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LEGACY

FLYNN

T he Sports Network crew arrived, right on time and already lugging black cases of equipment up the walk like they were moving in.

Dad opened the front door before they could knock, wearing his game day suit like the rest of us, and that calm, polite expression that meant he was trying not to scare the media.

I stood just inside the living room, watching as a guy with a boom mic followed two camera operators into the house. The Sports Network reporter they’d sent to talk to us about wherever we landed in the draft today glanced at me and grinned.

“You ready for the big moment, Kingman?”

I smiled like I wasn’t vibrating at a subatomic level. “Born ready.”

Which was a lie. I was mostly ready to puke.

Gryff wandered in from the kitchen with a slice of pizza in one hand and a stack of paper napkins in the other, like he hadn’t even noticed our house was about to be turned into a live broadcast set .

“Hey,” he said through a bite. “You saw? Three cameras on us.”

“One for wide shots, one close on us, and a backup in case someone starts crying and they want the ratings. I hope someone cries,” Jules said, appearing beside me with actual makeup on and a cute outfit.

Dammit. My baby sister was growing up and I was going to have to prepare to beat any man who didn’t treat her right with a sharp stick. If I was even here to see her grow up.

“I brought waterproof mascara.” She batted her eyelashes at me. “I’m prepared for tears.”

Tempest came into the living room wearing my DSU football sweatshirt over her dress. “Your Aunt June’s been running around the kitchen muttering about coasters and camera angles. Is she always like this?”

“Welcome to Kingman family draft day,” I said, wrapping an arm around her waist. I needed the grounding comfort she gave me right now.

I didn’t expect to be so on edge today. It’s not like I didn’t know exactly how this day was going to go.

Get a call, get drafted, high-five, take pic in the new team gear.

Start a whole ass new life.

Tempest looked up at me, soft and warm and steady in all the ways I wasn’t. “Excited?”

“Yep,” I bluffed, because I was the confident cocky jock. Today, when my life was about to change forever, shouldn’t be any different.

But my Tempest knew me better and narrowed her eyes at me.

I sighed and leaned into her even more. She was my rock when I didn’t think I needed one. Wasn’t I supposed to be hers? “I think I’ll be okay when it’s over.”

She gave me a quick kiss. “Well, for what it’s worth... you look like someone who’s about to get picked first overall in a romance novel.”

I laughed, actually laughed, and the camera closest to us immediately swung around.

Tempest froze. “Oh my god, was that on camera?”

“Nah, we’re not rolling yet,” the camera lady said. “But I wish we would have been. I know a lot of people who would love to hear you say that, Ms. Milan.”

Tempest’s eyes went wide for a moment, but then she smiled at the woman and nodded. “I’m still getting used to the idea of being in the public eye.”

“You’re sure you’re okay with doing it today? We can strategically place you behind a whole defensive line of Kingmans if you don’t want to show your face, babe.” I smoothed a hand down her back and stared at the cluster of lights and wires now webbing across our living room.

“No, I’m sure. I’m faking it till I make it because I want to be here, with you. I’m happy for the entire world, or at least the ones who watch football, to be able to see how proud I am to be by your side. If they want to gossip about who I may or may not be, that’s up to them.”

I full well knew how much letting people see the real Tempest had cost her in the past couple of weeks. But she’d come out stronger for facing down those fears. “I’m the one proud to be by your side, my queen.”

“Good god, you two. Get a room. No one on the Sports Channel is here to film a mushy gooshy Heartmark Channel special.” Isak pretended to wretch and I flipped him the bird while kissing my girl for the whole room to see.

The living room became chaos in a Kingman kind of way.

Loud, overstuffed, full of bodies and snack plates and too many opinions on where to put the TV.

Mom had never allowed us to have one in here.

Said there should be one room in the house where football wasn’t the focus.

But all of us and the camera crew didn’t fit into the home theater room downstairs, so Dad said he’d allow it for this one occasion.

Once Hayes, Isak, and Levi got everything hooked up, the League Draft lit up on the big screen, and Dad put the volume loud enough that the commentators’ voices tangled with the laughter, the teasing, and it all felt surreal. Familiar and foreign all at once.

This was our house. Our team. Our family.

And it was all about to change while the whole world was watching.

I planted myself in the corner of the room like a linebacker on fourth down, trying not to show just how nervous I actually was.

I’d never been good at sitting still, and this?

This wasn’t sitting still. This was sitting in a pressure cooker with every eye in the country waiting to see where I’d land.

Gryff sat next to me, calm as hell with his long legs stretched out and a plate of wings in his lap like this was just another Saturday. The only tell was the way he kept licking his lips, eyes flicking between the screen and his phone, like he was expecting it to vibrate at any second.

“You ready for this?” I asked under my breath .

He gave me that slow side-smile of his. “I was nominated for the Heisman, bro. I was born for this.”

Cocky bastard.

I was proud of him. Of all of us. But it didn’t stop the knot in my gut from twisting tighter with every second the clock ticked down. The Mustangs hadn’t called. Not yet. They still could.

The Bandits were supposed to pick at sixteen. But they’d traded up to twelve. The pick was in, but they hadn’t announced it yet.

Then Gryff’s phone rang. He waggled his eyebrows at me and answered. Whoever was on the other end of the line said something, then Gryff smiled, and said, “Yep. Let’s do it.”

The Sports Network’s coverage cut to the stage. The commissioner stepped up to the mic, flanked by two wide-eyed kids in custom jerseys. My entire family leaned forward like one collective beast.

“With the twelfth pick in the 2025 League Draft, the LA Bandits select... Gryffin Kingman. Safety. Denver State University.”

The room exploded.

Screams, cheers, hands everywhere. Jules jumped on the couch, sobbing and laughing through it all. Aunt June hugged Dad so tight I thought his ribs would crack. Our agent, Mac Jerry, let out a sharp whistle and clapped Gryff on the back as the cameras on TV cut to our living room feed.

And me?

I clapped. I smiled. I hugged my brother.

But inside, I felt like I was falling .

I wasn’t jealous. That wasn’t it. Gryff deserved it, he’d worked harder than anyone I knew, played smarter than half the League already.

But everything was so fucking for real right now. Our lives were changing. In huge, enormous ways. Ways I thought I was prepared for. But inside I was a god damn wreck. What if I had to leave my whole family behind?

What if I didn’t want to?

What if I wasn’t okay without them?

What if they weren’t okay without me?

This family was my everything, and only once in my whole life had we ever been broken up. And we were not okay after that. How could we have been?

“Flynn,” he said, gripping the back of my neck. “They’re gonna come for you next. I feel it.”

I nodded, pretended to be excited.

The TV screen flickered. I heard someone shout, “Trade alert. Mustangs just traded up. They’re picking number sixteen.”

Every eye in the house turned to me. With a trade like that, right after Gryff just got drafted to LA, were the Mustangs making a play for me?

My stomach flipped.

There were three more picks before them, but none were teams who’d expressed more than a passing interest in me.

The Kansas City Chefs, the New England Rebels, and Miami.

I did have a call with the Hammerheads, but no one had pressed like the Bandits and the Mustangs.

I was seventy-five percent sure I was going to either one.

The Chefs picked a quarterback out of Texas, and the Rebels grabbed a running back from Bay State University. Miami was up next, and then the Mustangs.

Then my phone buzzed.

Everything stopped. Not in the room—in me. I looked down. Unknown number. Area code... 213.

California.

Not Colorado.

I stood up, heart slamming.

Tempest was suddenly beside me, eyes wide. “Flynn?”

I answered, barely breathing. “Hello?”

“Flynn Kingman?” a familiar voice said. “Coach Reid with the LA Bandits. We’re on the clock here and want you in black and silver. Are you in?”

My mouth was dry, my whole being was dry. My fucking soul was dry.

“Sir,” I said, my voice just this side of cracking, “you said you’re on the clock soon, but the Mustangs traded up to pick after the Sharks.”

I could feel everyone staring at me, but my vision was going dark around the edges and all I could do was stare at Tempest, her pretty pink lips, her soft brown skin, the warm eyes I could get lost in.

Someone or several someone’s in the room gasped and I heard some Kingman voice say, “Trade alert.”

Coach Reid chuckled. “We just traded with the Sharks to move up. Word is, Coach Shenanigan was circling, but we’re not giving him the chance.”

The world blurred.

“We’re about to make you a Bandit, son.”

My knees gave out and I dropped back into the chair.

The TV thundered with the commissioner’s voice. “ With the fifteenth pick in this year’s League Draft, the LA Bandits select... Flynn Kingman. Defensive lineman. Denver State University.”