CHAPTER 1
GRIFFIN
“Excuse you.”A woman’s shrill voice chirps as she smacks into me.
I turn to see her teetering on heels and hardly clothed. She rolls her eyes as she pushes past me with her tiny dog in tow. “Are you in or out? Make a choice, darling, and make it quick.”
“With you? Out. Definitely out,” I grumble.
“You should be so lucky.” She cuts her eyes at me, but the white and tan puffball in her arms wags his tail.
Poor dog, stuck with that nightmare.
I reach out to pat the pup on the head when the woman flips her hair and struts toward the crosswalk with her phone already pressed to her ear. The little Pomeranian’s leash dangles loosely from her manicured fingers.
I shake my head. I used to own this damn town. I was royalty around here... How could I not have been?
I played three seasons as a first-round draft pick with the Southern Knights before I was traded to Nevada. Now I’m standing outside Bluemoon Coffee Shop, staring up at the familiar purple awning and wondering when everything went so spectacularly wrong.
My knee throbs. It’s been throbbing since I got off the plane. It’s that familiar deep ache that never quite goes away no matter how many pills I pop or how much ice I use. I shift my weight to my good leg and catch my reflection in the coffee shop window.
I barely recognize the guy staring back at me. Dark circles under his eyes. Jaw tight with tension he can’t shake. He looks tired. He looks old. He looks like a guy who peaked at twenty-five and has been sliding downhill ever since.
Magnolia Landing, the little town right outside of Charleston that I’ve found myself in, hasn’t changed. The palmetto trees still sway in the salt-kissed breeze. Tourists still clog up Main Street with their shopping bags full of handmade art and their skin blistered with sunburns. The air still smells like jasmine and possibility.
It isn’t different here, but I sure as hell am. The man who walked out of this city had the world at his feet. The man walking back in is a cautionary tale with a busted knee and an empty bank account.
A sharp yap pulls me from my thoughts.
The woman’s Pomeranian has spotted a seagull pecking at something across the street. In an instant, the dog lunges. The leash slips right through the woman’s fingers as she gestures dramatically into her phone.
“Sebastian! Sebastian, no!”
But Sebastian isn’t listening. Sebastian is halfway to the damn curb, and there’s a delivery truck backing out of the alley. The driver checks his side mirror, but is completely blind to the ten pounds of pure stupidity darting into his path.
I don’t think. My body just moves.
My knee screams white-hot and vicious as I push off and lunge for the dog. I reach him just in time to scoop the furry little monster against my chest and stumble backward. My bad legbuckles as I hit the sidewalk hard. The truck rumbles past, close enough that I feel the exhaust warm against my arm.
Sebastian licks my face like I’m covered in bacon grease.
“Oh my God.” The woman totters over, heels clicking against concrete. She snatches the dog from my arms and clutches it to her chest, checking it over for damage. “Sebastian, baby, are you okay?”
I’m still on the ground. My knee is on fire. I’m pretty sure I scraped my palm on the sidewalk. The woman looks down at me. For a split second I think she might actually say thank you.
“You should be more careful,” she sniffs. “You almost scared him to death.” She turns and walks away without another word.
I sit there for a moment with my hand braced against the warm concrete, waiting for the fire in my knee to die down to its usual dull roar. A couple of tourists give me a wide berth. I don’t blame them. They probably think I’m drunk or insane... or both. I can confirm that the first isn’t true, but the jury’s still out on the second.
I haul myself up and test my weight on the knee. It holds, but just barely. This is what I have to work with. This is what I have to rebuild into something worth a damn.
My ACL didn’t just tear. It shredded. The damn thing took my meniscus along for the ride like some kind of anatomical murder-suicide. The team doctors used words like “career-threatening” and “significant structural damage.” Meanwhile, I lay on that operating table, staring into the white, fluorescent lights, and wondering if this was how it all ended for me.
I’ve never been worried about being taken out. Everyone knows a career in football isn’t for life. But I always imagined when I did go, I’d leave in a blaze of glory. Maybe with a Super Bowl ring on my hand and a tearful retirement speech. Hell, before I met Jess I thought maybe I’d even go out like TravisKelce on the arm of a billionaire pop star and with a whole new media career just out ahead of me.
But I never thought it’d end with a sickening pop and a stretcher.
In the NFL, there aren’t any second chances. But I must be the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet because Coach Andrews gave me one. The league said I was finished, but he swooped in with a one-year prove-yourself rehab contract that brought me back to where it all started.
