Chapter 18
I wake up like I’ve been dragged out of a pool—heavy, disoriented, my mouth dry, my head thick, my body sluggish with exhaustion that never turned into rest. The room is dim, curtains half drawn, and for a few seconds, I lie still and pretend I don’t remember last night.
Then my eye throbs. A deep, pulsing ache that makes the whole side of my face feel tight. I blink slowly, and the world swims. When I try to rub my eyes, my fingers graze swollen skin, and I hiss under my breath.
Right.
That.
I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling, listening to the hum of the hotel air conditioner. The quiet is too loud. Every sound feels amplified because my brain has been awake for hours, even when my body wasn’t.
I didn’t sleep. Not really. I drifted in and out of half-consciousness, trapped between memories and dread, counting minutes like they were possessions I could hoard and spend later.
I called Rafe.
Once. Then again. Then again, because I’m an idiot and thought maybe if I tried one more time, it would undo the last conversation. As if the right number of ringing tones could rewind time to before Kirk’s mouth, before my fist, before Rafe’s eyes went cold.
No answer.
No text.
Nothing.
My phone sits on the nightstand now, face up, accusing. I reach for it with a shaky hand and check it anyway, because apparently I like suffering. There are no new messages and no missed calls.
The time glows at the top of the screen: 8:14 a.m.
This morning, I was meant to be meeting his parents. My stomach twists so hard I have to breathe through it. Rafe said he’d tell them in person yesterday after the game before returning to the city this morning to collect me.
What if he’s standing in his childhood home right now, still trying to explain his secret marriage to parents who love him, and I’m here in a hotel bed with a bruised eye and shame soaking through me like sweat?
What if he regrets me?
The thought lands so hard it steals my breath. I sit up slowly, pushing myself upright with stiff arms. The room tilts slightly, my head pounding. I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and plant my feet on the carpet.
My duffel bag is half packed from last night, because I tried to do something useful with my hands while my brain tore itself apart. My hoodie is tossed over the chair. My cap is on the dresser.
I catch sight of myself in the mirror and flinch.
My eye’s a mess. It’s not swollen shut, but puffy and bruised, purple blooming under the lower lid and spreading outward.
The cut at the edge is clean now, but the skin around it is angry and swollen.
I look like someone who belongs on a highlight reel for the wrong reasons.
I look like a problem.
My ribs feel tight. I’m supposed to represent a franchise. I’m supposed to be controlled, composed, marketable. I’m supposed to be the guy who absorbs pressure and turns it into performance.
Instead, I’m the guy who punched a teammate. I’m also the guy who pushed his husband away and then blamed him for the weight of my own fear.
I shove my hands through my hair and stand, pacing a short line between the bed and the window like movement might shake answers loose.
It isn’t too late. That thought keeps trying to take root.
It’s morning. I could still fix this. I could still go. I could still meet them. Even with the bruised eye, even with the shame. I could show up anyway and prove that I’m not running.
Except I don’t know where to go. Except Rafe won’t answer.
I stop pacing and grip the edge of the desk, knuckles whitening. My chest feels tight again, the familiar precursor to panic humming under my skin.
No.
Not now.
Not again.
I force myself to breathe slowly. In through my nose, out through my mouth. Count it. Control it.
A knock sounds at the door. My heart leaps so violently it hurts.
For one bright, stupid second, hope flares in my chest like a match. Rafe. Maybe he’s cooled off. Maybe he slept. Maybe he woke up and realized he doesn’t want today to be like this. Maybe—
I move fast, crossing the room and yanking the door open without checking the peephole.
The hope dies instantly. Marco stands in the hallway, dressed in travel clothes, duffel slung over one shoulder. His expression shifts the moment he sees my face. “Jesus,” he says quietly.
I swallow hard. “Yeah.”
He winces. “That’s… not subtle.”
“No,” I agree, voice flat.
Marco doesn’t wait for an invitation. He steps inside, turning sideways to clear the doorway, then pushes the door shut behind him like he’s claiming the space. Normally I would argue. Normally I would tell him to get out, that I’m fine, that I don’t need babysitting.
I don’t have the energy.
Marco drops his bag near the chair and looks around the room like he’s cataloging the damage. The half-packed duffel. The untouched room service tray on the counter. The wrinkled sheets.
He looks back at me. His gaze is sharp. “You sleep?” he asks.
“A little,” I lie.
Marco’s mouth tightens. “Bullshit.”
I don’t respond.
He sighs through his nose and runs a hand over his hair. “Okay. We’re going to talk.”
My gut twists. “Marco—”
“No,” he cuts in, calm but firm. “You don’t get to dodge this.”
I lean back against the wall near the door, arms crossing over my chest like armor. “What do you want me to say?”
Marco watches me for a beat, then chooses his words carefully. “I want to know where your head was at last night.”
I stare at him. The answer is complicated. It’s also humiliating as hell.
The answer is: I was drowning and someone handed me a match, and I lit the whole room on fire.
“I don’t know,” I say quietly.
His eyes narrow slightly. “You do.”
I exhale slowly. “He said some shit.”
“Yeah,” Marco says. “I was there.”
My jaw tightens. “And I shouldn’t have hit him.”
Marco studies me. “But you did.”
“Yes.”
“Because you’re not the kind of guy who throws fists over nothing,” he says.
My throat closes, and Marco steps closer, lowering his voice. “Kirk said something specific, didn’t he? Something that hit a nerve?”
I don’t answer, and the silence stretches.
Marco watches me carefully, then glances toward the nightstand where my phone sits. “And now you’re a mess,” he says softly, “which tells me this isn’t just about basketball.”
My pulse spikes. I keep my expression blank with effort. “It’s about basketball.”
His eyebrows lift slightly. “Uh-huh.”
He doesn’t believe me. I can see it in the way his eyes sharpen, in the way he takes a breath like he’s steadying himself. “Ollie… I’m not stupid.”
My heart pounds, slow and heavy.
Marco’s voice drops. “If something’s going on—if there’s a reason you reacted the way you did—if you’re carrying something you think you have to carry alone…” He holds my gaze. “I’ve got your back.”
The kindness in it is unbearable. It scrapes against something raw inside me.
I should tell him. I should say it. Just once. Out loud. To someone who isn’t Rafe. To someone who might actually understand without it becoming headlines.
Instead, the fear wins. My shoulders tense, and I shake my head. “There’s nothing.” The lie tastes like blood.
Marco’s face falls slightly. His disappointment is front and center. He nods once, slow. “Okay.”
But he doesn’t look convinced. He looks… hurt. He looks like someone who just offered a hand and got it slapped away.
Marco exhales sharply and shifts topics like he’s choosing not to push the knife deeper. “Someone leaked it.”
My stomach drops. “What?”
“The fight,” he says. “It’s already on social media. Not the whole thing. Not full context. But it’s out.”
Cold dread washes through me.
“I thought—” I start.
“Doesn’t matter what you thought,” Marco says. “Someone talked. Details aren’t even accurate, but that doesn’t stop it.”
My head pounds. “What are they saying?”
He grimaces. “That you swung first. That you’ve got anger issues. That Kirk said something, and you lost it. There’s no mention of who or what he was talking about.”
My stomach churns violently despite the relief that Rafe’s name hasn’t been mentioned.
Marco continues, “PR is going to want to talk to you.”
I swallow hard. “Coach already said—”
Marco nods. “Yeah. Lie low. Keep quiet. But quiet doesn’t stop the machine once it starts moving.”
My phone vibrates on the nightstand, the sound loud in the small room. My heart leaps again, wild and desperate. Maybe it’s Rafe. Maybe—
I push off the wall and grab it so fast my fingers fumble. The screen lights up with an incoming call. My breath catches.
Marco watches me, expression unreadable.
I stare at the name, my pulse hammering, hope and dread colliding in my chest. And I answer before I can talk myself out of it. I keep my eyes closed for a beat longer than I should, phone pressed to my ear, Eric’s “What the hell happened, kid?” hanging in the air like a weight.
I can give him context without giving him the truth, I tell myself. I can talk around it like I always do. That’s what I’m good at. That’s what I’ve trained myself to do.
I open my eyes and see Marco watching me, reading the disappointment on my face like it’s printed there. He doesn’t say anything, but his expression shifts, subtle and sad, because he knows who I wanted on the other end of this call.
I swallow hard and force my voice steady. “It was my fault,” I say to my agent. “I lost control. I shouldn’t have.”
Eric exhales through his nose. “Okay. But what triggered it? Because I’m going to be blunt, Oliver: ‘I lost control’ reads like anger issues, and you don’t have those. Not publicly. Not historically.”
I rub my free hand over my forehead. My skin feels too tight. “Trash talk,” I say, vague and careful. “It got… heated.”
A pause. I can hear Eric’s suspicion through the silence.
“Kirk,” he says.
It isn’t a question.
My stomach drops. “Yeah.”