Chapter 14 Catherine #4
Kaiden shoves him. Not hard—the full-body shove of boys who love each other and express it through casual violence.
Iz stumbles, laughing. Kaiden grabs the back of his jersey and pulls him into a headlock.
Xander jogs over and joins the pile, wrapping his arms around both of them from behind.
Danny walks up, considers the situation, and pushes all three of them over.
Ryan watches from the goal crease, shaking his head, his expression saying “these are the people I chose to be friends with.”
Five boys on a lacrosse field, laughing and shoving each other like kids. Not the Elite Five with their reputation and sealed histories. Just boys. Seventeen. Playing a game.
Saoirse leans toward me. “He’s never done that. The kiss thing. I’ve been at every game since freshman year. He’s never once acknowledged the stands.”
“I think he’s showing off.”
“Absolutely showing off. And I love it.”
Penny snorts. “I need a bucket. For the embarrassment and the cuteness. Both require a bucket.”
The second half gets ugly.
Whitmore is down five and their frustration is bleeding through—sticks higher, checks harder, the physical escalation of a team that knows it’s lost and wants to inflict damage on the way out.
Late hits after whistles. Cross-checks to ribs that don’t get flagged.
Dirty play that refs miss and coaches pretend they don’t see.
Then it happens.
Iz has the ball. Carrying through midfield, head up, looking for the pass. A Whitmore defender—number 44, built like a refrigerator with the temperament to match—comes from Iz’s blind side. Full speed. Helmet down.
The hit is late. Clearly late. The ball left Iz’s stick two full seconds before the contact. But 44 drives through—shoulder into ribs, lifting Iz off his feet, slamming him into the turf with a violence that makes the entire stadium inhale.
Iz doesn’t get up immediately. Lies on the turf, hand on his ribs.
Kaiden is across the field in four strides. He doesn’t go to Iz. He goes to 44. Drops his stick. Grabs the kid’s jersey with both fists and gets in his face mask—close enough that the cages are touching.
Danny materializes on Kaiden’s right. Xander on his left. The three of them forming a wall between 44 and Iz, who is sitting up now, waving off the trainer with the stubbornness of an athlete who refuses to leave the field.
Ryan has left the crease and is standing at the edge of the circle, arms crossed over his chest protector, watching with the calm of a person who has already calculated exactly how this is going to play out and isn’t concerned.
The refs sort it. Three minutes on 44. One-minute releasable on Kaiden for unsportsmanlike.
He takes it without argument, sitting in the box with his elbows on his knees, staring at the Whitmore bench with an expression that promises the rest of this game will be very unpleasant for the visiting team.
Saoirse’s hand is on my arm. Her grip is tight.
“Is Iz okay?” I ask.
“He’s up. He’ll play through it.” She exhales. “But Kaiden’s going to make that boy regret his life choices.”
She’s right. When Kaiden comes out of the box, he plays the next fifteen minutes like a personal vendetta.
Two more goals—both his, both violent, shots that aren’t just accurate but angry.
The ball hitting the net with a ferocity that makes the goalie flinch after it’s past him.
Iz assists on both because of course he does, running through rib pain like it’s an inconvenience.
Xander adds another—a transition goal off a Danny takeaway, X carrying the full length of the field, outrunning everyone, finishing with a bounce shot that threads the five-hole. He points at the stands afterward. Penny’s ears go red. She stares very intently at her shoes.
Final score: Edgewood 8, Whitmore 1.
The Whitmore goal is garbage-time consolation that gets past Ryan on what he will later describe as “a temporary lapse in giving a shit.” The Edgewood players pile on each other at midfield—the brief, violent celebration of teenage boys who’ve won and don’t have the emotional vocabulary for nuance. Bodies and noise and stupid joy.
They separate. Gloves off, helmets off, water bottles and towels. Kaiden peels away from the group.
He goes to his parents first. Wraps Saoirse in a hug that lifts her off the bleacher step.
She laughs, smacking his shoulder—“Kaiden, you’re soaked!
”—but she’s beaming. He sets her down. Turns to Callum.
The real hug—hand on the back of the head, the pressure that says what fathers say without words.
“Hell of a game, kid.”
“Thanks, Pop. Coach said there were scouts in the press box.”
“I saw them. You gave them something to write about.”
Then he turns to me. Three seconds to cross the distance but it stretches—slow-motion, the air thickening. His eyes on mine. Jersey dark with sweat. Bruise forming on his forearm. The particular way he looks at me that switches off the rest of the stadium.
He reaches me. Both hands on my face—sweaty palms, calloused fingers, the grip of a boy who just spent two hours converting damage into a sport and won.
He kisses me. Not the possessive hallway thing.
Something with the weight of the morning in it—the fight, the bandages, the balcony, the breakfast, the sweatshirt.
All of it pressed into his mouth on mine, and I taste salt and grass and adrenaline.
I don’t care that four hundred people are watching because ninety minutes ago I was being told I was reckless and right now the boy who knows every scar on my body is holding my face like I’m the only thing he scored for.
He pulls back. Forehead against mine. “You wore it.”
“Obviously.”
“How do I look?”
“Like you just won a lacrosse game and you’re covered in sweat and there’s a bruise the size of a baseball on your arm.”
“Hot, right?”
“Disgusting, actually. You smell terrible.”
He grins. The real one. “Wait for me by my car? Twenty minutes. I need to shower and talk to coach.”
“You just scored four goals and the first thing on your mind is telling me to wait by your car.”
“ I have five priorities, Cat. My family. You. Lacrosse. My car. Everything else. In that order.”
I shove his chest. He catches my hand. Holds it against the sweat-soaked jersey for one beat. Then releases it and jogs toward the locker room, shoving Iz on the way past—who shoves him back, and they disappear through the doors still pushing each other like ten-year-olds.
Saoirse appears at my elbow. “We’re heading out. You’ll be at the party?”
“At Xander’s, yeah.”
She puts her hand on my arm. “Have fun tonight. You deserve it.” A pause. “And Catherine—call me if you need anything. Any time. I mean that.”
The offer sits in my chest like something warm. Saoirse Monaghan—who has her own scars and her own sealed past—offering to be the parent who answers at three a.m. Because she knows what it’s like to need that and not have it.
“Thank you,” I say. “For this morning. For everything.”
Callum nods. “Good night, Catherine. Remember—”
“Front door.”
He almost smiles. They walk to the parking lot—his arm around her waist, her head on his shoulder.
Twenty years married and still walking like it’s a first date.
I watch them go and think about the kind of parents who find their son’s girlfriend bleeding in their house at two a.m. and cook her breakfast instead of calling the police.
I want that. Someday. Whatever that is.
Penny and I lean against the Skyline. She hooks her arm through mine. “So Saoirse basically adopted you.”
“She made me pancakes, washed my bloody pajamas, and whispered something that almost broke me. So yes.”
“What did she whisper?”
“Next time the dark comes for you, you come here before you answer it alone. Shame grows best in silence, darling. Don’t feed it.”
Penny’s hand flies to her chest. “I love that woman.’
I nod as students stream past. The sweatshirt keeps collecting looks. A sophomore stares a beat too long. Penny catches him.
“Keep walking, little man. That’s MONAGHAN on her back. You know what happens to people who look too long at Monaghan’s girl.”
The kid practically sprints. I laugh.
The locker room doors open. Players filter out—damp hair, clean clothes, post-game looseness. Iz first, moving carefully with one hand hovering near his ribs. Danny beside him, carrying both their bags because Danny notices things other people don’t and acts on them without being asked.
Xander next. Bag over his shoulder. His eyes scan the lot—fast, automatic—and find Penny before finding anything else. He holds for one second. Looks away.
Penny’s arm tightens through mine. She says nothing.
Ryan comes out on his phone, already deep in something—probably the post-game stats, probably cross-referencing them against the scouts’ known preferences, because Ryan Harrington does not turn off.
Then Kaiden. Last out. Showered. Dark jeans.
A black long-sleeve pushed to his elbows, the tattoos on his forearms visible, the bruise from the uncalled check already darkening.
His bag over one shoulder, hair still damp.
He walks across the lot and the world bends toward him the way it always does.
He reaches the car. Drops his bag. Looks at me. At the sweatshirt. At Penny.
“MacHale. Keeping her warm?”
“Somebody has to. You took forever in there. What were you doing, exfoliating?”
“I don’t exfoliate.”
“Your skin says otherwise. That’s a skincare routine, Monaghan. Admit it.”
Kaiden ignores her. Turns to me. His hand finds my waist and pulls me off the car and into him, his other hand sliding into the hood of the sweatshirt, cupping the back of my neck.
His forehead drops to mine. Close. The proximity still doing the thing it does to me—heart rate spiking, skin warming, the particular chemical response my body has to his nearness that I still don’t fully understand and have stopped trying to.