CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Stella
The gym tonight isn’t just loud.
It’s alive.
A living current runs under the floorboards, vibrating up through my soles, coiling around my calves like a second heartbeat. Bass throbs through the speakers—low, relentless, sinking into my bones. Sneakers shriek against polished wood. Volleyballs detonate off open palms with wet, cracking slaps. Overhead lights burn white-hot, bleaching every edge razor-sharp, turning sweat into liquid diamonds on skin.
The stands are jammed. Overflowing.
Every seat claimed, every breath collective.
This crowd doesn’t watch volleyball.
It devours it.
I step onto the court and the atmosphere shifts—thicker, hotter, pressing against my ribs like a hand.
Game night.
Home floor.
This one matters.
I roll my shoulders, feel the jersey tug damp against the small of my back. My bubble braid whips once against my spine, navy ribbon snapping like a tiny flag of surrender I refuse to wave.
I flick my gaze upward—casual, practiced—and find him instantly.
Front row.
My father.
He doesn’t sit; he occupies. Tailored even in casual, shoulders broad enough to block out lesser men, dark hair swept back with silver at the temples like deliberate accent lighting. Power radiates off him the way heat rolls off asphalt in summer.
His eyes lock on mine.
The pride that floods his face is so raw, so unguarded, it almost hurts to hold. Like I’m not just his daughter—I’m proof of something he helped forge.
My spine lengthens without permission. Chest lifts.
For him. For the version of me I clawed into existence.
“Cortez! Lock in.”
“I’m locked, Coach.”
Mostly.
Because beneath the focus, there’s another awareness.
Heavy.
Insistent.
A pressure at the nape of my neck like someone’s thumb is tracing slow, deliberate circles there.
I don’t look for him.
