Chapter 14
LEO
The locker room was chaos.
Sweaty bodies. Laughter. Cold sprays from water bottles and guys slapping each other’s backs. But all I could hear was my own heartbeat pounding like a war drum.
She stayed.
She watched the whole damn game.
And I’d said it—loud, bold, real. Into the mic, straight into the camera, no filters, no hesitation.
"My queen, Jade Bryan. My girl, Jade. Baby, I’m coming for you next."
I said it for her. To her.
To remind every person in that damn gym whose name was still written across my heart in blood.
I tugged my hoodie over my damp curls and stepped out into the crisp night air, still high on the adrenaline and rage.
The moment he made his move. Red was all I saw.
Kannon. Freaking. Kavanaugh.
Mr. Golden Boy himself had his damn arm around her shoulders like she was already his.
I froze in my tracks, remembering.
He was laughing. She was smiling. Phones were out. Snaps being posted. And her curls bounced with every step she took beside him.
Mine. She’s mine.
I balled my fists.
Kannon was still here with a bunch of groupies hanging out in the parking lot. I couldn’t fight him—Kannon wasn’t just any athlete. He was MLB-bound. Media-loved. Untouchable. Swing at him and I’d tank everything I’d spent years building.
But I could feel the rage clawing under my skin, hot and pulsing.
Xavier stepped up beside me, towel slung around his neck. “Yo, don’t. Just don’t, man.”
“Yeah,” Tristan added. “You’ve already got the girl halfway back with that Jumbotron move. Don’t throw hands over a selfie.”
I didn’t respond.
But I didn’t move. I just stood there, letting the cold sink into my bones, every inch of me screaming.
You can’t fight him with fists.
So you fight with fire.
With the kind of heat she remembers.
I turned to my boys, jaw tight. “Next practice, we go harder. I want the court next week to burn.”
Because if he thought he could steal her?
He hadn’t seen me in battle yet.
And war had just been declared.
McGovern’s was packed.
Every senior who mattered—and a few who didn’t—was crowded inside the coastal diner, steam fogging the windows while the scent of fried onions, bacon grease, and sea air clung to every hoodie in the place.
Old man McGovern waved me in the second I stepped through the door, that crooked grin of his pulling up like I was some long-lost son.
He always did that. Never forgot the time I pulled off I-95 and helped him change a tire in the pouring rain like some good Samaritan.
He tells it like I saved his life. Truth is, I just didn’t want to see an old dude get flattened by a semi.
He didn’t charge me for the double-patty smashburger and loaded fries—never did. But I dropped three crisp hundreds in the tip jar like I always do when no one’s looking.
I was just peeling the paper off my straw when I felt it.
Eyes on me.
Kannon Kavanaugh.
Baseball prodigy. Golden boy with a cannon for an arm and a face the scouts drool over. I spotted him easy—hat pulled low, fresh sneakers still dusted with gym grit, sitting back like he wasn’t sweating.
But he saw me too. Sat up straighter. His jaw ticked. Good.
Because Jade wasn’t here.
And I was.
He made his way over, shoulders squared. Didn’t look like he was planning to chat about the weather.
“You played hard tonight,” he said coolly.
I didn’t look up. “Didn’t play for you.”
“No,” he said. “You played for her. Whole court saw it.”
“And?”
He chuckled like I was amusing. “Just saying—public declarations and SnapStory shoutouts aside—she left with me.”
That got my eyes up.
“And I let her,” I said, voice even. “Doesn’t mean I won’t take her back.”
His smile slipped just a little. “She’s not a prize.”
“No,” I said, standing now, toe to toe. “She’s a choice. And I know which way she’s leaning.”
“Toward a guy who actually shows up for her?”
“Toward the guy who lights her on fire,” I growled. “Don’t flatter yourself just ’cause you walked her to her car.”
“I didn’t just walk her,” he said, cocky. “I put my arm around her. And she let me.”
That’s when I smiled. Dangerous and sharp.
“Cute,” I said. “You got a shoulder squeeze. I got a whole damn history.”
Phones were out now. The room was shifting.
Tristan flanked me like a shadow, arms crossed. Xavier stood silent but present. Kannon didn’t back down—but he didn’t press, either.
Smart.
I leaned in, voice dropping to something only he could hear.
“You think you can out train me, outplay me, out-flirt me? Be my guest. But don’t forget who she’s always going to think about at night.”
He stared me down, jaw locked. “I’m not scared of you, Holt.”
“You should be,” I said.
Then I turned my back on him and sat down, cool as hell, flipping a fry into my mouth.
Kannon walked off.
And for the first time all night, I finally smiled.
Game on.
I didn’t sleep.
Not really.
Even with a win like that, the kind of game that should’ve earned me sleep for a week, I tossed like a man possessed. Her name rolled through my head like a fever. Jade. Her face on that screen. Her lips parted like she didn’t breathe until I spoke her name.
And that bastard Kavanaugh walking her out like she was his.
I should’ve snapped.
But I didn’t. I played the long game.
I waited.
And when Xavier casually dropped that the girls would be out at the Royal Oaks Polo Fields early—learning to ride for that forsaken charity gala—I was already pulling on a black tee and boots before he finished the sentence.
I don’t belong out there. That’s horse territory.
But Jade?
She’s worth every step through the mud.