not some cautionary tale, Oliver.
But if you keep pretending nothing’s wrong, that’s what this will become. ”
I let the towel fall onto the bench. My heart rate was fine—steady, maybe a little high—but the ache wasn’t in my chest. It was in my gut. In the place where fear burrowed deep enough to feel like truth.
Before I could respond, the door creaked open again, and in walked Noah Abbot, our starting offensive linemen, dragging in the smell of eucalyptus soap.
His hoodie was only half on, socks didn’t match, and his curls were damp enough that I knew he hadn’t bothered to towel off.
He carried two protein shakes, one already half-empty, and his eyes were still puffy.
He tossed me the unopened bottle without a word and dropped onto the bench across from mine, long legs stretched out, his whole body loose with the quiet confidence he wore like armor.
Noah never rushed. Never pushed. He moved like the world would wait until he was ready.
The dude was also obsessed with soaps and natural ways to clear his skin.
He smelled like a different candle every time I saw him.
It was a fascinating combination for a six-foot-four, three-hundred-and-twenty-pound dude.
“What up, my man?” he asked, his tone light, but his gaze was intense. “You good, Oli?”
“Always,” I said, hitting his knuckles as the lie came out hard and fast. Despite our team having good chemistry overall, I was only comfortable being myself with a few players, and Noah was one of them.
The giant was kind and one of the nicest, most caring people I had ever met.
Always down for a good time. Never caused issues.
“You look wired,” he said, cracking his own bottle. “Didn’t sleep?”
I shrugged, wiped my hands on my shorts. “Slept fine. Brain won’t shut up.”
“Cause of the doc?” Ivy asked, her tone light but direct. She leaned against the wall near the rack, arms crossed, watching me.
“Yesterday,” I said. “Session was short. Unnoteworthy.”
Ivy nodded once. “She’s sharper than most.”
“She should be,” Noah said. “You brought her in, right?”
Ivy didn’t answer with words. She nodded. Of course she had. Ivy didn’t just work with people—she vetted them. She staked her name on them. If Dr. Sloane Mercer was here, it was because Ivy believed she was one of the best.
Noah leaned back and tilted his bottle toward me. “She asked me what emotion or thing I associate with competition. It was fun. I had a great chat with her. I like her.”
I paused, one brow raised. “And?”
“And what?” He tilted his hair, his curly hair falling over his face. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“What did you respond with?”
“Oh,” he said, laughing. “Chicken wings, obviously.”
That pulled a laugh out of me. But before I could ask why the hell he said that, he smiled and said, “Spicy. Unpredictable. Usually messy.”
Ivy chuckled. “You said that out loud with your mouth?”