Making It Burn (Making It #10)

Prologue

Mason- High School Lacrosse Championships

The field looked like a stage before the curtain rose—painted lines glowing under the stadium lights, grass shaved to uniform obedience, the whole thing humming with the kind of expectation that made my skin buzz.

The stands were already full: dads in fleece vests, mothers in pearls and school colors, younger siblings waving poster-board signs that said things like GO COUGARS!

and PRICE IS RIGHT! It seemed like every camera phone in Richmond was aimed at us.

It was the last lacrosse game of my senior year and the state championships—the one I’d been running toward since ninth grade.

I rolled my shoulders, stick cradled against my hip, and tried to breathe past the tight knot in my chest. The air had that early-spring bite—cool enough you could see your breath if you exhaled hard, warm enough that sweat would sting your eyes by halftime. Perfect weather for a war.

Across the midfield stripe, St. Christopher’s Saints jogged through their warmups in unison. Every movement clean, drilled, and annoyingly perfect. And at the center of them, like a black hole sucking all the light and oxygen: Beau Hollis Thatcher.

Perfect fucking Beau.

He wore his helmet pushed up on his head like a crown and grinned at something a teammate said, the curve of his mouth so effortless I wanted to punch it flat. Beau had the kind of face that made teachers forgive late homework and security guards wave him through any line.

He’d had everything handed to him on a platinum platter since the delivery room. Old Richmond money. The right zip codes. The right last name. Meanwhile, I’d had to earn every scrap—every captain’s badge, every starting slot, every nod of respect—like it was rations in a famine.

And he knew it. That was the worst part.

Beau looked at me like I was a problem to be solved, an equation he’d ace if he just showed up.

Every game we played against each other was a battle of wills, and today was the last time I’d have to see the asshole’s perfect face.

I planned to make it memorable. For him.

“Price!” Coach Rice’s voice snapped like a flag. “Bring it in!”

Our huddle tightened around him, the sour-sweet reek of sweat and fresh-cut grass filling my nose. Coach had a square, oak-carved face that made freshmen stand up straighter and seniors run faster. He didn’t yell because he didn’t need to.

“This is it, gentlemen,” he said, scanning us one by one. “You earned every inch of this field. You kept your mouths shut and your legs moving all season long, and I’ll be damned if anyone in navy and gold takes it from you tonight.”

A ripple of breath moved through the circle—quiet, and hungry.

“They’re good,” Coach said, jerking his chin toward the Saints. “But you’re better. They’re pretty. You’re mean. The Saints have been reading their own press clippings for the entire season while you’ve been building calluses. You want this trophy more. Let them feel that.”

He looked at me last.

“Mason,” he said, voice dropping half an inch. “They lean on one player. We lean on a team. But your boys feed off your pulse. Keep it steady. Attack like you practiced—smart, not flashy. We finish every ride. We finish every check, and we finish first. The entire locker room is depending on you.”

My throat tightened, but it wasn’t fear. It was a pressure valve I’d been slowly screwing down all week. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” His mouth twitched like a suppressed smile. “Now go take what’s yours.”

We broke. Helmets slammed down, gloves tightened. The ref’s whistle cut the air. The Saints drifted toward the line like they owned the place; the Cougars took the turf like we were collecting a debt.

I took my spot at attack, stick light in my hands, and found Beau.

He’d shoved his helmet down now, face behind the mask, the black eye cage slicing that smug mouth into measured angles.

He rolled his neck, and for half a heartbeat his gaze slid across the field and stopped on me, like he’d been searching and finally found what he was looking for.

He lifted his chin in greeting.

I sneered.

The faceoff snapped like a mousetrap. Our middie clamped down, fought like a raccoon in a trash can, and scooped the ball free. It squirted backward, and we were on it—bodies slicing upfield. Sticks clicked like bones, and the coaches barked from the sidelines.

I caught the first pass on the wing and felt the ball settle into the pocket.

A defender slid toward me—big kid, quick feet, already sweating.

I sold him a stutter-step and moved past, not greedy, just enough to draw the second man, and dumped it to our X attack behind the cage.

We ran the motion we’d run a thousand times under halogen bulbs and rain and heat that made your lungs taste like pennies.

Catch, carry, lean.

Beau shadowed the lane on the far side, jaw tight, watching the pieces of our offense move like he was memorizing them. It would have been flattering if I didn’t hate his fucking face.

The first shot pinged off the post—sharp, metallic, a noise you felt in your teeth. A groan rolled through our section; their side cheered like they’d actually done something. The ball ricocheted high. We chased it down and saved it.

The Saints got the first goal off transition—a quick stick on the crease, clean and cruel. Their bench erupted, and Beau pumped a fist, his eyes cutting to me like he needed to make sure I’d seen it.

I saw it. I also saw him forget to hide the little flinch when our defender laid a legal bruise on his ribs two possessions later.

We answered six plays after, one of those ugly goals that don’t make highlight reels—shove, scrape, dig, shove again—and then the ball was in the net because we wanted it more. The roar from the stands hit my back like a wind.

From there it turned into what it always turned into with Beau and me: a game inside the game.

He was one of those players who made the field seem tilted toward him and moved as if he’d rehearsed the geometry with God.

I was the counterargument: a metronome with blood in it.

He tried to bait me into overplaying, and I didn’t oblige.

By halftime we were tied at three, sweat cooling in a sheen on my forearms while Coach gave us water and orders. His eyes found me again. “Stay even, Price,” he said. “Let him be the one to chase. He breaks down when he has to chase.”

I knew who “he” was.

The third quarter was a fistfight in slow motion. Bodies collided and separated. A kid in the row behind our bench screamed, “Murder them!” and his mother told him to hush.

And then, with four minutes left and the scoreboard at 5–5, the game snapped.

It happened fast. We turned them over at midfield on a sloppy pass; I scooped the ground ball clean, and my legs were already pumping, the lines blurring under my cleats. The Saints scrambled. I cut right, chopped my steps, and saw the lane open like a seam in cloth.

And there he was.

Beau came at me like a comet—shoulder to chest, his stick a bright flash in my periphery, his hips dropping center of gravity like he’d practiced it a thousand times while trying not to think about my name.

I planted my feet to take the blow and split, but his stick skated off my glove and bit into me deep—an ugly, accidental rake that slashed across the top of my thigh where the padding thinned.

“Shit!” I clenched my teeth.

My foot slid, and my balance went sideways. The ball squirted free, and my knee kissed sod. Beau’s shoulder clipped my ribs, and we both went down in a tangle.

The whistle blew, two at once—the foul and the stoppage. Noise roared up and then tunneled down into something thin and far away.

“Damn it,” I heard myself say, conversationally, like I’d dropped a book on my toe. I looked down and saw red blooming through my uniform.

Hands grabbed me—teammates, a trainer, and Coach’s shadow loomed overhead. The world narrowed to the smell of earth, rubber, and the iron tang of blood.

“Let me see,” the trainer said, and his fingers were already peeling back my pants. “Deep scrape. You’re lucky, kid. Hold still.”

A few feet away, Beau stood with his helmet off, breathing hard. He was saying something to the referee. “I went for the stick—I didn’t mean to, please tell him…”

“You’re benched, Thatcher!” someone barked.

Coach knelt, blocking my view of everyone but him. “You with me, Price?”

“Yeah.” My voice sounded like it had gravel in it.

“You’re done,” the trainer grimaced, still pressing on my thigh. “He needs stitches.”

Coach didn’t look at the trainer. He looked at me. “We’ll man up,” he breathed. “We’re going to win this, Price.”

It took me a breath to understand he was telling me I was out of the game.

I nodded once, and the trainer and a teammate hauled me to my feet.

I refused to limp, despite how much it hurt.

There was no way I’d let Beau see me in pain.

But as I moved, I felt it—a stare landing on me, bright as a spotlight.

I turned my head and saw him ten yards away.

His mask was off, and it looked like guilt and defiance were warring on his stupidly symmetric face.

He mouthed something I couldn’t hear.

Maybe it was “Sorry.” Most likely it was “Fuck you, Price.”

“Next time, Thatcher,” I whispered.

They taped me up like a Christmas present on the sideline while the game resumed. The Saints’ parents were on their feet, screeching. Our section throbbed with anger and love.

And in the end, we won.

My team swarmed the field, sticks punching the sky. Coach hauled me up and into the swarm, half-carrying me.

Victory is the ultimate painkiller.

On the edge of the chaos, Beau stood frozen like a statue.

His eyes met mine across that ruined field, and for a second it felt like the two of us were the only people left.

Not friends. Not anything. Just two boys who’d spent four years measuring themselves against each other, and a victor had finally emerged.

He lifted his chin like he had before the first whistle, only this time there was no smirk, just a look I couldn’t read.

In the training room, someone with steady hands threaded a needle through my skin. Focusing on the buzzing fluorescent lights above me, I counted my breaths. I told myself it was fine, and I’d be running again in a week.

The trainer snipped the thread. “You’ll have a souvenir,” he chuckled. “Chicks dig scars.”

I huffed a laugh because that was what boys like me were supposed to do. “Sure.”

Later, when the room emptied and the roar of celebration became echoes, I pushed my shorts down and looked at the neat black ladder crisscrossing the angry red slash on my upper thigh. Not heroic or tragic. Just a permanent reminder.

I touched the skin around it and felt that knot in my chest unwind by half. We’d won. I’d done my job. The scoreboard didn’t care how it happened.

But when I closed my eyes, the image wasn’t Coach’s hand crushing my shoulder in pride. It was Beau’s face—shocked, sorry, stubborn—flickering behind the bars of his mask.

The locker room emptied, and I slowly got to my feet and shuffled over to the mirror. God, I looked like hell. Bruises covered my arms, and there was a slight cut under my ear. However, my ego suffered more damage than anything else.

“I’m going to make you pay, Beau Thatcher.”