Chapter 54
fifty-four
. . .
CONNOR
My phone is in my hand when Rory walks toward me.
I’m not even doing anything on it—just holding it like an anchor while the adrenaline drains out of my bloodstream and leaves behind that shaky, too-aware feeling. The deck is still loud somewhere else. Teammates are still riding the high. Coaches are still talking splits.
My heart is still tripping over itself for reasons that have nothing to do with the scoreboard.
Because I can still feel the weight of Whitney’s attention like a hand at the back of my neck.
And because Rory is coming straight at me with the kind of calm that means he’s made a decision.
He stops in front of me, and I straighten automatically.
“We need to talk.”
The words hit like a starting beep—sharp, unavoidable.
I lock my phone and set it on the low table between us. Like if it’s out of my hand, I’ll be less tempted to grab it and bolt.
“Yeah,” I say. “We do.”
Rory doesn’t sit. He doesn’t soften. He just looks at me with that steady, unflinching focus like he’s about to do the hard thing and he refuses to blink first.
“Let’s not waste time pretending this is something it’s not,” he says. “You know you screwed up. Taking that deal behind my back didn’t just mess with a contract, it blew up everything we had. Trust. Respect. All of it.”
My stomach tightens, but I don’t argue. I don’t try to out-talk him.
I’ve done enough damage with silence and with excuses.
“And what came after?” Rory’s gaze doesn’t move. “You didn’t even try to make it right. No apology. Just years of silence…and then contempt, like I was the one who betrayed you.”
My jaw locks.
“I know I messed up,” I say. The words scrape out of me, rougher than I want. “But I never meant to betray your trust. I was desperate. I needed the money for my mom’s treatment.”
The shift in Rory is small, but it’s there—anger cooling into something heavier. Something that lands in my chest like a weight.
“Shit,” he mutters. “I didn’t know.”
“No,” I say, and swallow around the tightness. “You didn’t. And you should’ve, because I should’ve told you.”
Rory’s eyes flick down for a beat like he’s replaying it, like he’s searching for where he could’ve seen it if he’d been looking.
“I wanted to,” I say. “But my agent said if I did, the deal would be dead. I was na?ve. I didn’t see the whole thing was a setup to start a narrative of a rivalry I didn’t want. I didn’t see it for what it was until it was too late.”
It’s the truth, and I’ve hated it for years—how easy it was for someone to take my fear and turn it into a headline.
Rory goes quiet, and it guts me that it guts him.
“When I finally got out of the contract,” I add, “I cleaned house. New agent. New coach. And after years of training alone…I knew I needed a team again.”
That’s why I came here.
For a team, a fresh start, and a chance to be something other than the villain in his version of the story. To belong again.
Rory studies me like he’s trying to decide if I’m real or if I’m just another version of the guy who disappeared.
“I thought if I showed up, apologized, and worked my ass off, we could move on,” I admit. “But you looked at me like I’d broken something that couldn’t be fixed.”
“I did feel that way,” Rory says immediately. Honest, because he can’t help himself. “It felt like another ambush. Like you were trying to stir shit up again.”
“That wasn’t my intention.” My voice drops. “But I was hurt, too, man. I know I was the one who broke it, but when you cut me off like that…it felt like I didn’t matter. Like all those years meant nothing.”
Rory swallows hard. His expression shifts like he’s forcing himself to look at the parts of this that aren’t just anger.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “For not being there when you needed me most.”
The apology lands harder than any insult could.
Because it means he’s admitting there was a time I needed him. That he sees it now.
“Thanks,” I manage. “I’m sorry, too. And I want to fix this. If we can.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Me, too.”
Hope flares—dangerous, bright, stupid.
“So we’re good?” I ask, hating how much I need the answer.
“We’re on our way.” He pauses. “But trust isn’t something I just hand out. You’ve got to earn it back.”
“That’s fair,” I say immediately. “I will.”
I mean it. I’ll earn it one day at a time if that’s what it takes.
Rory shifts like he’s ready to leave, and my chest loosens for the first time in weeks.
And then he stops.
“One thing, though.”
Rory looks up from my phone on the table and meets my eyes.
“Whitney,” he says. “She’s off-limits.”
Something hot and furious twists through me so fast I have to lock my jaw to keep it off my face.
My first instinct is to tell him no, out loud, before I can swallow it back.
“Rory, it’s not—” I start, because it is something but telling him would blow this wide open, and Whitney and I decided together we weren’t doing that yet.
“You don’t have to explain,” he cuts in, calm but firm. “I saw the hug. And maybe it was just that. But if it’s more, or you’re thinking it might be…don’t go there.”
My chest tightens like someone wrapped a hand around my ribs.
Off-limits.
Like she’s a line on a pool deck. Like she’s a problem to avoid. Like she’s something that belongs inside his warning instead of outside it.
And my first instinct—hot and immediate—is to push back.
Because Whitney isn’t some impulsive distraction. She’s not collateral damage. She’s not a thing to be warned about.
She’s Whitney.
And I want—god, I want—to say it out loud.
Not because I’m trying to start a war with Rory.
Because I’m tired of acting like what’s between us only exists in private.
But Whitney and I already made the decision to keep this between us for now. We agreed on that together. And if I say something here, in this moment, without talking to her first, I’m not defending us.
I’m making that choice for both of us.
I’m dragging her name into a conversation between two men when we already decided this stays ours until we’re ready.
Rory’s voice drops, quieter. “I believe you want to be better. But if you’re serious, then make sure the next thing you go after isn’t something that could burn everything down again.”
My throat tightens.
Because I’m serious.
And because she does feel like fire—bright and real and risky in exactly the way that makes you want to be brave.
I nod slowly, forcing control into my face.
“Got it,” I say.
It feels like swallowing something sharp.
Rory nods back like that settles it.
Then, like he can’t help ending on neutral ground, he adds, “You did good today.”
A faint smile pulls at my mouth, automatic and tired all at once. “Thanks.”
He heads out, and my brain immediately starts chewing on everything I didn’t say.
I immediately regret not saying something about Whitney and me. I don’t want to hide, and I sure as hell don’t want Rory deciding what I’m allowed to be to his sister. But I also don’t want to drag this into the open before Whitney and I have actually figured it out for ourselves.
My phone buzzes on the table, and reach for it, catching it’s a text notification from Leo.
Before I can unlock it, a second text follows, then a third.
My stomach drops before I even open the thread.