49 - Haven
HAVEN
We didn’t just win.
We rolled.
It started small. One game. Then another. A tight one we probably should’ve lost, except we didn’t. Then a clean one, where everything clicked and nobody even questioned it.
And then suddenly—
We were on a run.
Momentum. It really fucking mattered. The Reavers weren’t just chasing games anymore, we were dictating them. Controlling pace, forcing mistakes, capitalizing in ways that felt… inevitable.
Grayson was a machine. Not flashy — just relentless. Every shift looked like it meant something now. Like he was erasing ghosts one stride at a time.
Ares hit like a boxer in his prime — clean, brutal, perfectly placed.
And Sebastian?
Sebastian was calm in a way that made everything else possible. Locked in. Seeing plays before they happened, and shutting doors before they even opened.
It wasn’t luck.
It was us.
And a small, dangerous part of me knew why.
The bus rides got louder, the locker room got looser. Music blasting. Guys chirping. Mercer no longer telling everyone to knock it off. Zack talking nonstop about how he “always believed,” which was absolute bullshit, but nobody called him on it because winning made everything funnier.
Even the looks started changing.
Not obvious at first. Just… subtle pauses.
Ares standing a little too close to me in the hallway.
Sebastian brushing past me a little too slow.
Grayson, not even pretending he wasn’t staring at me anymore.
People noticed. They didn’t say anything.
But they noticed.
The first time we almost got caught, it was Asher.
He came down the hallway at the wrong time — right as I was slipping from Grayson’s room, heart racing, trying not to look like I’d just been—
Well.
He stopped. Looked at me. Looked at the door, then back at me again.
I waited, until he raised both hands slowly.
“I don’t want to know,” he said. Then he walked away.
After that?
It got easier.
Because the truth was — I wasn’t sneaking anymore. Not really. Not in the way I told myself I was.
It started with Sebastian, most nights. Already there. Already waiting. Like he belonged in that space before I even stepped into it.
Then the knock. Soft.
Always soft.
Ares never waited long after that.
Grayson came sometime later. Sometimes earlier.
Sometimes he didn’t knock at all.
And every time—
Every single time—
I felt that same surge of heat, low and electric, curling through me like it had a mind of its own.
It should’ve felt wrong.
It didn’t.
It felt… right. That was the problem.
Or maybe it wasn’t.
There were moments I caught myself thinking about it. Not just the physical part. Not just the way they touched me, or the way they looked at me, or the way I felt when I was with them.
Them.
All of them.
Grayson, with that quiet control that somehow made everything feel chosen instead of taken.
Ares, who never asked but always made me feel like I could say no — even when I didn’t want to.
Sebastian, who somehow made the whole thing make perfect sense.
I should’ve been overwhelmed.
I wasn’t.
I should’ve been conflicted.
I wasn’t.
If anything— I was already falling. Falling for all three of them.
And that should’ve scared the hell out of me.
It didn’t.
I was on the bus, riding high on coffee and the adrenaline from our latest road win, when I heard Mercer’s voice call my name. I looked up to find him standing in the aisle, one hand braced on the seat in front of me. Like he’d been standing there a while.
“Coach,” I said.
He jerked his head once.
“Up here.”
I climbed out of my seat, ignoring the looks from the guys. Sebastian’s mouth twitched, while Ares didn’t even try to hide his smirk. Grayson just watched me go.
Mercer dropped into the front seat, next to the window. I sat across from him.
He didn’t say anything right away. Just stared out at the dark highway rolling past.
“You’ve been busy,” he said finally.
It wasn’t a question. I froze for a second.
“Just doing my job,” I answered.
He snorted.
“Yeah,” he said. “You are.”
A beat of silence followed.
“You see it?”
“The team?” I said.
He nodded, once.
“They’re different.”
“Yeah.”
“They’re winning.”
Also, not a question.
“Yeah.”
Another pause. Then—
“Don’t screw it up.”
I blinked. “That’s the pep talk?”
“That’s the job,” he shot back. “You got them here, now you get to keep them here.”
He finally turned from the window, his eyes shifting to me.
They were focused. Sharp.
“Because if this falls apart,” he added, “it’s not on them.”
It landed exactly where he wanted it to.
On me.
I held his gaze.
“It won’t fall apart,” I said.
He studied me closely. Like he wanted to believe.
“Good,” he said finally. “Because playoffs are coming.”
My pulse kicked.
“You’ll be ready,” he continued. “Or you won’t be here.”
Blunt. Honest.
So very Mercer.
“I’ll be here,” I said with confidence.
He looked at me and nodded again. Slowly. Gravely.
Deep in my gut, I knew that nod meant something.
“Go sit down,” he said, already turning back toward the window. “Before they start thinking you’re important.”
I let out a quiet laugh and stood up. As I headed back down the aisle, I could feel it again:
The energy. The looks. The shift in dynamic.
I slid back into my seat. Sebastian leaned in, just enough to murmur—
“What did he say?”
I smiled.
“He told me not to screw it up.”
Ares snorted.
“Too late for that.”
Grayson’s hard gray stare pinned me in place. There was depth to his gaze now. It felt real.
Under normal circumstances I would’ve looked away, overwhelmed by my own feelings. But not now. Not after everything we’d been through.
This wasn’t temporary. It wasn’t a mistake.
And it definitely wasn’t something I wanted to stop.
I looked out the window, as the bus rolled on. On toward the playoffs. On toward everything.
On toward whatever the hell we’d just become.