Fuck them. My muscles tensed, and I was ready.
Fourth-and-one.
The call came in, and there was no doubt what it meant. We needed a yard. They knew it. We knew it.
I lined up, eyes locked on the defender across from me. He smirked like he thought this was his moment. I set my feet and waited for the snap.
When it came, I exploded forward.
I hit him low and hard, driving through his hips, hands locked inside. He tried to shed me, grabbing cloth, clawing for leverage, but I kept moving, kept pushing until his feet slipped and he went down on his back.
The pile surged forward.
First down.
The clock bled out after that. Kneel-downs. Whistle. Noise.
I stood there for a second after it ended, hands on my hips, chest heaving. Sweat dripped off my chin and onto the turf, my body humming with exhaustion and something like relief.
Quinn sprinted over, shouting, arms wide. Jordan followed, laughing, slapping helmets. Oliver caught my eye from across the field and nodded once, approval clear.
I jogged off with the rest of the line, legs heavy, head clear.
The anger was still there. The worry too. But it hadn’t owned me.
I’d used it. And as I headed toward the locker room, already reaching for my phone in my mind, I knew exactly who I was going to text first.
25
EM
Holy shit.
Noah played like a beast. I couldn’t take my eyes off him the entire game. He played furiously and brilliantly. My face warmed, thinking about our text exchange and the fact he’d come home tonight. Yeah, his other weird text asking us to stay inside bothered me, but he’d explain later. It had to do with his parents, that was my guess, but that didn’t take away the pride and attraction I had watching him be a beast on the field.
“My dude is stacked,” Daniel leaned back on the couch, grinning as he pointed at the TV. “I cannot believe I’m in his apartment. Unreal.”
“You’ve been here all day,” I rolled my eyes at my brother, even though I was smiling. He’d spent at least an hour doing a full lap of the place earlier—opening cabinets, commenting on the fridge, staring at framed photos like they were museum pieces. Miles thought it was hilarious and immediately decided Daniel was his new favorite person.
Daniel and Miles had been inseparable since the moment Daniel walked in. They built a pillow fort that somehow tookover half the living room, played an aggressively competitive game of Go Fish, and then migrated to the floor to watch the game, sprawled out like they owned the place. Daniel narrated plays with dramatic flair while Miles repeated the words “pocket” and “block” like they were magic spells.
When the final whistle blew, Miles cheered even though he didn’t fully understand why, then promptly passed out sideways against Daniel’s leg. Daniel froze in place like moving might break a spell. “Do I… breathe?” he whispered.
“You’re stuck,” I told him quietly. “Congratulations.”
Once Miles was settled on the couch with Sassy tucked against his feet, the apartment shifted into a quieter rhythm. The game highlights replayed on mute while Daniel and I moved to the table, my laptop already open, tabs multiplying faster than my ability to keep track of them. The adrenaline from the game hadn’t worn off yet, and neither had the buzz of panic sitting under it.
“I’m not gonna sugarcoat this,” Daniel said, pulling the laptop closer and scanning the numbers. “This is a lot. Like… a lot a lot.”
“I know,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “I’m trying not to freak out, but I’m also very much freaking out.”
He started doing math out loud, tapping numbers into his phone, scribbling notes on the back of an envelope. “Okay, so even if we lowball your margins and assume materials and labor eat more than they should, you’re still netting—” He paused, looked up at me, then back down. “Em. This is real money.”
My stomach flipped. “How real?”
“Real enough that Dad’s ‘get a real job’ speech officially doesn’t apply,” he said flatly. “Real enough that you need to stop thinking like this is a side thing and start thinking infrastructure and long term.”
I let that sink in, my fingers curling around my mug. Infrastructure sounded big. Scary. Permanent.
