They were almost to the end of the hallway when a voice called out from one of the rooms.
“Hey—hey, McKenzie!”
Dylan turned, and Rocky followed his gaze to a lanky teen propped up in a hospital bed. He wore a beanie over a bald head and a worn Magnolia Bluff University hoodie that looked two sizes too big. His IV drip was slow, steady, and hooked behind him like a shadow, but the grin on his face was electric.
“Man, no way,” Dylan said as he stepped inside. “You a Shark?”
The kid’s smile stretched wider. “Will be soon, if chemo doesn’t slow me down.”
Dylan blinked hard and stepped up to the side of the bed. “Hell yeah. What’s your name?”
“DeShawn,” the teen said, pride swelling in his voice. “My uncle went there. I’ve got Shark Nation in my blood. Can’t wait to see a game at The Reef.”
Rocky whistled low. “You’re aiming for the big leagues, huh?”
“Damn right I am,” DeShawn said, adjusting the IV line without missing a beat. “I already know what dorm I want, and I’ve got a playlist for my move-in day.”
Dylan couldn’t stop smiling. “You’re more prepared than I was.”
DeShawn tilted his head, studying him. “You still keep in touch with Coach Busby?”
Dylan nodded. “Every few weeks. He still cusses like a sailor and calls me Prime Time but yeah.”
“That’s so sick.” DeShawn’s voice lowered, more serious now. “I watched that old clip the other day. The final drive against Gulf Coast. You hurdled that safety and threw the ball to the ref like a mic drop.”
Dylan barked out a laugh. “You didnotjust call it a mic drop.”
“It was though,” DeShawn said, eyes sparkling. “That’s the moment I knew I wanted to go there.”
Something shifted in Dylan’s chest. That game felt like a lifetime ago—but somehow it still lived in people. In kids like DeShawn, who were already dreaming bigger than the room they were stuck in.
Dylan reached out, offered a fist bump. “We’ll save you a seat in Shark Nation, alright?”
DeShawn bumped his fist back, grin returning. “Make sure it’s on the fifty.”
The Mexican restaurant sat on a quiet corner in downtown Celebration, all colorful tilework and string lights, with a menu laminated against spilled juice and queso drips. Dylan slid into the booth across from Rocky and Naomi just as their youngest plopped a tablet on the table and immediately opened aPaw Patrolgame at full volume.
“Volume, Zo,” Naomi said without looking, nudging a paper cup of apple juice toward her daughter. Zoey turned it down to a merciful level and stuck her tongue out before focusing on her screen.
Rocky raised a chip like a toast. “To hospital visits and children who name their IV poles after mascots.”
Dylan grinned, still riding the high from earlier. “Tempest had a big morning.”
Naomi laughed softly, but her eyes flicked toward him with that quiet perceptiveness Dylan had never quite learned how to dodge. She handed their older son a set of headphones before reaching for her sweet tea.
“So…” she said, too casually. “Ali.”
Dylan’s hand paused halfway to the chip basket.
Rocky just leaned back with a satisfied smirk. “Here we go.”
Naomi ignored him. “You’ve looked like a man permanently texting someone for four weeks straight. Either it’s her or you’ve got a secretCandy Crushaddiction.”
Dylan snorted. “It’s her.”
“And?” Naomi pressed, stirring her drink like she wasn’t watching his every micro-expression.
He glanced down at his plate, then back up—shoulders easing in that slow, quiet way he rarely allowed outside of his own house.
