Chapter 25
PEYTON
The stadium lights blaze against the darkening sky.
I’ve been to professional sporting events that felt less produced than the tunnel of blue and silver streamers that greets us at the entrance, with volunteers in matching polo shirts checking tickets and the thunder of drums from somewhere inside.
“This is a high school game?” I ask, craning my neck to take in the massive Jumbotron looming over the field. “My school was big on baseball, but the stadium was a dirt patch with splintery bleachers and a half-broken scoreboard.”
“Welcome to Blue Crescent Harbor.” Liam guides me through the crowd with a hand at the small of my back. “Where Friday night football is a religion.”
We don’t head toward the general seating. Liam steers me up a set of stairs.
“Where are we going?”
“The VIP box.”
“And you get access because?”
Liam’s nostrils flare. “I’m from a founding family.”
Wow, founders are really treated like royalty in this town.
“And we contributed heavily to building the stadium.”
We emerge into an enclosed space beside the press box with glass walls, heating lamps, and proper seats instead of metal bleachers.
The room is already half-filled with people I recognize.
Carrie Montgomery waves from where she’s seated next to a distinguished man in his early forties with dark blond hair.
The mayor I assume. Sheriff Bingham is perched a few rows back.
And Rebecca Evans is holding a few seats near the front row.
An older couple is sitting in the center. He has striking red hair with silver threading through the auburn, and she’s elegant with the posture of someone who’s spent a lifetime being important. The woman’s eyes are a familiar shade of aquamarine.
“Are those Lila’s parents?” I whisper to Liam.
“Yep, Thomas and Lucy Callaway.”
And then every muscle in my neck locks up as I spot Charles and Margaret Rockwood seated in the far-right section.
“Did you know your parents were coming?” I hiss.
“Yes,” Liam says, as if it’s nothing major.
“A heads-up would’ve been nice.”
“Come on, we’re just going to say hi and sit somewhere else.” He pulls me toward them.
“Mom. Dad.” Liam drops a kiss on his mother’s cheek while patting his father’s shoulder.
We endure five minutes of excruciating small talk until, mercifully, the band starts playing and we take our seats on the opposite side where the “young crowd” is hanging out.
We escape to the front row, where Rebecca scoots over one seat to make room. Faye, Ryder, and Rhys have taken the seats next to her. No younger Evans sibling, I notice.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Rebecca says under her breath. “I thought you were going to be stuck in the parental zone all night.”
Faye leans across Ryder to grin at us and steal a gummy bear from the packet Rhys is holding.
“Hey,” the boy protests.
Faye pouts. “May I have one, please?”
Rhys huffs. “Make that face at Dad, and he’s going to give you a whole bag.”
Faye turns her doe eyes on Ryder, who also huffs and, shaking his head, produces an extra pouch from his jacket pocket and hands it to her.
I sink into the seat beside Liam. The field spreads out below us, the pristine turf gleaming under the stadium lights. The bleachers on either side are packed with fans, a sea of blue and silver rippling with movement.
“I can’t believe how many people are here,” I say.
“Told you.” Liam settles in, stretching his arm along the back of my seat—casual, proprietary, very married. “The whole town shows up.”
A voice booms through the speakers, and the crowd erupts.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Harbor Field! Tonight, your Blue Crescent Harbor Bobcats take on the Lakewood Lions!”
The student commentator—he can’t be older than seventeen—sounds like a seasoned ESPN announcer. The professionalism is unreal.
The band launches into a fight anthem as the players burst through a paper banner, the team’s mascot, a snarling bobcat in a cartoonish, bulky costume, leading the charge. The cheerleaders form a tunnel of pom-poms. Smoke machines pump fog across the field.
Each player is introduced, their stats and position flashing on the screen as they jog to the fifty-yard line. The crowd cheers for favorites, boos playfully at rivals from the other team. By the time the starting lineup is complete, I’m invested in these kids I’ve never met.
Then the game starts.
I’ve watched football on television before. Casual glances during Thanksgiving, or the Super Bowl for the commercials. I understood the basic concept: get the ball to the end zone, don’t let the other team do the same.
What I did not understand from behind a screen was the violence.
The first tackle makes me flinch so hard that I grab Liam’s knee. “Is he okay? That looked… The guy just… he flew through the air—”
“He’s fine.” Liam’s hand covers mine, stilling my frantic grip. “It’s the game.”
Yeah, but the hits are not so playful. Seeing a tackle in real life, hearing the dry crack of plastic on plastic, the solid, ugly smack of a body slammed to the ground, the collective inhale from the stands before the tackled player bounces up, is a jarring experience.
The quarterback slaps his helmet and jogs back into the huddle to the cheers of the crowd. These kids have the grit of professional athletes, slamming into each other with terrifying force.
I can’t look away from a vicious collision near the sideline. I don’t know how a mother could watch this and not cry, or a wife, or a girlfriend. Taylor Swift has my utmost respect.
By halftime, the score is 21–3 for us, and I’ve bitten my nails down to nubs.
“Having fun?” Liam asks, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
“I need therapy.” But I’m smiling when I say it. “Do they ever lose?”
“Not much,” Faye pipes up from beside me. “It’s a point of town pride. And a massive budget drain, if you ask me, but nobody does. All this money could go to things that don’t literally damage the brain but nurture it, like books.”
“Yeah?” Liam asks. “And are video games good or bad for the brain?”
“RPGs have proven cognitive benefits,” Faye answers sweetly, her smile razor sharp.
And there’s that current again.
Ryder stares at Liam as if he might get in the middle, but then he looks down at Faye, and his girlfriend gives him a short glare that clearly means she can fight her own battles.
The tension dies as the halftime show kicks off with the marching band taking the field, followed by the cheerleaders who launch into a high-energy, acrobatic routine, executing Olympic-level gymnastics: basket tosses that fling girls ten feet in the air, back handsprings across the turf, a human pyramid that defies gravity.
I gasp as a tiny blonde gets flung skyward, spins twice, and lands in the arms of her teammates like it’s nothing.
When the dance is over, the cameras sweep through the crowd, projecting faces onto the Jumbotron. Fans ham it up, waving signs and giant foam fingers, flexing for the screen.
Then, the commentator’s voice rolls across the field. “Alright, folks, you know what time it is! It’s time for the Kiss Cam!”
A graphic of a heart frame appears on the Jumbotron.
And for the first time, the entertainment reveals that this isn’t an NFL stadium after all, but only a small-town high school putting on a good show. The commentator doesn’t scan for random victims; he calls out specific couples.
The camera finds an elderly couple near the twenty-yard line.
“Let’s hear it for Giovanni and Kelly Marino, celebrating thirty-three years of marriage!”
The crowd cheers as Aurora’s parents, I assume, share a sweet, lingering kiss.
Next, the camera swings to a young man with a buzz cut sitting with a pretty brunette.
“Welcome home, Colton Glenn! Thank you for your service. Give Mira some sugar!”
The soldier dips his girlfriend dramatically, and the crowd goes wild.
I’m smiling at the sweetness when the commentator’s voice cuts through my pleasant bubble.
“And finally, let’s see some love from our newlyweds—Liam Rockwood and his lovely bride, Peyton!”
The camera pans toward us, and my shocked face fills the Jumbotron. Beside me, Liam looks effortlessly cool, though the line of his mouth tightens a fraction.
Thousands of people are watching.
I can’t breathe.
Liam turns to me. His hand cups my cheek, thumb brushing along my cheekbone, grounding me.
“It’s okay,” he whispers. “A quick peck will be fine.”
But he waits. He doesn’t just swoop in and kiss me. He searches my eyes, asking for permission.
The giant screen, the thousands of onlookers, and the pressure all fade into the background. I only see him.
I give him a small, shaky nod.
He leans in.
Liam brushes his lips over mine. It’s soft, chaste. He keeps our mouths pressed together for only a few seconds. It should be enough. It is enough to satisfy the crowd.
But it’s not enough for me.
Something inside me snaps.
I don’t know if it’s the pressure of being watched, the adrenaline of the game, or the accumulated tension of every almost-moment between us over the past week. But the instant his mouth touches mine, I stop thinking. I forget where I am and who I’m kissing.
I grab the front of his leather jacket and pull.
He stumbles forward and freezes for a microsecond, surprised, but then I part my lips, pushing my tongue into his mouth.
And all bets are off.
Liam makes a strangled sound in his throat—surprise, or surrender.
Then he’s kissing me back.
His hand slides from my cheek to the back of my head, fingers threading through my hair, tilting my face to deepen the angle. His tongue meets mine, and whatever restraint we’ve been clinging to disintegrates.
It’s just a kiss.
But it detonates through my system like a bomb.
A jolt races up my spine, scattering heat and light in its wake. My scalp buzzes as if every hair has been wired into a socket. Nothing exists but the pressure of his mouth and the grip of his hands and the thunder of my heartbeat drowning out the world.
“Whoa!” The commentator’s voice crashes through the haze. “Get a room, you two!”
Laughter ripples through the stadium.
I gasp and pull away, breathless. I give Liam one shocked look—his eyes are blown wide, his lips slick and puffy—and then I bury my face in the crook of his shoulder.
“Sorry,” I whisper, my cheeks burning so hot they might singe his jacket.
Liam’s free arm comes around me, shielding me from the cameras. He leans down, his mouth pressing against my ear, his other hand still tangled in the hair at the nape of my neck.
“What are you apologizing for?”
“For pushing my tongue into your mouth,” I mumble into the leather.
His body shakes. For a horrifying second, I think he’s angry.
Then I realize he’s laughing.
“That,” he whispers, his breath hot on my skin, “is the nicest thing anyone has ever apologized for.” His voice is rough, intimate despite the surrounding chaos. “Don’t worry. My tongue was in your mouth too.”
“I did it first,” I argue weakly.
“We got carried away,” he reassures me, smoothing his palm against my back. “It’s fine.”
I shake my head against his chest, still mortified. But he doesn’t let me hide. He lifts my chin, forcing me to look at him.
Then he kisses me again.
This time, there’s no hesitation. No polite brush of lips. His mouth claims mine with deliberate intent, his tongue sliding past my lips with a confidence that steals the air from my lungs.
I grip his shoulders, hanging on as the world tilts.
When he pulls away, I’m dizzy. I might not have any functioning brain cells left.
“There,” he breathes. “Now we’re even.”
He releases me, sitting back in his seat like nothing happened, like he didn’t just rewire my entire nervous system in front of a stadium full of witnesses.
“You good?” he asks.
I stare at him.
Am I good?
I’m many things right now.
Shocked.
Ruined.
Definitely turned on.
But good?
Good is not one of them.