Too emotional to lead? Maybe.
But at least I’d never be accused of not feeling the game down to my bones.
The locker room was dead quiet—just the hiss of the showers, the slow drip of water, and the sound of my heartbeat pounding behind my eyes.
I sat hunched over on the bench, towel over my head, jersey clinging damp against my back. My knuckles were still sore from when I’d slammed the tunnel wall on the way out. The sting was grounding. The silence wasn’t.
We’d lost. 1–0.
Because of me.
No one said it out loud, but they didn’t have to. The tension was thick enough to taste. Boots scraped against tile. A few of the guys muttered to each other under their breath—half pity, half frustration. I didn’t blame them.
I’d lost it again.
The door opened, and the low murmur died instantly.
Coach Lawson stepped in—calm, steady, that trademark look that could freeze you where you sat. He didn’t yell. Never did. Never had to. The air in the room just… shifted.
He walked straight to me. Slow. Controlled. The kind of quiet fury that made every player on this team sit a little straighter.
“You just cost us the match and the next two,” he said, voice even, almost too calm.
I pulled the towel off my head, met his eyes. “He tripped me. It was a foul.”
“And you tripped yourself into a suspension,” he shot back, not missing a beat.
That one landed. Hard.
The room stayed silent. No one breathed too loud. Lawson didn’t move, just stood there, arms crossed, the lines around his eyes cutting sharper under the fluorescent lights. He wasn’t angry—he was disappointed. Which, somehow, was worse.
Before I could come up with something to say—something to dig myself out—the door opened again.
Cameron Hunter, our PR director, swept in like a storm in khakis even in fucking February, and a clipboard. His tie was crooked, his phone in one hand, expression tight in that “please don’t make my job harder” kind of way.
And behind him came Marina Torres, our team’s media manager, coffee in one hand, iPad in the other. She didn’t even look tired—just mildly entertained, which made it worse.
“Beckett,” she said, voice sugar-sweet with an edge. “You’re trending again. Congratulations.”
I snorted. “Awesome. Add it to my résumé.”
She smirked. “No. Add this instead: community outreach.”
I blinked. “Come again?”
“You’re being assigned to partner with a local youth foundation,” she said, scrolling on her tablet. “Effective immediately. Think of it as…reputation rehabilitation.”
I laughed—a short, sharp sound that didn’t reach my eyes. “You want me to play babysitter?”
Marina didn’t even flinch. “No. We want people to stop calling you a ticking time bomb.”
A few of the guys coughed into their towels, hiding smiles. I didn’t blame them—it was a solid line.
Coach Lawson finally spoke again, voice low, steady as steel. “You’ll report Monday morning. Smile, shake hands, do what they tell you. That’s not a request—it’s an order.”
I stared at him. “So what? I kick a ball with a bunch of kids until the league forgets I exist?”
Lawson’s gaze didn’t waver. “You’ve got two options, Mason. You can keep fighting every battle like it’s personal, or you can learn how to lead again. Personally, I’d like the second one.”
