Chapter 2
Rowan
The hallway behind the arena was packed with bodies and noise, but the moment I saw Devon kiss Keaton, everything around me vanished.
For one second, I stood there, watching. Keaton didn’t shove him away, and that was all I needed to see. I turned before either of them noticed me.
Someone clipped my shoulder as I pushed through the crowd, and a voice snapped, “Watch it!”
I didn’t slow down.
Another person called my name. Maybe Derek. Maybe Enzo. Maybe someone from the commission, trying to get me where I was supposed to be after the fight I’d won less than twenty minutes earlier. But I kept moving because if I stopped, I would go back.
If I went back, I wouldn’t be calm. I’d get in Keaton’s face, demand answers, and probably say something that gave us away in a hallway full of people who had no idea what he was to me. Then he’d look at me with those brown eyes and give me an explanation I’d want to believe.
I couldn’t do that.
Not when the sight of Devon kissing him dragged me straight back to that party during our senior year of high school, to the bedroom where Ridgway caught us together and Keaton looked at me, waiting for me to choose him.
I hadn’t.
I’d chosen fear, my reputation, and the version of myself everyone expected me to be. It wasn’t the same. Keaton hadn’t lied about me or let everyone believe the worst about me. But now I was the one waiting for him to choose me.
But standing there watching Devon kiss him, it felt like I couldn’t get past the fact that Keaton hadn’t pulled away.
He’d chosen someone else.
He didn’t need to yell or throw the past in my face. This was worse. He’d let me feel it instead, and the pain cut so deep it hurt to breathe.
I grabbed my fight bag and headed for the exit to the service area behind the arena. People were smoking near a barricade, talking loudly and laughing. A security guard glanced my way, probably because I looked half out of my mind, but he didn’t stop me.
I opened the rideshare app with shaky hands and requested a car. The driver was four minutes away, which felt too long. I paced the area by the back door until my reflection appeared in the dark glass of a parked SUV.
My hair was still a mess from changing too fast after the fight, and a faint bruise was forming near my cheekbone, but otherwise I looked annoyingly normal. No blood. No split lip. Nothing that showed my heart had just been cracked open.
Then I caught the blank look in my eyes and turned away before I kept staring.
A black sedan rolled into the service area a few minutes later, and I climbed into the back seat and leaned back against the headrest as we pulled away from the arena.
The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “Rough night?”
I let out a humorless laugh. “Something like that.”
“You win?”
“Yeah.”
“Then it couldn’t have been that bad.”
“You’d think.” I stared out the window as the arena lights faded behind us.
By the time we reached the hotel, my thoughts had stopped making sense.
Devon kissing him. Keaton not pulling away.
The stupid hope I’d carried that maybe he’d forgiven me for what I’d done four years ago.
I walked through the hotel lobby with my head down and headed straight for the elevators.
A couple of women in sparkly dresses glanced at me, then quickly looked away.
Getting punched in a cage didn’t bother me, and losing the fight wouldn’t have bothered me as much as Keaton ripping out my heart did.
Once I got to my room, I shoved the key card into the slot twice before the light finally turned green.
Inside, my duffel sat open on the luggage rack, with some of my stuff already tossed in from when I’d changed earlier. I stared at it for a second, then moved.
No thinking.
No slowing down.
No waiting for Keaton to show up and make me feel stupid all over again.
I shoved clothes into the bag, then my shaving kit, chargers, and anything else that was mine. My hands moved on autopilot, just as they had every time I packed for training, deployments, or another temporary place that never felt like home.
My phone vibrated on the bed, and I grabbed it to see Keaton had sent me a text:
Where are you?
I froze.
For a moment, everything in me wanted to answer, to ask him why, to tell him I’d seen him with Devon, and to hurl every ugly thought in my head at him until he felt even half as bad as I did. Instead, I stared at the message until the screen went dark.
No.
He didn’t get to kiss Devon, then ask where I was like he cared.
I zipped my bag and opened the airline app. Only a few flights were left, but one was headed to Sacramento with seats still available. It departed in a little over two hours.
Lucky me.
I booked it before I talked myself out of it. Then I grabbed my duffel, took one last look around the room, and took off.
The hallway was quiet as I headed for the elevator, nothing like the packed arena I’d just left, where voices had called my name and people had moved in every direction. None of the guys or coaches were around to ask where I was going or try to stop me from leaving.
That was fine.
No one had stopped me the night I’d ruined us, either, but at least this time I knew I was the one choosing to leave.
LAX was crowded and too loud, full of people dragging suitcases across the tile, kids crying near the check-in counters, and a group of guys in matching shirts arguing over which terminal they were supposed to be in.
As I was pulling up my boarding pass on my phone, a text came through from Keaton:
You good?
I didn’t respond, and a minute later, my phone rang, with his name filling the screen.
For one weak, pathetic second, my thumb hovered over the answer button. I hated that I wanted to hear his voice, so I forced myself to let it go to voicemail.
At security, the TSA agent glanced from my ID to my boarding pass, then handed my license back and waved me through.
“Next in line.”
After clearing security, I found my gate and dropped into a seat by the window. My body ached now that the adrenaline was fading. My shoulder was stiff, and my muscles felt heavy, but none of that compared to the pain behind my ribs.
Another text came through.
Keaton
Call me when you get this
I stared at the screen until my eyes burned.
He really wasn’t going to stop.
That was the worst part. Keaton knew exactly how to push. He knew I carried what happened in high school with me. He knew I still hated myself for it. He knew I’d spent four years replaying that moment in my head.
My phone buzzed again.
Keaton
Answer me
Then another.
Keaton
Please tell me you’re okay
My throat burned.
“Stop,” I whispered, even though he couldn’t hear me.
A family sat across from me, the mom half-asleep while the dad tried to stop their toddler from throwing fish crackers onto the floor.
His dad finally took the bag away, and the kid burst into tears.
For one stupid second, I wished I could go back to being young enough that a dead 3DS battery felt like the worst thing that could happen.
When my phone rang again, I turned it off before the second ring, and the silence that followed felt better and worse.
Boarding began soon after, so I followed the line of people onto the plane and made my way to the window seat near the back. After shoving my duffel into the overhead bin, I sat down and stared out at the dark tarmac.
A woman took the aisle seat beside me, gave me a quick smile, then pulled a paperback from her tote bag. I wasn’t trying to read over her shoulder, but the book fell open in her hands, and the first line I saw might as well have been aimed directly at me.
“You motherfucker!” Parker yelled as he dropped his bat and charged toward me.
Great.
Even the universe was throwing enemies-to-lovers bullshit in my face.
I looked away, but not before catching a few more lines.
As soon as he’d stepped into the batter’s box, I was ready to unload. I didn’t wait for a sign from Anderson. I just wound up and threw. The fastball drilled Parker in the ribs, and then it was on.
Of course.
A baseball player getting hit on purpose because someone had decided pain was the easiest way to make a point. Apparently, I’d boarded a flight and sat next to the paperback version of my current emotional breakdown.
“You wanted to kick my ass? Bring it on!” the guy in the book growled.
I turned my attention back to the window before I could read any more. I didn’t need fictional athletes trying to murder each other in front of me too.
Real ones had already done enough damage.
Sacramento was cooler than LA when I stepped outside the airport, and because it was later and I was running on nothing but fumes, the chill went straight through me. I turned my phone back on to order a rideshare and immediately regretted it once the texts started loading:
Keaton
Please answer me
Devon
Call me back
Derek
Dude where the hell are you?
Mason
Not to be dramatic, but if you’re dead, I’m gonna be pissed
Also Keaton is freaking out
Of course, Keaton was freaking out, and for a second, the worry behind Mason’s message cut through my anger.
I knew I should let him know I was safe, but contacting him would open the door to a conversation I couldn’t handle yet, so I locked my phone and slipped it into my pocket.
A few minutes later, the rideshare pulled up, and I climbed in.
The driver confirmed my name, then followed the route to my parents’ house without another word.
I could’ve gone straight to the rental, but my motorcycle wouldn’t help me move my shit, and I wasn’t about to call anyone from the gym for a favor, not tonight.
So I went to the only place I could. I hadn’t planned to show up at my parents’ house without warning, a duffel bag over my shoulder and my whole life coming apart around me, but nothing about tonight had gone according to plan.