21. Colton
TWENTY-ONE
COLTON
Micah jogs ahead of me.
He hasn’t looked back once.
Not since Coach barked at us to hit the track like we were back in high school—punishment by cardio. I guess it’s fair. I threw the first verbal punch. He threw the first real one. And now we’re both bleeding for it.
I flex my shoulder, wincing when it cracks under my fingers. It’s already blooming into a bruise—I can feel the swelling along the bone. But it’s not what hurts the most.
That spot in my chest where my heart used to be? Yeah. That’s still wreckage. And jogging behind the guy I lit a match under two years ago—again—just keeps stoking the fire.
Coach blows the whistle as we finish our fourth lap and growls, “Taylor. Blackman. With me. Now.”
Micah doesn’t slow, doesn’t flinch. Just veers toward the sideline like he can’t wait to get this over with. I follow, because what the hell else am I supposed to do ?
Coach waits until we’re both standing there, panting and tense.
His glare could melt steel.
“I don’t care what the hell is going on between you two,” he snaps.
“I don’t care if it’s personal, romantic, or a goddamn blood feud passed down through generations.
What I do care about is the fact that you embarrassed me, this team, and yourselves in front of a dozen staff and the strength coach who already thinks I run a daycare instead of a program. ”
Micah scoffs under his breath.
Wrong move.
Coach turns on him, fast and brutal.
“You think this is funny, Blackman?” he barks. “You think blowing up at a teammate during practice—after I went to bat to get your ass back here—is a joke? You’re talented, but talent’s nothing if you can’t function with the team.”
Micah’s jaw ticks. He looks away, but not down. Never down.
Coach spins to me next.
“And you,” he says, low and venomous. “You’re supposed to be my golden boy. The one who shows up early, sets the standard, and leads by example. Not the one throwing punches with your mouth and letting personal bullshit drag this team through the mud.”
I swallow hard.
“Starting today,” he continues, “you two are partnered. Every drill. Every rep. Every damn exercise. Until you learn to coexist without turning this into a soap opera.”
Micah turns, incredulous. “You’re kidding. ”
“I’m not,” Coach says flatly. “I’m so far past kidding, I’m two states over from funny.”
Micah shakes his head and mutters, “This is insane.”
“You’re free to walk,” Coach says, it’s a dare he knows neither one of us will take up. “But you walk now, you don’t play Saturday. Hell, maybe not for the rest of the season.”
Micah flinches as if that one lands deep.
Then Coach looks between us. “Get cleaned up. Get out of my sight. Before I change my mind and bench both of you for the away game.”
Neither of us moves for a second. Then Micah turns on his heel and stalks toward the locker room as though he’s about to burn it to the ground.
I stay frozen, eyes still on Coach.
He just shakes his head. “Fix this, Taylor. Or you’re gonna lose more than your spot on the roster.”
Then he walks away.
And I finally let out the breath I’ve been holding since Micah swung at me. Because I don’t care about the away game.
I care about the fact that I might’ve just lost the only person I’ve ever actually wanted.
The second we’re inside, the silence is worse than Coach’s yelling.
Lockers slam open. Towels hit benches. The others keep their distance, eyes flicking between us like they’re waiting for round two. No one says anything, but the air is thick—hot with tension and sweat and everything we didn’t say out there .
Micah rips his shirt over his head, still clearly angry at me.
And I try not to look.
I do.
I fail.
Because how the hell am I supposed to not look?
His skin glows under the harsh locker room lights, sweat-slicked and golden, as though he’s the golden boy. My eyes trace the hard lines of his chest, the smooth slope of his shoulders, the faint trail of freckles across his collarbone that I never used to let myself notice.
But I notice now.
I drink every inch of him in as if I’ve been starving for him—which, let’s be honest, I have.
His abs tighten as he throws the shirt and pads onto the bench, muscles flexing with leftover adrenaline, anger, and too much emotion stuffed into not enough skin.
There’s a dark line of ink wrapping his ribs, something new since the last time I looked at him like this.
A tattoo—just a few black-ink words I can’t quite read from here.
But I want to.
God, I want to.
I want to press my fingers to it, follow it with my mouth, trace the meaning out of every curve and stroke.
My throat goes dry. My heart kicks up and feels as though I’ve been sprinting.
And when he spins around, still seething, I barely catch myself before I flinch—not because I’m afraid of him, but because I’m afraid of what I’ll say if I let this tension slip between us like it used to.
He glares at me, breathing hard, chest rising and falling with h ow pissed he is, on the verge of either murder or something worse.
“You get off on this or something?” he finally spits, slamming his locker shut hard enough to rattle the hinges. “Humiliating me? Messing with my head? You couldn’t just leave me the hell alone?”
“I didn’t mean?—”
“No,” he snaps, stepping toward me. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to play the ‘I didn’t mean to’ card when you did this. You kissed me. You messaged me. You strung me along—again. Fuck, Colton, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
“You were messaging back,” I bite out, heat rising in my chest. “Don’t act as though I was the only one who felt something.”
He shoves me.
Hard.
I stumble into the lockers with a loud metallic clang.
The room goes deathly still.
I push off the metal, chest heaving. But I’m not fighting back. He’s mad, but he’ll calm down. Right? “You done?”
“Not even close,” he growls.
I step into him this time.
We’re chest to chest, breath to breath, rage and something darker knotting up in the few inches between us.
“You want to hit me again?” I ask, my voice low and tight. “Go ahead. But maybe be honest about why this time.”
His eyes flash. “Fuck you.”
“God, I wish you would,” I snap.
His breath hitches. Just a little.
Then he surges forward—not with a punch, but almost a kiss. Almost . Our mouths hover a breath apart, both of us frozen seconds from each other, waiting for the other to jump or pull away.
He doesn’t.
I don’t.
It’s the most electric, dangerous standoff of my life.
Then he blinks and jerks back like he’s been burned, and quickly shoves his stuff into his bag before slinging it onto his shoulder.
“Don’t follow me,” he mutters, voice raw.
“Micah—”
But he’s already gone, storming out of the locker room. The door slams behind him. And just like that, he’s gone again.
The silence that follows is deafening.
Not just in my ears, but in my chest, in my bones, in the way the air presses in around me the same way judgment would.
I turn slowly, dread twisting in my gut.
They're all staring.
Not all of them—some have suddenly found something very interesting in their shoelaces, or the ceiling tiles, or the inside of their lockers. But the rest?
Yeah. They saw it.
They heard it.
There’s no pretending now. No "he’s just my friend." No "it was a misunderstanding." No brushing it under the rug like I did two years ago. But I don’t want to.
Whatever version of me they believed in. That spotless, untouchable Colton Taylor who nailed every rep, every test, every press photo and handshake and expectation, they're watching him crack open and bleed all over the tile floor .
And some of them look as if they knew . Maybe they always did.
But the ones who were there back then?
They look different now. Not shocked. Just...cold. Disappointed. Angry.
They remember how Micah disappeared. How I never explained. Never even let them ask me about it. Allowed them to believe the rumors.
Caleb meets my eyes for a second before looking away. It shouldn’t hurt. But it does.
Then Luke steps forward. Still shirtless, still damp from practice, eyeliner smudged under his eyes like war paint. His arms are crossed tight over his chest, and his gaze pins me in place.
“You know,” he says, voice steady but not sharp, “I don’t get you. Micah…he’s out here owning who he is. And you’re—” He gestures at me, frustration flickering in his eyes. “You’re hiding. You’re playing with him in the dark as though it doesn’t cost anything.”
My jaw clenches. He’s not wrong.
Before I can respond, Caleb steps in between us, palm lightly touching Luke’s shoulder. “Luke. Enough.”
Luke blinks at him. “He needs to hear it?—”
“He is hearing it,” Caleb says firmly. “And piling on isn’t gonna help.”
The locker room goes quiet again, the hum of the fluorescent lights loud in the silence.
Luke exhales, the tension in his shoulders loosening just a fraction. “I just… Micah doesn’t deserve to be someone’s secret. Not again. He’s my friend. And I’m not gonna watch him get hurt by the same person twice.”
I swallow hard, shame coiling low in my chest. I want to say I didn’t mean to, that I never wanted this to happen like this—but my throat won’t work.
And then he’s gone, following the same path Micah took, leaving me standing in the middle of the locker room with a million pounds of shame and no place to put it. The silence closes in again.
No one meets my eyes.
And for the first time in a long time, I feel like I don’t belong here.