No. Saturday night gamesweremy favorite.
My shoulders stiffen and I pull my baseball cap lower as I follow Harper, Mama, Madison, and Izzy to the skybox at the top of the Stormhawks stadium.I’m not on the field tonight. I’m stuck watching like a goddamn spectator with a weight in my gut, and a dark mood that’s been clinging to me all day, heavy and unshakable.I should be down there. I should be in pads and cleats, lining up with the team. And as if to taunt me further, my knee throbs with every step—a reminder of another week of hauling hay and mending fences.
The skybox is crowded—management staff, friends, family, sponsors. People I know. No one I want to talk to. The mood is buoyant. Laughter and handshakes, flutes of champagne clinking. Harper makes a beeline for her best friend, Mia, dressed in a floaty skirt and tight top, standing besideChase’s best friend, Serena: tall, blonde, and wearing her old Stormhawks cheer team top with a denim skirt and cowboy boots. Harper motions for Izzy and Mad to join her, but I don’t follow. Instead, I give a nod of greeting their way before dipping my head and making my way to the glass.
The view overlooking the field nearly punches the breath out of me. Every single one of the 70,000 stadium seats is full. The roar of noise as the Stormhawks take the field in their red jerseys and white helmets feels like another throat punch. Across from them, the Arizona Scorchers pour out of their tunnel in black and yellow. I imagine Coach Allen is already on the sideline, headset on, clipboard clutched tight, barking last-minute plays.
This was my world. I don’t know who I am without it.The thought threatens to drag me further into the darkness, but it’s cut short by Mama appearing at my side. I turn to find her watching me like I’m made of glass.I sigh, throwing an arm around her and hugging her to my side. “I’m fine, Mama.”
She squeezes my side. “You sure?”
Pain cuts through my chest. “Yeah.”
She nods and steps away to greet one of Chase’s sponsors.
Mama’s been different these past few weeks. Now that I’m not lying in bed all day, hiding from the world, she’s backed off. She checks in each morning, bright and breezy. Just being Mama, not my agent. Then she disappears into meetings and takes her calls, but there’s always fresh coffee brewed, always food in the oven by dinner. The quiet ways she tells me she cares.
Tonight’s game doesn’t count for the standings; it’s just pre-season. But it means something to the team. It’s a message to the fans: We’re ready. After winning the conference last year and making it to the playoffs, hopes are high that they’ll push all the way to the Super Bowl this time.
I’ve been watching the rookies give it their all this week in practice. Despite throwing myself into the ranch work, I’ve stillfound myself driving to Stormhawks Park in the afternoons. Watching practice by the fence. Answering the occasional question from a rookie on footwork or game prep while trying to ignore the way my stomach knots thinking of all the jobs I should be doing back at the ranch.I don’t know where I belong anymore. Not at Stormhawks Park. Not entirely at Oakwood Ranch either.
“Dylan!” Now it’s Madison who cuts through my spiral. She skips up to the glass, holding a soda can like it’s a trophy. “A man gave this to me.” She lowers her voice conspiratorially. “He said it was free.”
I look over and see Don Hubert lift his hand in greeting. Don is in his eighties and the son of Larry Hubert, who founded the Stormhawks. We’re one of the last family-owned teams left in the NFL—something that means a lot to the fans and the family. Don’s children and grandchildren now run the club day-to-day.
I nod a greeting before turning to focus on Mad. That big smile of hers is sunshine to the storm in my head. It was the same earlier when we were on the field at home, practicing her throw as she told me about her camp’s raft-building competition, talking for ten minutes straight about strategy and flotation and how her team was going to win, thanks to Grandpa Joe sneaking her extra rope and empty containers.
“Oh, they’re about to start!” she says, throwing herself into one of the wide leather seats in the front row. “What happens now?”
I drop down beside her, gesturing toward the middle of the field. “Scorchers won the toss. They’ve chosen to kick off.”
She leans forward and I talk her through the plays—coverage schemes, offensive sets, what the quarterback’s looking for—and it’s just the distraction I need as the Stormhawks take an easy lead.
Halfway through the second quarter, Izzy comes to sit on the other side of Madison. She’s in ripped jeans and a fitted V-neck tee, dark blonde hair loose down her back, and wearing minimal makeup, seeming completely oblivious to the appreciative glances she draws from every man in the box.
At least she’s not wearing those damncutoffs from yesterday. I nearly nailed my thumb to the barn wall when she bent over to grab a bale of hay and my eyes dragged to her rounded ass, dick stirring like a perv.
And suddenly I’m not thinking of the game; I’m thinking of the moment last week when I fell off Rusty, sending Izzy and Madison into hysterics. I’m thinking of how familiar it felt sitting in that saddle, even after twenty years. As natural as lacing up my cleats. The steady sway of a horse, the creak of leather, the freedom of it. The way my mood lifted.
“Hey,” Izzy says, settling into the seat. “What’s the score?”
I let Madison answer. “Stormhawks are crushing it, 17-10.” She holds out her hand to fist bump and damn if it doesn’t make me smile as I tap my knuckles gently to hers.
Izzy shoots me a look. It’s the same one she gives me anytime Mad asks me to play football. The same look I get when they’re video-calling on Madison’s grandpa’s phone and Mad shouts out as I’m walking past, wanting Izzy to pass the phone to me, always with the same opening question.Do the horses like you yet?
Always the same reply.I’m getting there.
I get it. Izzy is protective of Mad. And she wants to make sure I’m OK having her around and teaching her football. If Izzy got over that stubborn streak of hers and just asked, I’d tell her hanging out with Madison on the football field is one of the best moments of my week. But she doesn’t, and so I just nod.
Things have been… easier between us this week. There’s still moments of tension—her sharp mouth that gets under my skin. My gritted replies. But we’ve found a rhythm.
Whether our truce will hold while we’re stuck in the truck together for the three-hour drive to the rodeo auction on Monday is anyone’s guess. One of us might not make it back, especially if we get talking about the future of the ranch and what I’m gonna do—questions I’m still ignoring.
And then there are the times when Izzy isn’t laughing at my expense, when she’s calm, focused, kind. When she talks to the horses or smiles because I’ve done something right for once. In those moments, the spark between us turns into something electric and my thoughts flit to that moment in the back of The Hay Barn when I hauled her to me and kissed her like it was our last moment on earth.
I don’t know what those moments mean, if anything. But I can’t stop thinking about them. I can’t stop thinking about Izzy, either.
FIFTEEN
