Page 56 of Shots & Echoes

Chris saw it. I knew he did. And that smug little smirk twisting at the edge of his mouth made me want to wipe it clean off his face.

“Better be careful, coach.” His voice was light, but the words dripped with something darker. “You seem a little territorial over your players.”

Then he turned, walking off like he hadn’t just set something off inside me that I couldn’t turn back down.

I stood there, fists still balled so tight my knuckles ached, my pulse pounding in my ears, my body thrumming with something volatile. Like a live wire sparking, seconds away from burning everything down.

I waited until he disappeared around the corner before I forced myself toward my car, every step heavy, slow, like I was walking on cracked ice.

By the time I slid into the driver’s seat, the leather was too cold, too stiff, too fucking suffocating. But I didn’t turn the ignition. I just sat there. Hands gripping the steering wheel so hard my fingers went numb.

Breathe.

But I couldn’t.

Because Chris’s words wouldn’t stop replaying in my head.

Did she need me?

What if she didn’t?

What if she saw me for what I was—a disaster waiting to happen? A mistake she hadn’t fully made yet?

I shook my head violently, trying to dislodge the thoughts digging their claws into me.

No fucking way.

Iris was mine to push. To challenge. To protect.

Nobody else had that right.

But even as I told myself that, something ugly twisted inside me. A creeping, insidious doubt that I couldn’t shove down fast enough.

A chill ran up my spine. My pulse hammered—not just from adrenaline, not just from rage, but something deeper.

Something I didn’t want to name.

I stared out into the empty parking lot, shadows shifting under the harsh fluorescent lights.

Why the hell had Chris been there?

Why did it bother me this much?

Why did it feel like something was slipping through my fingers before I even had the chance to fucking hold it?

My hands clenched around the wheel again, knuckles stark white against the black leather, anger surging back up to choke out the doubt.

But no amount of rage could silence the one thing still lingering beneath it all.

Fear.

Not of losing control.

Not of what I might do if I let myself have her.

But of what might happen if I didn’t.

I leaned back in the driver’s seat, the weight of everything pressing down on me like a goddamn avalanche. My pulse thudded hard, steady, insistent. A brutal rhythm hammering into my skull, reminding me of what I’d done.

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