Chapter 18
Ezra
My suit was rumpled, my tie was stuffed in my pocket, and I smelled like champagne and exhaustion.
I hadn't slept in forty-eight hours. I had just walked away from the biggest achievement of my career, ignored twenty calls from my father, and effectively set fire to my reputation as the disciplined, reliable Captain of the Blackwood Kodiaks.
I had never felt more alive.
I grabbed a cab outside the terminal.
“East Village,” I told the driver. “And if you can get there in under forty minutes, I’ll double the fare.”
The driver, a guy with a thick Brooklyn accent and tired eyes, looked at me in the rearview mirror.
“Girl trouble?”
“Yeah,” I said, looking out at the blurring lights of the Van Wyck Expressway. “Girl catastrophe.”
I had the address Leo had texted me weeks ago—the one I had memorized but sworn never to use. It was a walk-up on 7th Street.
We hit traffic. Of course we did. New York didn't care about my epiphany. New York didn't care that I was racing to save my soul.
I checked my phone.
Fifty missed calls now. Thirty from my father. Ten from Ramsey. Five from my agent.
And one text from Miller.
From: Miller
To: Ezra
Time: 04:12 AM
Dude. The internet is exploding. Did you seriously just bail on the championship presser? Twitter says you had a breakdown. Dad is reportedly threatening to sue the NCAA. Where are you?
I typed back a single line:
Fixing it.
I turned off the phone.
The cab crawled. I drummed my fingers on my knee. My heart was a frantic bird in my chest.
What if she wasn't there? What if she had moved? What if she had found someone else—some artsy guy who wore scarves unironically and didn't have a father who treated people like assets?
The thought made bile rise in my throat.
“Here,” the driver said, pulling up to a curb lined with trash bags. “This is the block.”
I threw a wad of cash at him—way more than double—and scrambled out.
The building was old brick, covered in graffiti. The fire escape zigzagged down the front like a metal scar.
I ran to the door. Locked. No buzzer system, just a row of unlabeled buttons.
“Dammit.”
I looked up at the fire escape. Leo had said she was on the fourth floor.
I didn't think. I grabbed the bottom rung of the ladder, which was hanging just low enough for me to reach if I jumped.
I jumped. My fingers closed around the cold metal. I hauled myself up, swinging my legs over the railing. My bad knee screamed in protest, a sharp, blinding agony, but I ignored it.
I climbed.
First floor. Second floor. Third floor.
I reached the fourth floor. The window was dark, but the curtains were open.
I peered inside.
It was a tiny room. A bed. A desk. Clothes scattered everywhere.
And there, sitting on the bed, staring at the door as if she was waiting for an executioner, was Amara.
She was wearing my jersey.
The sight of that number—19—on her chest broke me open.
I tapped on the glass.
She jumped a foot in the air. She spun around, eyes wide with terror.
When she saw me—hanging off her fire escape like a deranged Romeo in a wrinkled suit—her mouth fell open.
She walked to the window. She unlocked it. She slid it up.
“Ezra?” she whispered. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I couldn't wait for the buzzer,” I panted, climbing over the sill and collapsing onto her floor.
I stood up, brushing the soot off my knees.
The room was small. Intimate. It smelled like her—vanilla and paint thinner.
Amara stood by the bed, clutching the hem of the jersey. She looked tired. Thinner. Her hair was pulled back in a messy bun, and her eyes were rimmed with red.
“You’re supposed to be in Boston,” she said. “You won. I saw the news.”
“I left,” I said.
“You left? The celebration?”
“I left the team,” I corrected. “I quit.”
She stared at me. “You… you quit? Hockey?”
“I quit the NCAA. I quit being the Captain. I quit being my father’s asset.”
I took a step toward her.
“Amara, I—”
“Stop,” she said. She held up a hand. Her voice was shaking, but it was firm. “Don’t come any closer.”
I froze.
“Why are you here, Ezra?” she asked. “Did you come to tell me I was right? Did you come to gloat? Or did you come to… to buy me off again?”
“I came to beg,” I said.
She laughed. It was a harsh, brittle sound.
“Beg? The Iceman doesn't beg. He negotiates. So what’s the offer? Is there a new contract? An NDA for my heartbreak?”
Her words were daggers, and I deserved every single one.
“There is no contract,” I said. “There is no offer. There’s just me. And I’m… I’m a mess without you, Amara.”
“You looked fine on TV,” she said bitterly. “You looked like a champion.”
“I looked empty,” I said. “I felt empty.
I held that trophy, and it felt like ice.
I looked into the stands for you, and when you weren't there…
I realized I didn't care. I didn't care about the win.
I didn't care about the draft. I would have traded it all—every goal, every dollar—just to have you sitting there, rolling your eyes at my helmet hair.”
I took another step.
“I lied to you,” I said. “In the bedroom. When I said I never loved you… that was the biggest lie I’ve ever told. I loved you so much it terrified me. I loved you so much I thought I had to destroy us to save you.”
“Save me?” she scoffed. Tears were starting to spill down her cheeks. “You didn't save me, Ezra! You broke me! You made me believe I was nothing but a distraction! You sent me away like… like I was a debit on your precious ledger!”
“I know,” I whispered. “I was a coward. I was trying to protect you from my father. From the NCAA. I thought if I pushed you away, you’d be safe. I thought I could handle the misery if I knew you were okay.”
“I wasn't okay!” she shouted. “I’ve been sitting in this apartment for three weeks staring at a wall! I can’t draw! I can’t eat! I’m a ghost, Ezra! Is that what you call safe?”
She grabbed a sketchbook from the bed and threw it at me. It hit my chest and fell to the floor, open. The pages were blank.
“Look at it!” she screamed. “That’s what you did! You took my art! You took my voice!”
I looked at the empty pages. The guilt was a physical weight, crushing my lungs.
“I’m sorry,” I said. My voice broke. “I am so, so sorry.”
I dropped to my knees.
I didn't care about the suit. I didn't care about my dignity.
I knelt on her floor, surrounded by the wreckage of her creativity.
“Amara, please,” I choked out. “I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know how to fix me. I’ve spent my whole life trying to be perfect, trying to be in the black. But without you… I’m bankrupt. I’m nothing.”
I looked up at her.
“You were right. I am my father’s son. I tried to control you. I tried to manage our love like a business deal. But I don’t want to be him anymore. I want to be the guy who wants a dog. I want to be the guy who lives in a loft with you and argues about cobblestones.”
Tears were streaming down my face now. I didn't wipe them away.
“I’m asking you to save me,” I whispered.
“Again. I’m asking you to take a risk on a broken asset.
I can’t promise I won’t mess up. I can’t promise my father won’t try to hurt us.
But I promise… I promise I will never choose the ledger over you again.
I will burn the ledger. I will burn the whole damn world if you ask me to. ”
Amara stood there, her chest heaving. She looked at me—kneeling, weeping, broken.
She looked at the jersey she was wearing.
She looked at the window where I had climbed in.
The silence stretched. It was agonizing.
Then, she took a step.
And another.
She stood in front of me. She reached out and touched my hair. Her fingers were trembling.
“You climbed four stories,” she whispered. “On a bad knee.”
“I’d climb a hundred,” I said.
“You quit the team.”
“Yes.”
“Your dad is going to kill you.”
“Let him try.”
She sniffled. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
“You look terrible,” she said. “Your suit is ruined. You smell like an airplane.”
“I know.”
She dropped to her knees in front of me.
“You idiot,” she sobbed. “You absolute, catastrophic idiot.”
She threw her arms around my neck.
The impact almost knocked me over. I wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her so close I couldn't tell where I ended and she began. I buried my face in her neck, breathing her in—vanilla and tears and home.
“I hate you,” she whispered into my ear. “I hate you so much.”
“I know,” I gasped. “I love you.”
“Don’t you ever leave me again,” she cried, gripping my hair. “Don’t you ever try to ‘save’ me by leaving me. If we go down, we go down together. You hear me?”
“Together,” I promised. “Always together.”
We kissed.
It was salty and messy and desperate. It was a collision of grief and relief. We kissed like we were trying to breathe life back into each other.
She pushed me back onto the floor. She straddled me, her hands fumbling with my tie, my shirt.
“Show me,” she demanded. “Show me you’re real. Show me you’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” I groaned, my hands sliding under the jersey to find her skin. “I’m entirely yours.”
We made love on the floor of her tiny apartment, with the city sounds drifting in through the open window. It wasn't gentle. It was a reclaiming. It was a desperate assertion of existence.
We moved together with a frantic rhythm, trying to erase the last three weeks, trying to fill the void that had almost swallowed us both.
“Ezra,” she screamed my name as she fell apart.
I held her through the tremors, whispering promises against her skin.
“I’ve got you. I’m here. I’m never leaving.”
Afterward, we lay tangled in the jersey and my ruined suit jacket.
Amara rested her head on my chest. Her breathing was slowing down.
“So,” she said, her voice raspy. “You quit.”
“Yeah.”
“What does that mean? For the draft?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “My agent is probably having a stroke. The teams might back off. They don’t like quitters.”
“They’ll come back,” she said confidently. “You’re the best center in the league. They’ll see this… grand romantic gesture… as a sign of passion. Or insanity. Either way, it’s good for TV.”
I chuckled. “You think?”
“I know. I’m a PR genius, remember? I managed the narrative.”
She propped herself up on her elbow, looking down at me.
“But Ezra… what about your dad? The money? The tuition?”
“I have my trust,” I said. “He can’t touch that. It unlocks when I turn twenty-three. Which is in two months. Until then… I have savings. We’ll be fine.”
“And the tuition?”
“Paid,” I said. “It was a loan, remember? I’m forgiving the loan. Consider it a scholarship from the Ezra Sterling Foundation for Brilliant Girls.”
She smiled. A real smile. It lit up the room.
“I like the sound of that foundation.”
She kissed me softly.
“Welcome to New York, Ezra.”
“Thanks,” I said. “It’s loud. And dirty. And perfect.”
Suddenly, there was a pounding on the door.
“Amara! Open up! It’s the police!”
We both froze.
“Leo?” Amara whispered.
“That’s not the police,” I said. “That’s your brother.”
“Amara!” Leo shouted. “I know he’s in there! I saw the news! A cab driver tweeted that he dropped Ezra Sterling off at this address! If he’s hurting you, I swear to god I’ll break the door down!”
Amara looked at me. Then she started laughing.
She buried her face in my chest, shaking with laughter.
“He’s tracking cab tweets,” she giggled. “He’s insane.”
“He loves you,” I said. “We should probably let him in before he gets arrested for breaking and entering.”
Amara sat up. She pulled the jersey down. She ran a hand through her hair.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s face the music.”
She stood up and walked to the door. She unlocked it.
Leo burst in. He looked wild. He was wearing a Blackwood hoodie and holding a baseball bat.
“Where is he?” Leo shouted.
He saw me. Lying on the floor, shirt unbuttoned, hair a mess, grinning like an idiot.
Leo lowered the bat.
“You have got to be kidding me,” he said.
“Hi, Leo,” I said.
“You climbed the fire escape,” Leo accused.
“Yeah.”
“You quit the team.”
“Yeah.”
Leo looked at Amara. She was glowing. She looked like she had just been plugged back into a power source.
Leo sighed. He dropped the bat. He rubbed his face.
“You two are a disaster,” he said. “A complete, train-wreck disaster.”
“We know,” Amara said, walking over to hug him. “But we’re a happy disaster.”
Leo hugged her back, tight. He looked over her shoulder at me.
His eyes were still wary. But the hatred was gone.
“If you hurt her again, Sterling,” Leo said, “I won’t call the NCAA. I’ll just kill you.”
“Fair,” I said. I stood up, wincing as my knee reminded me of the climb. “But you won’t have to. I’m done hurting her.”
I walked over to them. I put my hand on Amara’s back.
“We’re a team,” I said. “The three of us. Or… the two of us, and the annoying goalie who lives on our couch.”
Leo snorted. “Don’t push it, rich boy.”
But he didn't pull away.
We stood there in the tiny apartment, the sun starting to rise over the city.
The future was uncertain. My career was a question mark. My father was undoubtedly plotting his revenge.
But for the first time, I didn't care about the ledger.
I had the girl. I had the brother (sort of). And I had New York.
I was in the black. And this time, I was staying there.