Chapter 8
Hayes's POV
I pulled out my phone and forwarded Bobby's contact info. "This is Bobby Owens. He's my best friend and my agent. He also manages several other players." I met his eyes. "If Sienna's studio needs clients, have Bobby contact her. If Sienna asks, don't mention my name."
Understanding dawned on his face. "You want to help her without her knowing."
"I want to make sure she doesn't lose her dream because she's too stubborn." The words came out harsher than intended. "She won't accept anything from me. Fine. But Bobby's legitimate, and his players actually need custom work. It's real opportunity, not charity."
Marcus studied me, then nodded slowly. "All right."
He paused. "For what it's worth, I think you still care about her. More than you're willing to admit."
I grabbed my jacket. "What I feel doesn't matter. She made her choice six years ago."
"Did she?" Marcus asked quietly. "Or did circumstances make it for her?"
I had no answer. Didn't want to think about what it might mean if he was right.
So I left, boots in hand, trying not to remember how she'd once promised that when I made it, she'd design cleats that would make me unstoppable.
But I never expected to get those boots this way.
As I drove away from Marcus's office, memories crashed over me like waves. I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles went white, trying to breathe through the tightness in my chest.
It didn't mean anything.
But it had. It did.
And seeing her today—seeing the exhaustion carved into her face, the tremor in her hands, that fierce pride holding her together when she was clearly breaking—made everything hurt all over again.
---
Eight years ago. Late October. Oakridge Prep.
I'd been chasing Sienna Thorne for a full year.
Most girls at Oakridge threw themselves at me when I walked past. The quarterback thing, the Sterling name—it opened every door, smoothed every introduction. But Sienna? She looked right through me like I was wallpaper.
It drove me insane.
I started small. Showed up at the art building between practices. Learned her schedule. Noticed she always sketched in the same corner of the library during free periods, earbuds in, shutting out the world.
I bought her coffee once. She'd looked at it like I'd handed her a live grenade.
"I didn't ask for this."
"I know. But you take it black, right? No sugar?"
Her eyes narrowed. Suspicious. "How do you know that?"
Because I'd been watching her for a month. Because I'd memorized every detail, desperate to find an opening.
"Lucky guess," I said.
She took the coffee. Didn't thank me. But she drank it.
Small victories.
I kept showing up. Kept trying. Most days she tolerated me. Some days she actually talked—about design theory, about the difference between art and craft, about why she preferred working with leather over canvas. Her eyes lit up when she talked about shoes, about construction and form and function merging into something greater.
I didn't understand half of it. Didn't matter. She could have been talking about tax law and I'd have been fascinated.
By spring, she stopped flinching when I sat next to her. By summer, she occasionally texted me first. Nothing deep—just "the coffee shop on Fifth has better beans" or "found this vintage cobbler's manual you'd probably mock me for buying."
But it was something.
Then her grandmother died.
I heard through the Oakridge gossip chain—whispered conversations about funeral arrangements and Sienna missing a week of summer prep classes. I drove to her address that evening, prepared to be told to leave.
She walked up to her building looking hollowed out. Empty. When she saw me leaning against my car, something in her face cracked.
"Why are you here?"
"Because you shouldn't be alone."
"I told Payton I didn't want—"
"I'm not Payton."
She stared at me. Then, without warning, she walked straight into my arms and broke down completely.
I held her while she sobbed into my shirt. Didn't say anything. Just stood there in the fading light and let her fall apart.
After that, something shifted.
She started letting me in. Told me about her grandmother teaching her leatherwork as a kid. About her parents' divorce, their attempts to control her life, their constant pressure to be practical, to give up on "unrealistic dreams." About choosing her grandmother's tiny apartment over the suburban house her parents had tried to trap her in.
I told her things I'd never said out loud. About my father viewing me as an investment portfolio. About the suffocating weight of the Sterling name. About football being the only place I felt like myself instead of someone's asset.
"You get it," she said one night, sitting on the floor of her secret base—a converted storage space in her building's basement. "Everyone else sees the jersey or the name. You just see the cage."
"Yeah," I said. "I do."
Two weeks later, she texted: If you still want to try this, I'm willing.
I was at practice. Threw down my helmet mid-drill and drove straight to her place.
Kissed her in the doorway before she could change her mind.
"Took you long enough," I said against her mouth.
She laughed. Actually laughed. "You're an idiot."
"Your idiot now."
For a year and a half, that was true.
We were careful. Kept it quiet at school—her idea, not wanting the gossip or Sterling-adjacent attention. But outside Oakridge's walls, we were inseparable. I studied playbooks while she sketched designs. She iced my shoulders after brutal practices. We drove out to the abandoned lighthouse on the coast and climbed to the top just to watch the sunset turn the ocean gold.
One night, we nearly crossed the line we'd been dancing around for months. Her hands on my skin, my mouth on her throat, both of us breathing hard and wanting more.
I stopped. Pulled back even though every nerve was screaming at me to keep going.
"Not here," I said, forehead against hers. "Not like this. You deserve better than some rusty lighthouse."
"Hayes—"
"I want to do this right, Sienna. When we're both ready. When it means what it should mean."
She looked at me like I'd handed her the world. "You're serious."
"About you? Always."
We held each other while the sun set. Made promises about after graduation, after I got drafted, after she got into design school. We'd map out a future where football and fashion somehow coexisted, where distance was temporary and love was enough.
I believed it. Believed in us.
Then graduation day, she looked me in the eye and destroyed everything with a handful of sentences.
Then she walked away.
And I spent six years trying to forget the way my heart stopped beating.
---
My phone buzzed. Bobby.
Heard from Marcus. You're seriously setting me up to connect with your ex's studio?
I pulled over. Typed back: She needs the work. Your players need custom cleats. It's business.
Bullshit. This is you trying to take care of her without letting her know.
So?
Three dots. Then: So what happens when she finds out?
She won't.
Hayes—
Just call her, Bobby. Please.
A long pause. Then: You know you're going to get your heart ripped out again, right?
Already happened once. Can't hurt worse than the first time.
I didn't believe that. But I hit send anyway.