Chapter Thirteen
Emily
I was electrocuted once.
It sounds worse than it actually was. I was nine years old and bored to tears when my parents were away on vacation. Our nanny was with me, but she was pre-occupied by a book and was content to let me play on my own. I thought it would be really fun to play with a frayed phone charger.
In that split second that I was shocked by that exposed wire, my entire body buzzed.
It was the wildest sensation, like every nerve had been exposed and touched all at once, like all my muscles were locked up in that split second.
It hurt, yes, but it also felt… oddly satisfying.
It was like that feeling when you lick a battery — you know it’s not great for you but something about it feels fun.
I thought I’d never feel that again.
But here I was, on the field for my first Seattle Seahawks game, and the buzz was back in full force.
The moment the music hit, it surged through me like I had toyed with that wire again.
Sixty-eight-thousand people roared around us — a living, breathing wall of sound that rattled the air in my lungs.
The stadium lights blazed down from above, so bright it almost felt like standing inside the sun, and everywhere I looked there were flashes of neon green and navy, the iconic twelve flags waving like thunderclouds around the bowl of the stadium.
The twelves.
I’d heard about them my whole life. Everyone had. But hearing them through the television speakers in your living room was nothing like this. The announcers and players always said how loud it was, but until you were in it, you just couldn’t understand.
Out here, in the middle of it, their energy crashed over me like a tidal wave.
Marcus was to my left and behind me one row. Our eyes caught for a brief moment, both of us already panting before we’d even started dancing. His smile was so wide it stretched his whole face, and I knew mine mirrored it.
My gaze slid to Darcy next, who was to my right, her blonde hair tumbling down in gorgeous platinum waves as she waved her pompoms together and smiled brilliantly up at the crowd. She glanced over at me, scrunching her nose with an excited shuffle of her feet.
Marcus winked at both of us right before the music started, and we all silently said our mantra.
Let’s kill this shit.
My pulse synced with the bass of the music as we snapped into the first move of the routine, and suddenly every nerve ending in my body was alive.
Every turn of my head, every flick of my hair, every sharp pop of my hips sent electricity shooting down my spine. The field lights reflected off the sequins of our uniforms like sparks flying off a live wire, and the cheers rose higher every time we hit a formation change.
This.
This was why we auditioned.
This was why hundreds of us lined up every year hoping for a chance.
Because for these few minutes on the field, you weren’t just a dancer, you weren’t just part of the game.
You were the whole damn show.
We weren’t an accessory to this sport — we were its heartbeat right along with the fans.
And God, I loved it.
I loved the way the crowd responded to us. I craved the way the lights made everything feel bigger than life. I was enamored by the way the attention wrapped around me like heat, like I could soak it in through my skin and store it somewhere deep in my bones.
For the first time in a long time, I felt… useful.
Alive.
Like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
But even as the music carried us through the routine and the roar of the twelves vibrated through the soles of my boots, there was a quiet flicker beneath the electricity.
A strange, hollow space under all the noise.
It was like the circuit had been completed — the current rushing through me, lighting everything up — but somewhere deep in the wiring, one tiny connection was still missing.
And until I figured out what it was… the buzz would never quite feel whole.
When we filed off the field with the crowd going wild, I waved my pompoms together and struggled to catch my breath. My heart was pounding in my ears, lungs strained, but I was so giddy I practically floated to our spot on the sidelines.
And as it happened, I floated right past Braden Lock.
I knew it was him by the number on his chest, by the build of his body, by the way he carried himself through warmups and stretches in the familiar way he had all preseason. My favorite parts of him were hidden beneath his helmet, but I saw his gaze through the mask — laser focused, in it to win.
I willed him to look at me, as if I had some kind of power over the universe. If I did, then it was certainly broken. I’d been trying to coyly get his attention for weeks now to no avail. It was like he decided during the preseason that I was a distraction he couldn’t afford to have.
He hadn’t so much as looked at me since.
And in my gut, I knew that was likely the case.
He’d told me as much. I wouldn’t claim to know everything about him, but I knew enough to understand why football mattered so much to him, why this career weighed more than I originally thought.
Maybe I’d been a little judgmental; assuming he was rich, assuming he was just another cocky athlete playboy, assuming he would want to get in trouble just as much as I did.
Braden Lock didn’t fit inside the box I’d tried to shove him into.
Sadly for me, it only made me more drawn to him than before.
Blinking, I focused on my own job, the one I’d auditioned for and fought so hard to get. I waved at fans, joined in with my team when our captain started a dance, and felt that energy buzzing through me like a current as we drew nearer to kick off.
When I turned to face the field with the rest of my team to watch the first play, my eyes floated to Braden again.
He was on the sidelines as our defense took the field, his helmet off for the moment. His hair was already damp from warmups, the eye black smeared under his eyes doing something for me that I couldn’t quite name.
Look at me, I begged again.
And then my prayer was answered.
Braden blinked, and as if it was in slow motion, he angled his head toward where the dancers were, like he was trying to talk himself out of his next move.
But his eyes swept from the turf up to where we stood, and in a flash, those honey eyes found me.
The stadium disappeared.
Sixty-eight-thousand people, the music, the announcer booming through the speakers — all of it dimmed to static in the background as that gaze locked onto mine.
There it was again — that exposed wire.
Only this time, I didn’t pull back fast enough to stop the damage.
I felt my nerves frying, my muscles seizing, saliva pooling in my mouth.
The heat from that distant gaze alone was enough to make me feel stripped bare. My pulse stumbled, my stomach flipping like I’d just stepped off a ledge.
Now I found myself wishing I was stripped bare — preferably by him.
I wondered if he’d strip himself first, or if he’d let me have the pleasure.
Honestly, I hoped for the latter. I longed to peel that sweaty uniform off him slowly, to feel the jersey slick against my wrists as I slid my hands under the hem and pushed it up and over his head.
Like he could read my thoughts, Braden’s face reddened, his throat tightening around his next swallow.
Then he tore his gaze away, the sound of the stadium rushing back to me as my senses tried to right themselves.
He didn’t look at me the rest of the game.
And for some reason, the roar of the crowd didn’t hit quite the same after that.