10. Grant
GRANT
The draft ends Monday evening, and I win it — of course I do, I built this league to be won by whoever pays the closest attention, and this weekend I’ve had more reasons than usual to pay attention to everything.
Dusk settles outside the sliders, the last picks going up on the board.
Jax accuses me of an unfair advantage, arguing that a man distracted by the things I’ve been distracted by all weekend shouldn’t have this kind of focus left over for wide receiver depth charts.
He’s not wrong to be suspicious. I don’t have an explanation that doesn’t sound insane out loud — that watching Mia across this table all weekend somehow sharpened everything else instead of scattering it.
Celebratory bourbon comes out, poured a little heavier than usual, glasses clinking in a toast Jax insists on making twice because he messes up the first one laughing.
The house feels charged in a way that means it’s crossed some threshold it isn’t going back from — every boundary that existed Friday afternoon gone, dissolved somewhere between the pool and the guest room and the shower Mia and I shared.
She’s curled against my side on the couch now, my arm around her, Jax sprawled across the other cushion, Brooks in the armchair with a glass he’s actually drinking from for once, Tate on the floor with his back against the couch, close enough that his shoulder brushes Mia’s knee.
Nobody says anything for a while. The kind of quiet that isn’t empty — the kind that’s loaded, five people all thinking the same thing and none of them saying it first. Somewhere outside, waves keep working the shore in their steady, indifferent rhythm, the only sound that hasn’t changed since Friday afternoon.
Brooks is the first to move, setting his glass down with the deliberate care of a man about to say something he’s already weighed from every angle.
“For the record,” he says, glancing between Mia and me, “I don’t think any of us expected the weekend to go this direction when we packed our bags Thursday night. ”
“Speak for yourself,” Jax says. “I had a pretty good idea by Friday morning.”
“You always think you know what’s coming. You’re right maybe a third of the time.” “A third of the time is a winning record in this league.”
Jax breaks it, because Jax always breaks it. “One more round before we all go home tomorrow.” He’s not talking about football. Nobody at this table thinks he’s talking about football.
I look at Mia. She looks back at me, steady, no hesitation in it at all, and I understand we crossed into this territory together the second she chose to sit down at my draft table days ago and never once tried to leave.
“Your call,” I tell her. Same as I’ve told her all weekend.
She’s quiet a moment, considering it the way she considers a draft pick — weighing something before committing to it out loud. “I want all of you,” she says, simply, like she’s stating a fact and not a request. “I want to see what it looks like when it’s everyone at once.”
Jax lets out a low whistle. Tate grins so wide it looks like it might split his face. Brooks says nothing at all, but he sets his glass down with the measured care of a man clearing his hands for something that matters.
“You sure?” I ask her, quiet, just for her.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything.” She tips her chin up, meeting my eyes. “I want you at the center of it. I want to know what it feels like to have all of you and still know exactly who I belong to.”
That answer settles something in my chest that’s been unsettled all weekend. “Then we do this my way. Everyone follows my lead. The second you want it to stop, it stops — doesn’t matter what’s happening or who’s doing what.”
“I know the rules.” A small smile. “I helped write half of them.”
It starts with Jax, because everything starts with Jax.
He’s on his knees in front of the couch before I’ve fully processed she said yes, mouth finding her thigh, and Mia’s hand tangles in my shirt, her breathing already changing.
I keep my hand at the back of her neck, steady, present, watching Jax work with the same efficient hunger he brought last night.
Brooks moves next, measured as ever, kneeling on the other side, his mouth finding her collarbone while his hand slides up under the jersey.
Mia arches between them, sound catching in her throat, and I watch her split her attention between two completely different rhythms without losing the thread of either.
Tate doesn’t wait to be invited. He never does.
He’s up off the floor and behind her in seconds, big hands finding her waist, mouth at her shoulder, and the couch becomes too small for what’s happening on it — Jax pulls back, laughing, and the whole group migrates to the floor, to the rug in front of the dead fireplace, space enough for four people to rearrange around one.
I watch it happen. My hand stays in her hair the entire time — anchor, claim, the one point of contact that never moves even as everything else does.
Jax’s mouth finds her again. Brooks’s hands map her spine with the same precision he brings to everything.
Tate positions himself behind her, big and careful, checking in with a murmured word I don’t catch and she answers with a moan that answers plenty.
She’s the center of the room and I’m the center of her, and every man here understands the geometry without anyone having to say it out loud.
The room stays warm with lamplight, the TV finally muted, the only sound the low hum of five people breathing in the same space.
Jax works his way back in, mouth finding hers this time, hungry and unhurried in a way that’s new for him — like he’s stopped rushing toward the finish and started actually savoring the middle.
Mia moans into his mouth, one hand still fisted in my shirt, the other finding Tate’s forearm as he shifts behind her, adjusting to give Brooks more room. Nobody’s competing anymore.
Somewhere in the last two minutes it stopped being four men trying to outdo each other and became something closer to a single organism, four sets of hands working toward the same purpose.
I watch her face the whole time. That’s the part none of them can see from where they’re positioned — the way her expression keeps finding mine between every gasp, checking in without needing to say a word, and every time our eyes meet I see the same thing confirmed over and over: however many hands are on her right now, however many mouths, there’s only one place her attention actually lives.
“Grant.” She says my name into the middle of all of it, breathless, and Jax pulls back to let her breathe, grinning down at her like he already knew that was coming.
“Your show, Commissioner,” he says, glancing at me. “Tell us when.”
The crescendo builds, then breaks all at once.
I move the others aside — not aggressively, no need for that, only the quiet authority of a man who’s been in charge of this house, this weekend, this woman’s choices, since Friday morning.
Jax steps back without complaint. Brooks straightens, patient as always.
Tate eases away with one last kiss to her shoulder blade, murmuring something that makes her laugh even now, even like this.
I position her the way I’ve wanted to all night — over me, facing me, her hands braced on my chest, everyone else arranged around us watching what I’m about to do to her in front of them.
“This is my house,” I tell her, low, meant for her even though everyone can hear it. “My draft. My girl. They get to touch you because I allow it.”
“I know.”
“Say my name.”
“Grant.” It comes out like the only word left in the language, and I push inside her at the same time she says it, and the sound she makes stops being anything close to language at all.
I take my time at first, showing every man in this room what patience earns a person — and then faster as she starts to fall apart around me, her nails biting into my chest, her whole body chasing something only I can give her right now.
Jax watches with something unguarded on his face for once, no performance in it.
Brooks watches with the same focus he’d give a closing argument.
Tate’s grinning, unashamed, murmuring encouragement like he’s coaching both of us toward the same finish line.
“Every drop stays here,” I tell her, hips driving deep, one hand fisted in her hair. “They watch. Only I get this. Only I ever get this.”
She comes apart on that sentence, my name breaking in her mouth, and I follow her a moment later — deep, final, an unmistakable public claim laid down in front of the three men who matter most to me in this world.
There’s nothing hidden about it. Nothing private.
Everyone in this room understands exactly what just happened and exactly what it means: she’s mine, publicly, completely, and every man who touched her tonight did it because I said it was allowed.
She collapses against my chest, breathing hard, and I wrap both arms around her like I could keep the whole room out with nothing but my own weight.
Nobody says anything for a long moment. Jax finally breaks the silence with a low whistle and a murmured “Commissioner,” equal parts respect and surrender, and even Brooks huffs something that might be a laugh.
Later, the five of us scattered across the great room, draft table still buried under cheat sheets and empty glasses, Mia falls asleep against my side in the jersey she put back on sometime in the last hour.
Jax is telling a story nobody’s listening to — something about a draft three seasons back, a running back nobody remembers, a bet he definitely lost and is definitely reframing as a moral victory.
Brooks has his laptop open again, already planning next year’s strategy, muttering something about a rookie wide receiver worth stashing.
Tate’s asleep sitting up, head tipped back against the couch, snoring loud enough that Jax throws a napkin at him without breaking his story’s rhythm.
I look around the room at what’s left of the weekend — the three men I trust more than almost anyone alive, the woman asleep against my chest who somehow ended up meaning more to me than any of them saw coming, the wreckage of a draft table that’s seen two decades of this tradition and one entirely new kind of history this time.
Nobody’s uncomfortable. Nobody’s pretending anything happened that shouldn’t have.
If anything, the room feels lighter than it has all weekend — like everyone finally exhaled something they’d been holding since Friday morning.
“You good?” Brooks asks, not looking up from his screen, the question aimed at me but clearly meant for the whole situation.
“I’m good.”
“Yeah.” He glances over, something almost warm behind the glasses. “I can tell.”
The guys leave in the morning. The weekend’s ending, the way weekends do — bags by the door, sleepy goodbyes, Jax already talking about next year like this one hasn’t finished yet.
But something started here that isn’t ending with it, and looking down at Mia’s face, slack and peaceful against my chest, I understand that better than anyone else in this room.