2. Chapter 2
Darius
Most people see what I want them to see.
Claire Wells saw right through it.
The frustrating part is that I'm not even mad about it.
I close the door and the penthouse settles around me. Floor-to-ceiling windows, city lights, every square foot of it bought to look like a man who has everything figured out.
Right now it just feels like a very expensive place to be rattled in private.
I replay the meeting anyway. Not the file or the questions. The look on her face when she said I was terrified my career was about to go up in smoke.
My stomach drops because she was right, and I never managed to convince her otherwise.
I'm awake at five-thirty the next morning for practice, and she's the first thing that crosses my mind.
Which tells me I'm already in trouble.
***
Coach Donnelly doesn't look up when I walk into his office.
I've spent most of my life around football coaches.
I've been screamed at, cursed out, threatened with extra conditioning, and informed in increasingly creative ways that I wasn't working hard enough.
One coach threw a clipboard hard enough to dent a locker.
Another made a freshman run stadium stairs until he puked.
Trust me, I've seen worse than a silent football coach.
Still, by the time Donnelly finally looks up from his tablet, I'm sitting a little straighter in my chair.
The man has a way of making silence feel like part of the evaluation.
His office smells like old coffee, dry-erase marker, and the kind of carpet that's survived more losing seasons than anyone wants to discuss. Team photos line the wall behind him. Some of the faces are familiar. Some of them aren't. All of them earned their place there.
I take the chair across from his desk.
"Coach Donnelly. Appreciate you making time for me."
"Have a seat."
His attention drops back to the tablet.
I almost laugh.
A year ago, nobody would've dared make me wait like this.
A year ago, I would've been offended.
Now I'm sitting in a head coach's office after nearly blowing up my professional career, wondering whether Claire was right about me.
Actually, screw that.
I already know she was right.
The silence stretches long enough that I start wondering if this is some kind of test. By the time Donnelly finally sets the tablet down, I've almost convinced myself I'm failing it.
"You know why you're here, Webb?"
"No, sir."
His eyes settle on me with the same detached focus coaches use when they're studying film. He isn't impressed by my reputation or intimidated by my resume. He's evaluating whether I belong here.
"You're talented."
The compliment lands harder than it should.
"Thank you, Coach."
"That's why you're here."
And just like that, the moment is over.
Donnelly leans back in his chair.
"Talent gets you in the building. Everything else is up to you."
"Yes, sir."
"You've got a second chance that a lot of players would've killed for." His gaze never leaves mine. "What you do with it isn't my problem."
The words shouldn't sting.
But they do.
Because he's right.
Nobody forced me to make those mistakes. Nobody forced me to hand the media a year's worth of headlines or give sponsors reasons to walk away.
Every problem sitting in front of me belongs to the guy in this chair.
Donnelly folds his hands on the desk.
"If this works out, great."
My chest tightens.
"If it doesn't, I'll move on."
He says it without anger or theatrics, which somehow makes it land harder. He's not threatening me. He's simply stating a fact.
"You understand that?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good."
He picks up the tablet again.
Conversation over.
I stand and head for the door.
By the time I reach it, he's already reading again. Not because he dislikes me or because he's trying to make a point. As far as Coach Donnelly is concerned, I haven't done anything worth remembering yet.
For the first time since playing for the Stallions, I decide that needs to change.
***
Evan Carter answers every phone call the same way.
"Talk to me."
Not hello. Not good morning. Just talk to me, like every conversation starts in the middle of a negotiation.
The man wears tailored suits to breakfast meetings and likes exactly three things: contract numbers, endorsement numbers, and commission numbers. As far as I can tell, human beings only interest him when they're attached to one of the above.
He's waiting outside the coaches' wing when I leave Donnelly's office. His laptop is already open, and the legal pad tucked under his arm looks like it survived a natural disaster. Red ink covers half the page. Numbers are circled. Arrows point in every direction.
The sight of it makes my stomach tighten.
That's never a good sign.
"There he is." Evan snaps his laptop shut. "Talk to me."
I follow him down the hallway to an empty film room. The second we're inside, he spreads his notes across the table and starts walking me through the damage.
The league fine comes first.
Then the deferred agent fees from last season.
Then the Atlanta settlement.
Then the endorsement money I lost when three sponsors pulled their deals within forty-eight hours of the video going public.
The numbers climb higher with every page.
I've made more money than most people see in a lifetime, but that isn't what gets my attention.
It's how quickly everything I've spent years building can disappear.
Every endorsement deal on Evan's list represents a meeting, a relationship, a campaign, or an opportunity that took years to earn and only days to lose.
By the time he reaches the final page, I understand something I haven't wanted to admit.
The fallout didn't end when the headlines disappeared.
I'm still living in it.
"The Next Play Foundation contract is the only major move we've got right now," Evan says, tapping the legal pad. "If that partnership falls apart, you're looking at a minimum two-year rebuild."
I stare at the number.
For the first time since this whole mess started, the consequences feel real.
Not the headlines.
Not the angry comments on social media.
This.
The part where I have to live with what I did.
Evan closes the laptop.
"Claire Wells is the right call."
I look up.
"Best in the business. Smart. Connected. Respected. If anyone can stabilize this situation, it's her."
He says it a little too easily, like he's been waiting for an excuse to bring her up.
"Just make sure she stays happy," he says. "Right now, she's the most important person in your recovery plan."
That thought should bother me more than it does.
Instead, I find myself thinking about the way Claire looked at me this morning.
Like she could see exactly what I was trying not to.
***
I go to the equipment room to grab a practice jersey, but the second the door closes behind me, I stop.
The quiet hits differently in here.
I set the jersey on the bench and sit beside it. For the first time all morning, nobody wants anything from me. No coaches, no cameras, no reporters waiting for a quote that'll end up online before lunch.
I lean forward and scrub a hand over my face.
This is the part that comes after the headlines disappear. The part where I have to wake up every day and deal with the consequences.
My gaze drops to the tattoo on my forearm.
Ethan.
Claire noticed it the first day we met and didn't say a word.
I run my thumb across the letters once.
That's all it takes.
Suddenly I’m twelve years old again, back when Ethan was still alive and chasing me down the street on his bike.
Ethan pedals as hard as he can because he refuses to let his big brother get ahead. His helmet is crooked. He's laughing so hard he nearly rides straight into a mailbox. I swerve around him, yelling at him to keep up, and he just laughs harder.
Some days we'd hear the ice cream truck and he'd take off before I even spotted it. Half the time I ended up buying his ice cream because he'd spent his money on something stupid before the truck arrived.
The kid followed me everywhere.
A smile tugs at my mouth before I can stop it.
For one stupid second I can hear him laughing, and my brain forgets he's been gone for twenty-five years.
I look away and swallow hard.
My brother never saw me play in the NFL. Never saw me get drafted. Never got the chance to grow up and become whoever he was supposed to be.
He was five years old when he died.
The equipment room suddenly feels too small.
I push to my feet and grab the jersey from the bench.
Ethan would've given anything for the chance to grow up, make mistakes, and figure things out. I'm standing in an NFL facility with another opportunity sitting right in front of me.
The least I can do is stop acting like I've run out of chances.
I glance at the clock and head for the door.
Morning walkthrough starts in ten minutes, and for the first time all day, I know exactly where I need to be.
***
I come back out into the corridor and Claire is at the far end of it.
And just like that, the weight in my chest loosens.
She's by the bulletin board outside the training staff offices, jotting something down, her pale-pink blazer softening the whole corridor around her. She looks… happy. Like she fits here without even trying. Like the entire Training Complex breathes easier just having her in it.
She doesn't ask where I was. Doesn't check her watch. No comment about the time, no pointed look that says she noticed.
She just looks up from her notebook and says, "Mornin', Darius. First media availability is tomorrow at nine. I'll send you over the talking points tonight."
Her voice is so Southern-sweet I'm practically quaking in my damn boots.
Then she holds something out between two fingers.
A stick of cinnamon gum.
"Is this yours? I saw you with a pack at your place yesterday. Found it on the bench in the equipment room."
I take it from her and scratch the back of my neck.
How the hell did she figure that out that fast?
I had that gum in my jacket pocket for maybe thirty seconds before I put it away. She was in the middle of a presentation. She had a tablet, my entire career implosion to walk through, and apparently enough bandwidth left over to clock what brand of gum I carry.
Part of me wants to laugh. Part of me doesn't know what to do with that.
"Yeah," I say. "Thanks."
She nods and goes back to her notebook.
I'm still standing there.
She doesn't look up, but the corner of her mouth moves.
Just barely.
Like she knows exactly what she did.
***
I'm almost to the practice field when I hear Scott and Kowalski talking to Jaylen near the cone markers. I grab a water bottle from the bench a few feet away and stay there.
Normally I wouldn't care, but the second I hear Scott say, "I don't know who she is, man," my whole body goes tight.
Because I know exactly how these conversations go. I've been in too many of them. Hell, I've started too many of them.
And the last time I opened my mouth about a woman, I ended up getting punched in the jaw by a teammate who was right to do it.
So yeah, my guard goes up fast.
Scott and Kowalski are both starting offensive linemen, which means they weigh somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred pounds and have never once used an indoor voice.
If one of them says something about Claire, her face, her body, anything, I'm not sure I trust myself not to haul off and say something I'll regret.
"but she walked into the front office this morning and had the VP smiling in less than two minutes. Man never smiles."
I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding.
Okay. Not that kind of conversation.
"Claire Wells," Jaylen says, like he's been tracking her career for years. Knowing Jaylen, he probably has.
"She's handling Webb?" Kowalski lets out a low whistle. "Good luck to her. That's like showing up to a house fire with a garden hose."
Jaylen laughs.
"She's good. I watched her with the front office. Half those guys were ready to throw Webb out of the building."
"And?"
"Afterwards she had 'em talkin' like we're fixin' to win us a whole damn season."
Scott spots me first.
"Speak of the disaster."
"There he is," Kowalski says. "Houston's most expensive headache."
A few months ago I would've had something ready for that. I set the water bottle down and keep moving.
Jaylen notices immediately because the guy never misses anything.
"You good?" he asks.
"Yeah."
He raises an eyebrow, and I don't bother pretending otherwise.
Coach's whistle cuts across the field before he can call me on it.
Jaylen falls into step beside me and doesn't say anything for a few seconds, which with Jaylen means he's building up to something.
"So," he says finally. "The PR woman."
"Don't."
He grins anyway.
Coach's whistle sounds again, but it's background noise.
Because all I can see is Claire Wells, calm, confident, sexy, walking into a room full of men who've already decided who I am, and somehow making them believe something different.
Making them believe in me.
I don't know what she thinks she sees.
I just know she recognized something in me.
And I haven't felt that in a long damn time.