Page 18 of Dream Chaser (The New York Knights Players Club #4)

Post

Griffon

I should be sleeping. Or reveling. Or panicking.

But I’m just … lying here. Arms behind my head, eyes on the ceiling like it’s got answers. It doesn’t. Just that weird stucco pattern.

I should be thinking with my dick right now. I should be trying to get her to stay, maybe make some stupid joke about round two or breakfast in bed. That’s what I do. That’s who I’ve always been.

But something has been cracking open over the past few months. Maybe it’s because all I ever dreamed has been realized, and then I see how much more there is. Hell, I have suddenly become attracted to pregnant women. I’ve never wanted kids, not after I lost …

I pause and remind myself, Do not go there.

My grandparents are the best people you could know. They did everything humanly possible for a kid who got dumped on them. I am loved, I love them, but I see how it can be now. Bigger, louder, and I want that … eventually.

She may not want to admit it—hell, I didn’t until just recently—but tonight?

It’s been a long time coming. From our first standoff in the merch supply closet when I started here, there was a crackle, a spark, and it wouldn’t have stopped until this happened.

Not gonna lie, I’m curious as fuck to see if it’s still there after what just went down.

My suspicions, perhaps even a fear, is that tonight just fanned the flames.

She flipped a switch in me I didn’t even know I had—the one that makes you want to ask someone to stay, not just for the night, but maybe the morning …

and maybe the day after that. Dangerous territory.

Heartland. Which is funny, considering she just stormed in here with the same fire she stormed into my life with, burned herself into my sheets, and now looks like she’s trying to put herself back together without breaking in front of me.

She pushes up on her elbows, the blanket she’d pulled over herself slipping a bit, providing me with a nip shot. Yeah, Iz’s tits are fucking epic.

“I should go back,” she says quietly, but it hits me like a slap.

I sit up, rubbing the back of my neck. “Yeah, I get it.”

She turns, almost surprised I didn’t push back. Hell, I surprised myself.

“I’ll walk you.”

She raises a brow. “Afraid I’ll get lost?”

“Nah,” I mutter, pulling on my sweats. “Just afraid you’ll run into your dad.”

That earns me a snort. But she doesn’t argue when I step behind her and help slide her old man flannel shorts on, which are oddly sexy as fuck. I allow my fingers to ghost over her hips like I’m committing them to memory.

She pulls on her top, and I can feel the shift—her spine straightening, chin lifting. But when I hand her the bra she ditched halfway across the room, she blushes.

Blushes.

Fucking hell, this woman.

I toss on a hoodie, grab my key card, and hold the door open for her. She steps out, glancing left, toward the room where her parents are.

I take her hand. “We’re going right.”

“But my room’s?—”

“Still is. We’re taking the scenic route, remember?”

She rolls her eyes but follows.

I angle my body so if any doors swing open, especially one with Jake Ross on the other side, she’s covered. We make a loop around the sixteenth floor, her steps getting slower, mine more reluctant as we continue on. At the final corner, I stop.

“Last turn,” I say.

She looks up at me, eyes soft. Vulnerable. Still glowing with what we just did. What we are now, even if neither of us knows exactly what that is.

I reach into my pocket, pull out the second key card, and press it into her hand. “I’m not asking to interrupt your life, Iz,” I say, voice low. “Just your night. Whenever you want.”

She doesn’t come back with the fact we’re heading back to Blue Valley tomorrow. She gets that it’s symbolic.

She closes her fingers around the card, turns, and walks away. And that? Wasn’t a no.

On the way back to my room, I spot a woman—heels in hand, makeup smeared, and hair tousled—sneaking out of a teammate’s room.

She barely makes eye contact as she disappears around the corner.

My jaw tightens. I don’t say a word until I pass the door she exited and see Nicks leaning against the frame like nothing’s wrong.

“The fuck, man?” I say, low and sharp. “You’ve got a wife. Kids. And she deserves better. They deserve better.”

He shrugs like it’s no big deal. “You know this lifestyle, Skinner. It’s just part of it. Don’t act like you’re some saint. You’ve got a trail of girls, and the whole league knows you’re one of the biggest players on the fucking field.”

I step closer, voice cold. “I’m single. And when I’m not? I won’t cheat. I won’t disrespect the woman I’ve told I love her, made her a mother, the one who made me a father. So don’t lump me in with you, man. You made vows. I didn’t.”

He scoffs and disappears back into his room.

Yeah. Thought so.

I push down the anger simmering in my chest and keep walking.

Every bit of that anger simmers when I walk into my room. I stand just inside, the silence creeping in, heavy and thick. The bed’s a mess—comforter ruffled, pillows halfway to the floor, and an obvious reminder of what we did painted across the mattress. I should shower. I should care. But I don’t.

I strip down and slide back into the bed like I’ve got no shame. Because I don’t.

The smell of her is still all over me, like that first bite of summer: peach-sweet with something wild underneath. Her skin was soft, but her taste was fire, and now it’s on my tongue, in my head, stuck in the way my body still buzzes.

I sink into the mattress and let the scent of sex, sweat, and her shampoo cloud my thoughts. It’s intoxicating. Warm vanilla. A hint of citrus. My own body still pulsing in the aftershocks, her breath echoing in my ears.

I fall asleep like that—boneless, fucked-out, wrapped in the ghost of her.

My phone buzzes against the nightstand, rattling like a damn alarm clock in a steel drum.

I crack an eye open and grab it as I roll onto my back and groan when I read the message.

Lucas Links: Conference Room C, 9:00 a.m. Mandatory team meeting.

I check the time. 8:42 .

Fuck me.

I peel myself out of bed, muscles tight in the best way, and do a quick rinse in the shower—cold enough to wake me up, not enough to erase her from my skin, not until I know we’re going to go another round.

After brushing my teeth and running a brush through my hair, I toss on a hoodie and joggers then head down the hall.

We file into the conference room, where Lucas stands up front with Ava beside him, arms crossed, face hard.

Lucas clears his throat. “Morning. I’ll get right to it. The league won’t budge.”

A quiet groan runs through the room.

“No replay. No review. No do-over. They’re calling it final.”

I mutter, “Bullshit.”

Lucas nods. “Yeah, we agree. They’re offering us a bone. If we don’t engage—if the team doesn’t stoke the flames of the fan backlash—they’ll waive all the fines. Every single one. That includes players, coaches, owners, and sideline staff.”

Ava steps forward. “It’s damage control, plain and simple. The league wants this to go away. But if anyone on this team fans the fire, they’ll hammer us with every penalty they can. And we know damn well they’ll make sure the Knights are at the bottom of every call next season.”

The room goes quiet; everyone is fucking pissed.

Ava throws a pile of papers on the table. “I’m fucking livid. We just got a championship game stolen from us, ripped the fuck away, and these pieces of shit think we should keep quiet?”

“Ava.” Lucas grips her shoulder.

“They can go fuck themselves,” she hisses.

“You told them that.” He chuckles then turns to us.

“Clearly, they’re hell-bent on fucking us over.

Paid off or not, Philly played dirty; that’s kind of their thing.

It isn’t the entire league. Most owners and teams love this sport, this game, like we do, not the shit we dealt with in Vegas or last night.

We know it’s a hard ask to tell you to trust that we’re working on this, so please, all of you—even you, Ava—lock it down. No comment, all that shit.”

“Just know, we’re working on this, just had to take a break when, uh …” Logan shakes his head.

Ave throws her hands in the air. “I do hope their wives find men with bigger dicks. I will never apologize for that.” She narrows her eyes. “Never.”

Lucas rubs his temples. “We’re aware.” He looks us each in the eye, one by one. “Our call was disconnected.”

“AKA, needle dicks disconnected the call when I was—” Ava stops and lifts a shoulder and a brow.

“Telling them your dick was bigger than theirs, and they could choke on it.” Logan bites back a laugh.

“That was”—Lucas runs his hand through his hair—“unfortunate.”

I glance over at her husband, Luke Lane, who is sitting with his elbows on his knees, Knights ball cap pulled low, not saying a damn word.

Smart man. He knows when to let Ava go off and when to step in. This wasn’t one of those times.

Ava pulls in a breath, like she’s trying to rein it in, and Lucas uses the moment to redirect.

“We’re gonna move forward like pros—eyes ahead. We’ve got press requests coming, and your agents will be looped in. You’ll be given statements. Say those and nothing more. Not a syllable. Understood?”

Some nod. Some shrug. A few still too mad to respond.

Then Bricks, whose sporting sunglasses, speaks up. “So we just bend over and take it?”

Lucas sighs, jaw clenched. “No. But we bide our time. We stay united. We let the tape and our silence speak for us. Because when this blows up again, and it will, we’re not gonna be the ones standing in the shitstorm.

” He scans the room. “Let the league show their cards. Ours? We hold close to the chest.”

The room stays tense. Everyone’s wound tight, and not one of us has truly let that game go. But this … this is strategy. And strategy wins wars.

Yeah, we all feel it. That tight ball of injustice simmering just below the surface.

But this is the league. Their rules. Their game. And we either play it smart … or get played.

I trust that there’s more going on in the background and we’ll know when we need to know.

Someone clears their throat, and trays of food are finally rolled in.

Lucas nods toward the food. “Eat, and then we’re gonna take off, beat the next storm. In flight, we’ll be sending messages for your exit meetings. We’re going to try to get through them as quickly as we can so you can all get to it.”

Distraction: bacon, eggs, steak, fried potatoes, fruit, and black coffee.

I make my way to the back of the line, but not before Lucas stops me with a hand on my shoulder.

“I heard about last night,” he says low. “Thanks for saying something.”

I nod once. “You ever gonna bench him for shit like that?”

Lucas replies, “Not shit we can do about infidelity, but no one was to bring guests to the room. One more strike, and his contract won’t see preseason.”

I don’t say anything. I just grab a plate and start stacking it with enough protein to rebuild a muscle group.

Hunt sidles up beside me, leans in. “You good, man?”

“Yeah.”

He studies me. “You look like you didn’t sleep.”

I smirk. “I slept fine.”

His eyes narrow, and then he laughs, low and knowing. “Izzy, huh?”

I don’t confirm or deny. Hunt won’t say shit; he’s one of the best guys I know, and also the only other single man from our LU days.

I pop a piece of bacon in my mouth.

But that doesn’t mean my head isn’t a goddamn mess, and I may have to talk through my fucking feels at some point. Oz will be my guy.

After breakfast, I take my time heading back up to the room to grab my bag. Everyone else is moving fast, tossing bags onto the bus, stretching like they’re pretending this travel day is just another Sunday. I linger.

I’m not stalling … Okay, I am. I’m stalling hard.

Dragging my feet in case I spot her. Just a glimpse.

Izzy in the hall, in the elevator, grabbing coffee with the girls—anything. But the hallway’s empty. The elevator’s slow. The lobby? Quiet.

And when I finally board the bus, there’s no Izzy.

I slide into my usual seat, scanning the rows. Nothing. No Mags. No Lexi. No London. No Harper. No Syd. Riley and Lo are here, obviously because she wouldn’t leave Kolby when we was hurting, and Ry wouldn’t leave Lo.

I keep my cool. At least, I think I do.

Until I hear Bricks behind me.

“They took an earlier flight,” he says, like it’s nothing. “Left at the ass crack of dawn.”

That shouldn’t piss me off, but it does.

No note. No text … I mean, I don’t have her digits, so can I be pissed that she didn’t text? I mean, she probably has all of ours, so …

The fuck is wrong with me?

I lean my head back against the seat and close my eyes.

As we get to the airport, I’ve figured it out. I need another round with Izzy Ross, just to make sure … to see if I feel this fucked up after round two.