Chapter 2
Beckett
Lakefront Stadium felt like a furnace trapped inside an icebox—late February in Michigan, when the air bit your lungs but the turf radiated heat from the floodlights. Fans packed the stands shoulder to shoulder, bundled in scarves and Storm blue, chanting until their voices cracked. My name rolled through the air like thunder.
We were down 1–0 in stoppage time. Ninety-three minutes gone. One goal away from saving the match—or sinking it.
My body hummed with adrenaline, every nerve sharp and restless. This was supposed to be redemption. After everything—the headlines, the suspension rumors, the stupid media sound bites about me being “too emotional to lead”—this was supposed to be the night I shut them all up.
The ball found my feet, and instinct took over. I cut between two defenders, fast and low, hearing nothing but my pulse pounding in my ears. One more. Just one more. I felt the third player coming in from the side, predictable as always. I feinted left, slipped right—and then got hit hard in the shin.
My leg buckled. I hit the turf, pain jolting up to my knee. The cold seared the scrape on my palm as I pushed up, breath coming in sharp bursts. It was a clear foul. Obvious. I could feel the contact still echoing through my bones.
But the whistle never came.
I turned toward the ref, disbelief flooding my chest. “Are you kidding me?”
Nothing. He was already jogging away, signaling play on like I’d just tripped over air.
Rage flared so hot I barely registered it before I was moving. “You saw that! He clipped me—he took me out!” I shouted, storming toward him. My voice cracked, raw with fury. The ref didn’t even flinch.
Hands grabbed at my arms—Caleb pulling me back, someone else muttering, “Becks, don’t—don’t make it worse.”
But I was past the point of no return.
The ref’s hand went to his pocket.
The red card flashed under the lights.
For a second, the world went still.
A straight red?
For arguing with a bullshit call?
What. The. Actual. Fuck?
I expected a yellow card, but this?
This was shit.
I didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. I just reached down, yanked off my captain’s armband, and threw it on the turf. It landed beside the white line, a sharp slap against the frozen grass.
The stadium gasped. Then the noise came back all at once—boos, shouts, a few stubborn voices still chanting my name.
I turned toward the tunnel, every step heavy, my heartbeat thundering in my ears. My breath came in short bursts that fogged in the cold air.
It wasn’t just about the call. It never was.
It was about the last few months—the headlines, the constant speculation, the whisper that maybe the Storm needed a calmer captain. I’d tried to keep it together, to bottle it up, to play the part of the controlled leader. But control felt like a chain around my throat, and tonight, it finally snapped.
As the tunnel swallowed me, the crowd noise faded to a dull roar. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. My hands were shaking—not from the cold, but from the fire still burning in my chest.
I slammed my fist against the concrete wall, pain blooming through my knuckles. The echo bounced back at me, hollow and sharp.
They’d call it a meltdown. Another “Beckett Mason temper moment.” Another nail in the coffin of my reputation.
But standing there, sweat and fury mixing in the February chill, I didn’t feel shame. Just that raw, gnawing ache of someone who cared too damn much.
