Chapter 15
Sienna's POV
The name blazed across the screen in massive letters, but I didn't need it. Would've known that face in my sleep, in a crowd of thousands, in the dark.
As he jogged onto the field, the camera panned down.
And there, on his feet, were the shoes I'd made.
The shoes I'd made for Marcus's client, though I hadn't known it was him at the time.
My hands pressed against the glass, fingers splaying like I could somehow reach through it and understand what I was seeing. The camera switched to other players—#87, the wide receiver. #34, the running back. Each one wearing cleats that matched the precise specifications I'd built.
Hayes's cleats. His teammates' cleats.
The supplier "upgrade." The high budget. Bobby's clinical focus on performance metrics.
It had all been Hayes.
He'd orchestrated everything—the contract, the materials, probably even Bobby himself was his arrangement. He'd wrapped it in corporate anonymity and let me believe I was just another contractor when all along...
Why?
Why would he do this? After six years of silence, six years of me vanishing from his life like I'd never mattered—why would he hand me a lifeline disguised as a business transaction?
I'd told myself Hayes had moved on. Built an empire, built a career, built a life that had no room for the girl who'd broken his heart in a high school parking lot.
But these shoes—my shoes, on his feet—said something different.
The ref's whistle blew. Hayes took his position behind center, and I couldn't look away. Every movement was burned into my memory from years ago, but sharper now, more refined. Professional.
He called the play. Took the snap. Dropped back three steps—
And I was back in Oakridge's practice field, holding a stopwatch while Hayes ran passing drills. "Time me," he'd say. "Your count is better than Coach's. You always know exactly when I'm about to release."
I'd laughed at him then. "Maybe I just know you."
"Yeah." He'd pulled me close, grass-stained and sweating. "Maybe you do."
The memory hit like a physical blow. I pressed my hand over my mouth, trying to breathe through the sudden tightness in my throat.
On the field, Hayes completed a fifteen-yard pass to his tight end. The crowd erupted.
---
End of Quarter 1: Sentinels 7, Visitors 3
I forced myself to focus on the game itself. But every time the camera found Hayes, my carefully maintained composure cracked a little more.
Second Quarter, 12 minutes remaining.
Hayes took a brutal hit from a defensive end, his body slamming into the turf hard enough that the crowd gasped. I was on my feet before I realized I'd moved, hands pressed against the glass, watching him lie motionless for three heartbeats that felt like hours.
Then he rolled over and pushed to his feet, waving off the medical staff.
I sagged back into my seat, legs shaking. One of the sponsors glanced at me curiously, but I couldn't bring myself to care what he thought.
Get up, I'd prayed. Please get up.
Like I had any right to that prayer. Like I hadn't forfeited the right to worry about Hayes Sterling the day I deleted his number and put a continent between us.
Halftime: Sentinels 17, Visitors 13
The teams retreated to their locker rooms. I used the break to splash cold water on my face in the box's private bathroom, staring at my reflection and trying to process.
Bobby had known. Obviously. Had probably been taking orders from Hayes this whole time. And Hayes—
What was his endgame here? Charity? Revenge? Some twisted combination of both?
I wanted to be angry. Wanted to feel manipulated, used, tricked into accepting help from the man I'd spent six years avoiding.
But all I felt was the ghost of his arms around me on a high school football field, and the crushing weight of wondering if I'd made the biggest mistake of my life.
---
Fourth Quarter, 2 minutes remaining: Sentinels 29, Visitors 26
The Sentinels had the ball on their own 35-yard line. One timeout left. The crowd was so loud I could feel it in my bones.
Hayes lined up under center. I watched him scan the defense, watched his lips move as he called an audible. The tension in the stadium was unbearable.
The ball snapped. Hayes dropped back, and immediately two defenders broke through the line. He sidestepped the first—a move that put massive torque on his ankles, but the cleats held—and ducked under the second.
Then he was running. Not dropping back anymore but moving forward, carrying the ball himself, threading between defenders like he could see three seconds into the future.
Twenty yards. Thirty. A linebacker hit him from the side, but Hayes kept his feet—those cleats digging into turf, finding purchase where a lesser athlete would've gone down.
Forty yards.
A safety closed in. Hayes shifted his weight, cut right, and the defender missed by inches.
Fifty yards. The end zone was fifteen yards away.
He wasn't going to make it. Two defenders converged from opposite sides, physics itself conspiring to stop him.
But Hayes lowered his shoulder and drove forward. The first defender hit him high, spinning him sideways. The second wrapped up his legs. He was falling—
But his momentum carried him forward. He stretched the ball out as far as his arm would reach, his body horizontal to the ground, grass and bodies and blue-silver uniforms all blurring together—
And he crossed the goal line.
Touchdown.
The stadium exploded. Tens of thousands screaming at once, the sound so loud it was almost painful. On the field, teammates mobbed Hayes, pulling him up, pounding his helmet, celebrating like they'd just won the Super Bowl instead of a regular season game.
And I didn't even realize tears were welling in my eyes. I pressed my palms against the glass, watching Hayes finally get free of his teammates, watching him pull off his helmet—
And the jumbotron caught his face. That bone-deep exhaustion, that animal triumph, that split second of vulnerability before the professional mask went back up.
I saw the boy I'd loved in that face. The one who'd held me after my grandmother's funeral and promised me I'd never be alone. The one who'd sketched plays on napkins over diner coffee and asked me if I thought he was good enough for Division I.
Someone who'd put my cleats on his feet and carried them into the end zone like they were made of something holy.
Hayes.
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think past the certainty crashing over me like those stadium lights—cold and bright and impossible to ignore.
I'd never forgotten him.