Page 60 of The Grumpy Defenseman

I stood. Looked at her: this woman who had dragged me to a bar when I wanted to disappear, brought me home to a family that fed me, and seen me clearly from the first day we met without once looking away.

“Thank you,” I said.

And meant it with everything I had.

“Don’t thank me,” Bella said, holding the plate like a legal exhibit. “Just don’t come home tonight with a story that starts with I chickened out.”

I went back through the kitchen to say goodbye. Mamá Rey pressed the bag of pan de polvo into my hand again, as if I might have forgotten I had been loved on the way to the door.

“Drive safe, mija,” she said.

I nodded because my throat was too tight for anything else.

Outside, San Antonio was doing its thing: golden hour hitting the houses, the air warm and heavy with summer. People moved along the sidewalk in both directions, making their decisions, walking toward whatever came next.

I got in my car. Set the warm paper bag on the passenger seat. Started the engine.

I was not going to fix him.

I was not going to carry the truth he owed me.

But I was done pretending I did not want to hear it.

I did not go home.

Chapter twenty-five

Samantha

The training facility parking lot was almost empty.

A maintenance van. The security guard’s sedan. My car pulled crooked into a space because, apparently, decisiveness did not extend to parking.

The building sat in the late-day light, looking less like a sports facility and more like a place people went when they could not outrun themselves.

I turned off the engine and sat there for ten seconds.

Not hesitating.

Organizing.

There was a difference.

Okay, Sam. Let’s review the plan. Step one: walk inside. Step two: find him. Step three: say the thing you’ve been not saying for six weeks.

Step four: don’t throw up.

Step five: there is no step five. After step three, the universe takes over, and you either get what you want or you get a really good story for Bella. Either way, you are not sitting in this parking lot anymore.

I got out of the car. Walked to the side entrance. Used the badge Sandra had given me on day one: the badge that said I belonged in this building, whether the man inside it was ready for me or not.

The hallway was dim. After-hours lighting, the facility was running on its overnight settings, everything turned down to a hum. My footsteps echoed on the polished floor. Somewhere deeper in the building, an industrial washer thumped through a load of practice jerseys, and the air carried the layered smell of rubber mats and the training staff’s medicinal clean.

I walked past the media room, past the coaching offices, past Silas’s door, closed and dark, and turned toward the weight room.

The security guard’s sign-in log sat on the front desk on my way past. My name was already on it, timestamped at 4:47, because policy required every after-hours swipe to be recorded.

Permanent.