Page 92 of The Longest Shot
Each pass strips away another layer.
Scrape.
A chunk of prehistoric tape finally surrenders with a satisfyingripthat sends endorphins straight to my brain's reward center.
While I work, Martinez gets started on the now-primed walls, painting with the steady precision of someone whose dad would make him redo the whole wall for one drip. Kellerman reorganizes the equipment closet while having what sounds like an existential crisis about alphabetical versus categorical systems.
Three hours evaporate.
By the time I stand up, my knees have transcended pain into a new state of being. But the floor's actually clean, revealing concrete that hasn't breathed since the Cold War. The walls glow hospital-white. Schmidt's racks stand at attention. Leo's lights provide actual illumination instead of disco death strobes.
The others are looking at me for further guidance, nobody still having spoken a word. The old Rook whispers sweet stupidity in my ear:Paint your names on the wall or put a photo on Instagram, because then she'll know who was here and what you did. She'll forgive you. She'll?—
No.
I squash the thought before it metastasizes. We file out like pallbearers at our own funeral. I kill the lights and pull the door closed with all the ceremony of taking out trash. Outside, we dissolve into darkness without ceremony.
No group hug.
No speeches.
No jokes.
We just scatter like we were never here, leaving behind our only testimony.
A room that sucks slightly less than it did before.
The cold air flash-freezes my sweat-soaked shirt, but walking across campus, I feel something fundamental shift. That desperate need to fill every silence, to make every moment a show, is quieter now. Because, for once, I did something nobody will see.
Something that was just… necessary and kind.
And right.
thirty-four
MORGAN
I hate this feeling.
As I walk toward the locker room, I hate that I can’t maintain the clean, surgical anger that’s kept me functional for so long. I hate that somewhere between watching James on that stage and Mills’s interrogation during my masochistic dawn-run, my fury has curdled into something infinitely messier.
Because here’s what I've been trying to ignore: for weeks before the gala and before I'd run out on him at the library, I’d cataloged James’s evolution.
The way he’d started timing drills with an actual stopwatch instead of turning practice into his personal comedy special. His quiet corrections with Kellerman, with no audience, no punchline, just genuine mentorship. The focus in his eyes when he’d helped me with gear. The effort he'd put into studying.
He was becoming the man I'd hoped he'd be so many years ago.
And then we fucked, and I ran like my ass was on fire.
The memory ofthatnight in the library ambushes me with all the subtlety of a freight train. Those massive goalie hands that could span my entire waist like he was palming a basketball. Theway he’d groaned “Morgan” against my neck while his cock filled me so completely I forgot my name.
I can still feel him moving inside me, each thrust deliberate and deep enough to reorganize my internal organs. The stretch of him, thick and perfect. My thighs clench involuntarily at the memory, and I have to pause mid-stride to get my shit together.
Get a grip, Riley. You’re in public, not writing erotic-friend-fiction.
My response to all that terrifying vulnerability had been radio silence so complete that SETI could’ve used me to listen for aliens. Texts that were deleted so thoroughly that the NSA couldn't find a trace of them. Strategic avoidance with the precision of someone navigating a minefield.
A fortress of ice that would make Elsa look emotionally available.
