Page 221 of Hard Pass

“Good.”

“You approve of my emotional growth right now?”

“Immensely,” she says and kisses me again.

“You really going to go back to GIA after all this?”

She looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “After all the work you did to get my job back?” Her brows lift. “I can love you and still do my job, Valor.” She bats playfully at my chest. “I’m absolutely going back.”

I laugh quietly. “There’s my girl.”

“No,” she says and grins. “That’s your investigator.”

And somehow, that sounds even better.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Dublin

The stadium is deafening.

The crowd roars, echoing in the walls of the suite. Music pounds through the speakers between plays. The energy in the building feels electric and unstable. I’ve no doubt one spark could send the whole place into chaos.

It’s fucking incredible.

This win will clinch a berth in the playoffs. Something the Lone Star Rebels’ owner promised the NFL they’d do by the end of its second year if they got the expansion team.

It’s the second year and they’re on the cusp of doing what some thought was impossible.

And despite the fact that there are roughly seventy thousand people in this stadium, their stomping and yelling a constant vibration in my chest, all I can see is Cole.

Not the scoreboard.

Not the commentators on the television overhead dissecting every throw.

Not the occasional flashes of his face on the massive jumbotron at the far end of the stadium.

Just him. Number eleven. Standing on the line of scrimmage, hands on his hips, while the offense resets.

Willa nudges me with her elbow. “If you stare any longer, Dub, you’ll burn a hole through the poor guy.”

I glance her way and roll my eyes. “I’m watching the game.”

Malachi snorts from behind us. “Such bullshit.”

Jaxon laughs into his beer. “So that’s why you get up on your tiptoes and look at him on the sidelines when the defense is marching down the field?”

“Jaxon’s just telling it as it is, Buggie,” my dad says. Of course, my mom laughs at that. Cole Valor’s newest and most dedicated fans on and off the field.

“Sorry, Dublin,” Brian says as he wraps his arm around Willa’s shoulder and grins. “You haven’t blinked since kickoff.”

I raise both hands and lift my middle fingers to them with a saccharine-sweet smile.

They all laugh but honestly, they’re right. I’m not telling them though. The only person I want to watch on the field is Cole.

I can hear the commentators droning on and on via the television in the back of the suite. Playoff scenarios and redemption arcs. How remarkable Cole has recovered from a scandal that had nearly derailed his season.

I barely hear any of it because I’m busy watching his hands. When he adjusts his gloves. When he flexes his fingers. Every time pressure builds before a snap.