Page 28 of Game Changer

A text comes through from my agent.

I’m working on some options for the start of the season. We’re keeping it discreet like you asked.

I exhale hard.

Never thought of myself as someone who keeps secrets. But lately, I leave out a lot more than I say. Even with Jay, the guy who’s the closest thing I have to a best friend.

These guys are my team, but they don’t get what I’ve been through.

They don’t know what it’s like to stare down the barrel of your career, your future, and know how close you came to it all being over.

The smallest misstep and itwillbe over.

This Kodiaks team will be better than last year. Top eight in the West, maybe top six if Rookie delivers and my body holds up to the grind of the season.

But there’s a big difference between sixth in the West and first in the league.

If I want to make it to the top of the mountain, I might not have a lot of years to do it.

A group of women walk by, sneaking looks at us and giggling.

They’re objectively attractive, but I can’t bring myself to care.

It’s been two days since I left the number on Nova’s hand.

I haven’t heard a sound from her. Forty-eight hours of practice and life and not a damned peep.

The way she looked at me in the bathroom of that plane, like she fucking saw me, was addictive.

Maybe I misread.

The fact that most women in this town would let me buy them a drink—and a healthy number of those would wait in the bathroom with open legs—doesn’t soothe my ego.

They’re not her.

Forget it. What were you going to do with Harlan’s sister-in-law anyway?

As if on command, my phone buzzes.

Unknown number: Hey, it’s Nova. I hope this is the right number, or I’m going to feel like an idiot.

Her pretty face in my mind wipes away my tortured thoughts.

I type back.

Clay: Who are you looking for?

Unknown number: Tall. Grumpy. Writes on people with permanent marker.

I reach for a water in the center of the table and down it.

Clay: Doesn’t sound like me.

Miles cracks up at something Jay said. Atlas’s shoulders rock so hard the table shakes.

Unknown number: I want my tattoo.

They’re only words, but they send a surge of adrenaline through me.

---