“Mark,” he says quietly. “Will you walk me to the car, please?”
“Yeah,” I say instantly, heart jumping into my throat. I can feel Eric and Nick watching, but I don’t look at them.
I have no idea what he wants, and the fact that he asked me to walk him out feels like something from a parallel universe. But I tell myself I’ll think about it later and follow him.
We head down the stairs in silence and reach the ground floor. Outside, as we step onto the porch, Moon turns to me.
“I’m seeing a therapist,” he says, eyes on the ground.
I blink. “Uh…good for you.”
“Almost eight months now.” He looks up—and in the glow of the streetlamp, I see the tears in his eyes.
Something twists in my chest. No fucking way.
Did he actually go to therapy because of what I said?
“I’m sorry,” he says, blinking as a tear slips down his cheek. “For the shit I’ve put you through.”
I stare at him, stunned. My throat tightens.
He means it. I can see that he actually means it.
So I just nod, because I don’t trust my voice.
“I’m sorry,” he says again, full-on sobbing now, eyes down. “For everything. It wasn’t about you. It was about me this whole time.”
And that’s it. Whatever anger I’ve been holding onto is gone, just like that.
“It’s okay. You’re okay,” I tell him, pulling him into a hug—because shit, I’m blinking back tears too now, and he’s clinging to me in the cold night air, arms wrapped around my neck. “You’re going to be fine.”
He just sobs, his whole body shaking in my arms as I rub his back. I don’t think I’d ever see this kind of rawness from him if he weren’t completely wrecked—physically and emotionally—after everything that happened tonight. But with him like this, I finally get it. I finally get him.
The taxi’s headlights wash over us, and Moon pulls away, wiping at his face.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay over?” I ask, heart aching at how shaken he looks.
He nods, then holds out a hand like he wants a handshake. I take a step forward and pull him into another hug instead. Because whatever hate this guy used to stir in me—I don’t think I feel it anymore.
He hugs me back, mumbles a quiet thank you, and presses a quick kiss to my cheek. I barely have time to process it before he lets go and walks away.
The next time I see Sawyer Moon is almost two months later.
CHAPTER 5. SILVER AND COLD
What happens over the next two months completely changes my opinion of Sawyer Moon. After his breakdown in my arms on the porch outside Nick’s apartment, I was careful not to assume he’d changed. I was ready to be disappointed. Ready to never hear from him again—until we met next season on the field.
But in November and December, all the way up to Christmas, every headline has Moon’s name in it. Because he actually pressed charges.
There was video evidence of the whole thing. Once the Joker guy from the club got arrested, it couldn’t be kept quiet. The place was packed, and as it turned out, a lot of people had recorded what happened—me holding Moon’s limp body, shielding him from the guy who drugged him.
The footage spread fast. The fans went crazy.
So yeah, I ended up in the news too. But since I was already out, it turned into solid PR for me—Mark Woods, the unlikely hero, protecting his sworn enemy. What a guy. And after everything Moon had done to him, too.
He got all the backlash. For bullying me all those years—suddenly everyone remembered just how bad it used to be. Forbeing a hypocrite. Even for being gay and looking too feminine, at least in the eyes of the louder, straighter side of his fanbase.
For a while, no one knew if Moon was going to stay with the Dragons. But by mid-November, the team made an official statement: they supported him—both as a club and individually.
