Page 105 of Grizz

Daisy moves toward the door, pauses with her hand on the handle.“Goodbye, Grizz.”

The door opens, then closes, and the sound echoes through the apartment.

And I stand there alone, surrounded by the wreckage of a future I didn’t even have the courage to try to save, knowing I’ve just become exactly what I’d feared most.

Chapter 28

Daisy

Iwakeupbeforemyalarm goes off and the apartment is eerily quiet in that unsettling way mornings are after emotional wreckage.For a moment, I lie there staring at the ceiling, replaying the words of last night, trying to figure it all out.

I have little energy left and it would be easy to stay in bed all day, but I get up.Routine helps.It always has.

I make coffee and burn the toast slightly because I’m distracted.I eat it anyway.I shower longer than usual, letting the hot water beat against my shoulders hoping it might knock the pain loose.I choose clothes carefully—not because I care how I look, but because I need armor.The version of myself that knows how to walk into a difficult situation and keep moving until I’m through it.

By the time I step outside, I feel more settled.Not my usual collected and assured self.Just… assembled.

I take a ride share to the team facility.

Walking through the doors still feels surreal at times, like crossing into a world that was never meant for me.

I walk down the hallway and memory ambushes me.

The first time I came here, I was painfully aware of everything.The size of the space.The way men twice my size moved through it with ease and purpose.The smell of ice and sweat and metallic structures I couldn’t name.I remember clutching my bag too tightly, heels clicking too loud, feeling like I’d accidentally wandered onto the wrong movie set.

Back then, I didn’t know the rhythms.Didn’t know who nodded and who ignored you or where the coffee was or which doors led to treatment rooms or how to read the subtle shift in energy when a practice went badly.

It was foreign and loud and intimidating.

Now, it isn’t.

Now I know the hallways by heart.I know which corner echoes and which one absorbs sound.I know the trainers by name, the equipment guys by habit, the cadence of a team moving through a season.I know when to speak and when to wait.I know how to stand my ground here.

This place has become familiar and, in many ways, a second home.

Then I see the workout facility.

The glass doors.The sign on the wall about workers only.The way Grizz barely looked at me when he told me the rules, when he made it clear I could either leave or keep up.The challenge baked into his tone, the expectation that I’d back down.

I remember the flash of satisfaction on his face when he thought he’d won.

And I remember the moment it all changed, when I came back in oversized, borrowed warm-up gear, hair pulled into a topknot, but dignity still intact, and stepped onto the treadmill like I had every right to be there.The way his expression changed, just for a second.Surprise.Respect.A concession and acknowledgement he didn’t give easily.

We worked out side by side, sweat and stubbornness and friction filling the space between us.He pushed.I didn’t flinch.I challenged him back, called him out, refused to be intimidated.

I didn’t know it then, but that was the moment everything started.Not attraction per se, but recognition.Two people colliding, refusing to yield.

I keep walking, the echo of my heels steady against the floor, thinking about how impossible he seemed that day.How unreachable.How convinced I was that nothing good could ever come from someone like him.

And how wrong I was.

I stop outside Julian Langley’s office and take a deep breath.I sent him an email last night after I returned to my apartment and I wasn’t surprised when he answered close to midnight.I’d asked for a meeting, and he replied with the time to be here.

I knock.

“Come in,” Julian calls.

I step inside and he looks up from his desk, reading glasses perched low on his nose.He sets a folder aside and gestures toward the chair across from him.