FOUR
CHASE
DYLAN: What the hell is in my fridge?
CHASE: Tuna and banana muffins. They were your idea, remember? I just put the order in last night and got them delivered to the ranch first thing this morning.
JAKE: Please tell me you didn’t eat one.
DYLAN: Tasted like a forgotten sock in my gym bag.
JAKE: Rookie mistake.
CHASE: It’s full of goodness.
DYLAN: Yeah, and I’m now full of regret.
Jake and I are still laughing over Dylan’s message as we step out the doors of Stormhawks Park, the state-of-the-art training facility that has everything the team needs to keep us fit and healthy. The place hums with quiet luxury—hydrotherapy pools, cryo chambers, a gym, restaurant, and three full-sized football fields.
There’s no official practice after game day, but the coaches called a few of us in for medical checks, and I never say no to the steam room when it’s not packed shoulder-to-shoulder with my sweaty teammates. My muscles ache from the session with the physical therapist and my skin tingles as we step into the cool fall air.
We only make it three steps before Jake stops. “Uh-oh.”
I follow his eyes and bite back a groan. My truck is surrounded by women. One of them has a tee with my face printed on it and another is holding a sign that reads “Marry me, Chase!” in red rhinestones.
My feet stop, and I mutter an expletive under my breath. I thought the hundreds of DMs blowing up my socials this morning was bad enough, but pushing into my downtime feels a step too far.
Jake claps me on the shoulder. “You wanna grab a smoothie and wait them out?”
The thought is tempting, but I shake my head. “Can’t. I’m meeting Serena at Hank’s. Gonna have to brave it.”
The moment I near my truck, phones whip up, cameras flash, recording lights go on, and a chorus of voices call my name.
“Chase, I can make you lucky in love.”
“Pick me, Chase!”
“I made you cookies—chocolate peanut butter, your favorite!”
“Can you be my date to my cousin’s wedding!”
My chest tightens as I force a friendly smile and ease my way through the group of women. I pose for photos, mutter hello, and gently say no to every offer of a date before finally making it into my truck. My hands are tight on the wheel as I pull out of the lot.
I’m used to being recognized. That’s part of being a pro athlete. I accept that fame comes with people taking photos and asking for autographs. But most of the time, when it’s not game day, the people of Denver know this is my home and give me the space to just live. That’s part of why I love being back here. But I never signed up for being the poster boy to every single woman in Colorado looking for love.
Something has to change. And soon.
Twenty minutes later, I’m striding through the doors of Hank’s. The place is a Denver institution with checkered floors worn smooth by decades of boots and sneakers, red leather booths lining the windows, and a counter with mouth-watering pies under glass domes. The coffee is strong enough to wake the dead, and the burgers are sky high.
The tension in my chest eases the second I spot Serena in our usual booth by the window, head bent over a book. Her hair is tied back from her face and she’s biting on her lower lip the way she used to when we’d study together. Correction, Serena studied. I just waited for her to finish so we could hang out. Then she looks up and smiles, and I’m hit with a thousand memories of our friendship.
Back in third grade, Serena was the first person I ever told about being abandoned by my mom after she left me on her sister’s porch at Oakwood Ranch. And she was the first person I confessed to about how much I missed my adopted dad, Harry. I’d idolized that man, loved him more than anyone else on earth. When he died in a freak horse accident when I was seven, it ripped my heart out. Serena is the only one who knows how hard I struggled to grieve. Sometimes it felt like my grief didn’t count the same way Mama’s, Dylan’s, and Jake’s did. Like I didn’t have the right to grieve as much as they did.
Even now, Serena’s the one I talk to when I think about trying to find my mom, and how much it terrifies me. Serena’s been there for all the heavy stuff, yeah, but she’s also been there for everything else. Our annual trips to the Denver Fall Fair the last Friday of October, seeing who can win the biggest stuffed toy and riding the Ferris wheel just before closing time. As kids, our lives revolved around games of truth or dare that ended with us doubled over in laughter. Sleepovers with ghost stories whispered in the dark, that became sneaking out to parties and covering for each other. We’ve weathered dating disasters, breakups, scraped knees, and hangovers. And through it all, Serena’s been the constant.
She closes her book as I slide into the opposite booth. “Did you know mountain lions eat up to thirty pounds of meat in a single meal?”
“Hi to you too,” I chuckle. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say you’re still on your ‘facts no one asked for’ kick.”
“Oh, I am. You’d thank me if a mountain lion ever wandered onto the ranch.”
“I’d be too busy running the other way to thank you,” I throw back.
“Coward.”
“Realist,” I counter, grabbing a menu even though I already know what I want. “Same as always? Burgers and fries?”
“Plus, onion rings.”
“Obviously,” I reply.
The waitress comes by, and Serena orders us two double bacon cheeseburgers, fries, and onion rings.
“How’s the furniture buying going?” Serena asks when the waitress has disappeared. She smiles like she already knows the answer.
“Good,” I lie.
“Really? What have you bought?”
I make a face. “OK, I haven’t bought anything yet, but I’m thinking about it.”
“Wow. Thinking about it. That’s progress.”
“Hey, cut me some slack. I’ve never had to buy furniture before and now I have to do it twice.”
Serena laughs. “Yes, poor you with your apartment in the city and your brand new house at the ranch.”
I can’t help but laugh, too. Serena is right, as always. I know how lucky I am. When I first moved back to Denver, I lived in the spare room of the Stormhawks’ kicker. Neither JT nor I needed to share, but we both liked the company. Until he fell in love and wanted to move his girlfriend in. I’d probably be in someone else’s spare room, like I was in Kansas too, if Jake hadn’t mentioned the apartment for sale in his building.
“If you had it your way, you’d still be in your old bedroom at the ranch,” Serena says.
“I think Madison would have something to say about that.”
“She’s taken it over, huh?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” I say. “She’s kept all my old Stormhawks merch but added a ton of horse stuff to it.”
“Sounds like Mad.”
I picture Oakwood in my mind. Land stretching out in every direction, wild and beautiful. The craggy foothills in the distance, and the Rockies beyond, breaking into the sky. Neat paddocks of horses and the huge red barn that sits near the ranch house where Dylan, Izzy, and Madison now live.
The house used to be Mama’s, and it’s where I grew up. But when Dylan turned Oakwood into a working ranch again last year, picking up Dad’s legacy to breed horses for the rodeo, Mama decided we were all living on top of each other.
The house belongs to the rancher and that’s Dylan now, she said last summer, before excitedly laying out her plans for three new houses by the lake, allowing us all to stay on the ranch, but giving us our own space, too. Mine sits in the middle, with Jake and Harper on one side and Mama on the other. We still spend most of our time in Mama’s kitchen eating her famous chili, or at the big house, in and out of each other’s lives like it’s always been.
So yeah, I know how lucky I am, aside from the fact I’ve gone from not putting up more than a poster in my college dorm to a whole apartment and house that needs furnishing. I’ve got the minimum, of course—bed, couch, TV. Serena’s been gently urging me for a while now to make both places more homely. I know I should, I just don’t know where to start. Even I can hear how lame my excuses sound. The truth is, I don’t really know what’s stopping me.
The bell above the door jingles, and I glance up, half dreading another crowd of female fans, but I smile as Harper breezes in, all polished hair with a phone in her hand.
“Hey, Jake said you were here,” she says, sliding in beside me. “I’m not stopping—just grabbing coffee on my way to interview Paul Vento.”
“The retired hockey star?” Serena asks as the waitress takes Harper’s order.
Harper nods. “He’s set up his own strand of yoga studios now. He’s trying to get pro athletes to incorporate yoga into their training.”
“Smart,” Serena says. “Yoga increases flexibility and balance, but it’s also proven to drop cortisol levels. Less stress means quicker muscle recovery times.”
“Of course you know that.” I chuckle.
Serena just smiles, unbothered. “You’d know it too if you read some books.”
“Anyway,” Harper continues as the waitress returns with a to-go cup. “Glad to see you’re in one piece, Chase. Jake told me about the mob.”
Serena frowns. “What mob?”
“The stupid Chasing Love hashtag,” I mutter, feeling the tension grab at my chest. “I said I didn’t think love was on my horizon, not that I couldn’t find it. Can’t you write something in Sports Magazine, Harper? Something to say I’m not interested.”
“Putting aside the fact we’re not a gossip magazine…” She shrugs. “It wouldn’t work. It’s an obsession now.”
Serena leans back with a dry laugh. “Hey, at least your exes don’t want anything to do with you. I’ve got Ryan sending me flowers and refusing to get the memo we’re over.”
My head jerks up. “What flowers?”
“He sent roses today,” Serena replies with a groan. “Along with an invite to the Hearts of Denver awards.”
Before I can reply, Harper’s eyes flick between us. “Let me get this straight—you’ve got an ex obsessed with winning you back,” she says to Serena before turning to me. “And you’ve got half of Denver wanting to marry you?”
The waitress arrives, sliding two plates of burgers and fries onto the table. The smell of melted cheese and crispy onion rings fills the booth, and it’s almost enough to distract me from the glint in Harper’s eyes. Almost.
I narrow mine at her. “Yes?”
“It’s just…” She plucks a fry from my plate, waving it between us like a wand. “You need a girlfriend to convince Denver’s single women you’re no longer available.” She turns that look on Serena. “And it sounds like you need a boyfriend to convince your douchebag ex you’ve moved on.”
I’m already shaking my head. “Pretty sure we went over this. I don’t want a girlfriend.”
Serena lifts her burger from her plate. “I second that. My love life is an actual dumpster fire. No way am I ready to get back out there right now,” she says before taking a bite.
“Exactly,” Harper replies.
I frown. “What am I missing?”
“You don’t actually need new partners,” Harper continues. “You just need it to look like you do.”
I glance at Serena. She’s looking as clueless as I feel. “Still not getting it,” I say.
“It’s actually kind of perfect,” Harper says, ignoring us both. “Because you already hang out together all the time. All you’d have to do is a bit of PDA and?—”
“Harper,” I cut in. “What are you talking about?”
She grabs her coffee and slides out of the booth. When she speaks, her words are slow, like she’s talking to preschoolers. “Convincing these fans that you’re off the market is the only way they’re gonna leave you alone.”
“I like the sound of that,” I reply.
“And Ryan was always super jealous of your friendship with Chase,” Harper adds, looking straight at Serena now. “He’ll back off fast if he thinks you’re together. No one messes with a man who has muscles like Chase.”
I flash her a smile, flexing my biceps and earning an eyeroll.
Across the table, Serena frowns. “What exactly are you saying?”
Harper looks between us. “You two should pretend to date each other.” And with that, she waves goodbye, disappearing out the door, leaving her words buzzing in the air like a live wire.
I turn it over in my head. It’s actually kind of perfect… I lift my eyebrows at Serena.
“You can’t be serious?” she says.
Except I am.
Serena is the coolest person I know. I see the way men look at her when we’re out; she’s the full package. She’s the sort of person I’d be lucky to date, but I wasn’t kidding about her vision board last night. It really is soul mates and family, and a home with a white picket fence. She wants a forever with someone, and I want that for her too. But I’ve always known I’m not the person who can give it to her.
There’s a reason Jen was the first relationship I’ve had in years. A reason I prefer to be single. A reason I never make it past a handful of dates before finding a reason to call it quits. When Jen said I wasn’t ready for love, I didn’t bother to argue. Because even though I don’t know what it is, or what to do about it, it felt like something was missing with us. Like something is always missing. And I’m pretty sure it’s something I’m missing.
People always assume that because I was abandoned by my mom, I’d be desperate to build the family I never had. But the truth is, every time I picture that life, I see my biological mom walking away. And the man she slept with on a one-night stand never showing up. And then Harry dying. Family doesn’t mean stability to me. It means heartbreak and destruction, and that’s not a cycle I ever want to repeat. It’s also a cycle I’m terrified I’d be doomed to repeat with the history I have… Which is why, however much I can see how incredible Serena is, I’ve never once thought of her as anything more than my best friend. And that makes Harper’s idea of fake dating Serena kind of genius. We don’t feel that way about each other. We’re best friends. Always have been, always will be.
So, this can’t get messy. It’s the safest plan in the world.