CHAPTER 1

CHLOE

“Right there… don’t move. Does this hurt?”

“Ahhh”

“And this?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s really bad, like”

“Mason.” She pressed two fingers along the lateral line of his knee, watching his face instead of his leg. His face was doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. “You’re lying to me.”

“It’s just… ohhh.. your hands, Miss Winter, they’re so”

“You little shit.” She sat back on her heels. The grass was wet and now her knees were wet and she could feel the cold soaking through to skin. “Nothing’s wrong with you. I can see nothing’s wrong with you. If you’re fine, which you are, stay down another ten seconds. No sudden movements. Then walk it off.”

“But what if”

“Ten. Seconds. Mason.”

She left him on the field doing his best impression of a man who’d been shot and walked back to the coaching bench, peeling off her gloves. They were new when she’d taken this gig “temporarily.” Eight months ago. Nine.

“He alive?” Harper didn’t look up from her clipboard. She was doing that thing—pretending not to care, voice flat, coach-mode, but her pen had stopped moving.

“Jury’s still out. I say let him run a few more laps, see if something actually breaks.”

“Chloe..”

“The kid’s fine. Little asshole wanted me to..” She waved it off. “He’s fine.”

Harper made a sound, half laugh, and went back to her notes. On the field Mason was already up, jogging, miraculous recovery, praise the Lord and the healing power of a woman’s hands on a seventeen-year-old’s knee.

Between the bleachers, on the wrong side of the parent section, a man was walking. Not watching the game. Writing something in a notebook. An actual notebook, with an actual pen, no phone, no tablet. Chloe noticed him the way she noticed anything out of place automatically, without deciding to.

“Who’s that guy?”

“Where?” Harper squinted at nothing. “I don’t know. Watch the game.”

“Just... He’s weird.”

“Everyone’s weird. Sheldon’s favoring his right again like he’s planning to... oh for the love of…” Harper was already up, moving toward the sideline, trying to get something across she must’ve forgotten at practice.

The game ended the way their games usually ended. Win, though the margin was tight. Harper’s boys were good this year—not because they were talented, though some of them were, but because she coached them like she was training soldiers for a war that mattered to absolutely nobody except her. And them. And maybe Chloe, on the sideline, watching bodies do what bodies do when they’re young and careless and haven’t yet learned that everything breaks eventually.

The herd of them, grass-stained, loud, smelling like teenagers smell—Chloe had long stopped noticing.

“How’s the leg, Reggie?”

The big kid, six-two already at sixteen, quiet in that way large quiet people are—shifted his weight. “Getting better I think. Doesn’t hurt as much.”

“Good. But don’t push it. Let me tape you up, keep the pressure off that tendon while it settles.” She was already reaching for the kit. “Ice tonight, twenty on, twenty off, twenty on. You skip it and I’ll know. I always know. Deal?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Don’t call me ma’am. Good game, Reggie.”

“Miss Winter.” Mason materialized beside her, face arranged into something he probably thought looked like pain. “My back. It’s hurting again. From the collision. Maybe you should…”

“Sweetie, I’m writing you a referral for an X-ray. No X-ray, no practice. Rules, my boy.”

The boys cracked up. Someone shoved Mason. He grinned, unbothered, seventeen and indestructible and completely unaware that she’d just made sure someone would actually check his spine because he’d been hit harder than he was admitting, the idiot, the beautiful reckless idiot. Chloe was smiling at Harper, who was handing out fist bumps along with her post-game notes. Not a speech, Harper didn’t do speeches. Short, sharp observations thrown at individual players while she still remembered. “Sheldon, your right side. Whatever that is, we’re fixing it this week. Demarco, better. Way better. Keep your head up on the cross. Mason…” She pointed at him without looking. “Stop getting hit.”

Chloe watched her. Forty-one years old, five-nine without shoes, shoulders that could carry a refrigerator up a staircase. At home, Matthew, eleven, in his wheelchair, probably watching something on his iPad right now, probably fine, probably exactly where the sitter left him. Harper never talked about it as a tragedy. It just was. Her kid, her life, her schedule built around therapy appointments and school pickups and game days where she couldn’t be in two places but somehow always was.

The notebook man appeared beside Chloe like he’d been waiting for exactly this moment—and she realized he probably had.

He introduced himself. A card. A handshake that was practiced but not slimy. NBA, he said. He was a scout. Not for players—for people like her. ATCs, physical therapists, the invisible infrastructure that keeps the product on the court.

“Come on.” Chloe almost laughed. “My grandfather is the head physician for the LA Wilds. You’re seriously headhunting me? I’ve spent my whole life trying not to be Quincy Winter’s granddaughter. You know?”

A real pause. Not a sales pause. “You think your grandfather sent me?”

“Didn’t he?”

“No ma’am. I watch a lot of ATCs. At a lot of levels. I also know about your hospital work. You left that position in a... let’s say, unusual way. That’s a concern. But your evaluations before that were excellent, and what I saw today confirms you know what you’re doing.” He straightened his notebook. “We’re short-staffed for tomorrow’s game. We need someone.”

“So you’re from the Wilds.”

He looked at her like she’d asked whether the sky was up. “Is there another NBA team in this city?”

She almost said something. Didn’t.

“I’ll expect your call by noon tomorrow, Miss Winter. Chloe Winter.” He said her full name in a way that made her feel—she felt, at least, like she was being seen as Chloe. Not just another Winter.

In the staff room, half-changed, Harper’s grubby pink bag on the bench.

“Chloe. LA Wilds. That’s the dream. You have to at least try. You know they’ve got that guy—the one with the eyes. We’ve got a poster at home. In Matthew’s room. Obviously. Not mine.” She laughed. “Although I would…”

“I don’t want to work under my grandfather.”

Harper was pulling off her coaching jacket, and there it was—the crown. Plastic. Gold spray-paint. Some school carnival leftover that had lived on the top shelf of Harper’s locker for god knows how long.

“Chloe.” Harper put the crown on her head. Adjusted it. Tilted her chin up. “You’re not going to get stuck here. Like me.” She said it like a queen issuing a pardon, standing there in her sports bra and coaching shorts with abs that could crack walnuts, this woman who’d given birth and raised a child alone and built a program from nothing and never once… Not once asked anyone to feel sorry for her.

“You look insane,” Chloe said.

“Because I’m... insane?” Harper was hopping, yanking at her jeans, trying to get her ass into them.

She really was though. Chloe was absolutely sure of that.

The house had lights on when she pulled up—Quincy was home. She’d been living with him almost nine months now. Before that she’d lived alone. Before that she’d lived with Hank. They’d been together since freshman year. Literally years of her life, her whole adult formation, and then “sorry” and twelve weeks later he married some big-assed brunette with a horse face— ugh— and Chloe learned what it was like to want to not exist, just so you could stop feeling this shit, whatever it was. It hit all at once.

Her Tesla Model Y glided into the driveway, quiet.

“Thanks baby,” she murmured, stepping out. “Love you.”

She looked around. Nobody heard.

She liked that he was home. Liked that someone was there. She didn’t walk around naked and she didn’t bring men over, though Quincy said he wouldn’t mind. The men part. He worried about her. She knew it because he never said it.

She opened the front door and tried to read his face immediately. Was he expecting her to mention the Wilds? Did he know?

“You eat anything? How was the game?”

“Yeah. We’re unstoppable as usual.”

He didn’t know.

“Brought ribs. Smoked. The place on Figueroa—drove past and it smelled so good I couldn’t…”

“Grandpa. On the scale of things that’ll kill you, smoked beef ribs are basically leading the charts.” She was already chewing one as she said it. “Mmm. Spicy.”

“Your mom call?”

“Hm? Yeah.” Chloe didn’t realize how hungry she was. Sauce on her face.

Bed. The house quiet, Quincy asleep down the hall, his TV still on. She turned her phone brightness all the way down, the screen a dim rectangle in the dark.

She opened Instagram. Typed LA WILDS.

Wonder who Harper wouldn’t mind having on her bedroom wall, she thought, scrolling through the roster, smiling. They were like all athletes at this level—not quite people. The ceiling of what a human body could become. The absolute limit. The edge.

She knew nothing about basketball. Zero. Well, the basics—same as she knew about soccer, though she hid that at work. She knew muscles, ligaments, bones—how they broke, how they lied about breaking, how they lied about not breaking. She’d grown up watching Quincy sometimes on TV in the background of a game—the man in the polo shirt jogging onto the court when someone went down, though later they started sending younger ones. She knew what he did. She just never wanted to do it. Because doing it meant becoming him, and becoming him meant choosing his path instead of finding her own, and—

But that was before. Before she learned what it was like when getting out of bed required effort. And now this stranger with his notebook was offering her the thing she’d been refusing her whole life, and it didn’t feel like surrender. It felt like.

Something.

“You’ve lost your mind, Chloe Winter.” She whispered it to the ceiling. “This is what people your age dream about, and you’re treating it like okay. Maybe it’s worth a try.”

She always did this. Shamed herself into action. Cheap trick, but it worked. Made her feel noble and decisive, instead of what she actually was, which was terrified.

11:30 PM. She typed to the number on the card: Ok, I’ll try!

The reply came fast. Faster than she expected from a man who wrote in notebooks.

Excellent. I’ll need you here no later than 4 PM. Tip-off is 7:30. Regular season, Cleveland—Eastern Conference leaders visiting. We’ll need to process your credentials, I’ll send a document list. Find me when you arrive. Or find Mr. Quincy.

Ok! See you tomorrow.. sorry, I didn’t think you’d still be up, sorry if I bothered you.

See you tomorrow Miss Winter! Glad you said yes.

She stared at the screen. Thought: what if grandpa really had nothing to do with this. Thought: what if he did. Thought: how much does it actually matter, without all that crap about repeating his destiny. Closed her eyes and dreamed dreams she wouldn’t remember.

He was already in his jacket when she came downstairs, moving like a man with somewhere to be.

“You’re in a rush?”

“Game tonight.”

“Who are you playing?”

He looked at her over his coffee. “Since when do you care about that?”

“Just asking.” She smiled. A weird smile and she knew it, but she couldn’t help it. He didn’t know. It was funny, holding this.

“Alright.” He put his plate in the sink. “Gotta run. Love you, sunshine. Everything okay at school? How’s Harper?”

“Everything’s fine, grandpa. See you later.”

“Tonight?”

Chloe didn’t answer. Didn’t want to lie. Kissed him on the cheek.

She watched him leave. He moved slower than he used to. She noticed that too. Filed it. Said nothing about that either.

Upstairs, at the vanity in her room—the room that was supposed to be temporary nine months ago—Chloe put on her makeup. Minimal. Less than minimal. Her version of makeup was a process of erasure—every time she added color to that pale face, it looked like too much, so she’d learned to make herself even. Unremarkable. The goal wasn’t to look good. The goal was to look like nothing was happening on her face at all. She’d gotten very skilled at this. At making herself easy to miss, no matter where she was going—work, or— well, she’d mostly stopped going anywhere else. She considered this a strategy. Fewer problems.

She left early because rain. It had started around noon, the kind of LA rain that makes the whole city forget how to drive but somehow decide to go somewhere anyway, and if there was one thing Chloe Winter had never been in her entire life, it was late. Punctual since birth. Possibly before.

And still she got stuck. Of course. The 110 at a dead crawl, wipers going, and right there—right there at eye level from her stopped car—a screen. Massive. Three stories of digital display cycling through promos for tonight’s game.

His face.

Dark skin and those eyes. Those— What color even was that. She looked at her steering wheel. Looked back at the screen. Tesla blue. His eyes were the exact color of her car. A weird thing to notice. Weirder not to, she thought. “Okay, so— a basketball player who thinks he’s a pop star. That’s how he looks... cooler? What kind of contacts even—” The next frame showed him full-length, mid-jump, the ball up, the Wilds logo behind him, hair cropped short, clean, while everyone else in the promo had hairstyles. She didn’t catch the name. Didn’t try. Behind her, someone honked. Traffic had moved. She hadn’t.

“Ok. Ok. Shit.”

The Wilds’ home arena was already buzzing at 3:30 when she pulled into the staff lot. Pre-game energy—she could feel it through the concrete, through the walls, a low hum of something about to happen. She found Philip—that was his name, Philip—who processed her credentials with the efficiency of a man who did this in his sleep. Lanyard. Badge. Photo she hated. ATC CHLOE WINTER with the Wilds logo next to her name, and just like that, plastic and a clip, she was someone else.

The training room smelled like menthol and athletic tape and something underneath, something chemical and clean. A guy younger than her—twenty-seven maybe—was checking kits, labeling things, moving with the focused calm of someone who belonged here.

“Juan.”

“Chloe.”

He looked at her badge, then at her face. “Wait. Winter. You’re Doc’s daughter…”

“Yeah. Granddaughter.”

She wanted to add something—but that’s not why I’m here—but that would’ve been a strange thing to justify, so she let it sit.

“Your granddad’s a legend. Remember when he shut down Austin? Told him he needed surgery, pulled him from practice, Austin lost his shit—and then thanked him later because he would’ve blown out his whole career over some bullshit macho— Quincy’s one tough old bastard.” He stopped. “Sorry.”

“You’re fine.”

Juan laughed. “Alright. You’ve got about ninety minutes, then I’ll introduce you to the rest of the physio staff—there’s eight of us, plus a lot of the guys have their own personal people—I’ll show you where everything is. Philip said you don’t need training, so I’ll just walk you through. During the game you’ll sit next to me, there’s three of us courtside usually. Your grandpa’s up in his box in the stands, he rarely comes down.”

“I’m gonna go tell Quincy first. So he doesn’t, like. Have a cardiac event.” Chloe said it slightly embarrassed—she didn’t feel like explaining to Juan how her grandfather didn’t know she was here.

“He doesn’t know you’re here?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Alright. Cool.” Juan shook his phone. “Got you saved.”

“I saw. Write me letters.”

She found Quincy’s office down a corridor she’d been in before, but so long ago. The door was half open. She could hear his voice, steady, the doctor voice, the one she’d grown up hearing through walls and phone calls and closed doors.

She walked in.

Adam was standing with his back to her. Shirtless. Towel draped over his head. Game shorts. The muscles across his back did something she wasn’t going to describe because she was a professional and also thirty years old and also not about to…

He was the very first player she’d seen today, and it hit her for a second that she was of course a professional and this wasn’t hard for her but this was— how to put it— not Mason.

“Everything looks fine, nothing to worry about. I just wanted to make sure before— oh, Chloe?! What are you doing here?!”

Quincy. Surprised. Actually surprised. So he really didn’t know.

The guy turned around.

Oh god. Oh— goddamn.

She thought it and killed it in the same instant. Even in the dim light of Quincy’s office, even in this room that smelled like iodine and old books, those eyes. Not contacts. She knew what contacts looked like over dark irises and this wasn’t that. This was like glass. This was— No. Stop it. He was taller than Quincy by a head and a half, and Quincy wasn’t short, and Quincy was taller than her by almost a head, which meant this person existed on a scale she wasn’t built to process standing three feet from his bare chest. Chloe would have stood there god knows how long, drowning in these calculations.

“Hey!” he said. Smiling. The smile of a man who was used to being looked at and had decided to be generous about it. Go ahead. Look. I know.

Chloe turned to her grandfather.

“Grandpa, sorry to barge in. But I’m here today as your—”

“You might want to say hi to Adam first. He did say hello to you.”

Adam’s face shifted. A flicker. Was he— enjoying this? Her awkwardness, which she, a grown woman of twenty-nine and a half, was for some reason experiencing toward this guy who was clearly younger than her, whose eyes made her look up at him even from two meters away. She didn’t smile back. Just her lips twitching for a second, nervous. She looked at him, as calmly as she could possibly attempt, and looked away—before her cheeks could catch fire.

“Sorry. Hi, Adam.” Quick. Flat. Not looking at him anymore. Back to Quincy. “So, I didn’t want to tell you, I wanted to see if you already knew. I wanted to make sure this wasn’t your doing—”

Adam stood there, arms crossed over his chest, amused—she could feel it—that she’d burst in without knocking and was rattling on, this small person, trying to hold herself together. He tilted his head and listened. This didn’t happen to him. Someone choosing not to look, when they could.

“Your granddaughter’s our new athletic trainer, Doc?” He was asking Quincy but looking at Chloe, waiting to catch her eye if she looked at him again. If she dared.

“I’m— also a licensed physical therapist. I worked at a clinic.” She looked again. Tilted her head up. Braced herself for it. I’m a goddamn professional. “Shit, am I— bragging? What was that.” She cursed herself for the clumsy phrasing, dropped her gaze. “Anyway, I don’t know if I’m staying.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Quincy leaned back. “If they invited you and you said yes— that’s a decision. You didn’t just drop by. I imagine they’ll ask me eventually, but I’m going to ask Juan. Understood?”

“Yes, grandpa. No problem.”

“Alright Doc, catch you later!” Adam pulled on a maroon hoodie—no logo, no print. He glanced at Chloe as he passed, and the smile was gone. “I’ll be rooting for you, Chloe Winter.” The words were wrapped in something—sarcasm, maybe, or what he wanted to sound like sarcasm—but something in his face, Chloe was sure of it, was just wrapping, not what he was trying to say. Something caught, involuntarily, on this unfamiliar reaction to his absolute.

“Adam, go on, get out of here. And send Rui in.”

He was almost in the hallway when she said it. She hadn’t meant to. It came out.

“Adam’s eyes— are those contacts?” A whisper, to her grandfather.

Adam answered without turning around, and there was something in his voice—not anger, no, something thinner, something tired.

“No, those aren’t contacts. Chloe.”

He said her name after a pause. Her cheeks burned, a ridiculous flush of shame—how the hell did he hear that? Or did he just guess I’d ask... no… too confident for a guess.

He’d remembered her name.

And there’s this thing, this ticklish thing, when someone says your name like that. Maybe it matters who’s saying it. But Chloe wasn’t even thinking about that. Just awkward. And... strange? Was it the timbre of his voice that made it resonate like that?

“Chloe, asking about Adam’s eyes isn’t exactly original. Did you really never hear about the whole contacts myth the press blew up, and then debunked? It was everywhere.” A beat. “And since you don’t follow celebrity culture— if you do end up staying here. Be careful, sweetheart.”

“I have no idea who he is. Sorry. Is that a problem?”

Quincy looked at her. A long look. Not disappointed. Something else.

“No. If Philip took you, it’s not a problem. I was honestly relieved when you turned me down—back when I asked you myself. Honestly. But now... I guess this is how it was supposed to go. Just understand, these guys... they live a completely different life, even if they seem like regular kids. You shouldn’t, how do I put this—” Chloe was listening to him, smiling. Grandpa was always so awkward when he tried to say something like... this. Hadn’t learned with Chloe’s mom, and wasn’t learning now with Chloe either. Couldn’t formulate the simple thing.

“Doc, sorry to bother, can I?” A dark-skinned face, East Asian features, leaning through the half-open door. Rui.

“See, sweetheart. That’s how you enter someone’s office. Yes Rui, come in. How’s the ankle?”

“Adam just said you were in here... with a girl.”

“Ha. This is my new athletic trainer. And physical therapist, actually.” He turned to Chloe. “Go on then. Take a look at his ankle. Tell us what you think.”

“No problem.” And Chloe thought, after she said it, that she could’ve put her hands on this kid’s body without blinking. Not a trace of awkwardness. Nothing.

Quincy turned to her for a second.

“Actually, I’ll handle this one myself. Game’s soon. We’ll talk after, Chloe.”

She walked back through the corridor toward the training room. Toward Juan, toward the team, where someone was already setting up post-game recovery gear. The building hummed, filling with eighteen thousand people’s worth of celebration, who’d come to watch men she hadn’t met yet do things she didn’t yet understand.

The PA system hit like a wall. Music with bass that felt like it could shake your organs loose. Starting fives, breathing. The game started. Juan, as play went on, narrated what could happen and where to look—when to jump up, when to sit tight. First quarter was clean, one-point gap. Then the second. Chloe didn’t relax during the halftime entertainment, some goofy contest. Third quarter. Something was building in the air, something pressurized, and Chloe couldn’t tell where it was coming from but she could feel it on her skin. She knew for certain it wasn’t her own nerves. Something that had nothing to do with her. She looked at Adam and understood clearly—he was tense in a way that wasn’t concentration. Not the way an athlete locks in. She could feel his— something. Rage? Not just see the faint traces on his face. She looked at the rest of the bench beside her. Nobody else seemed to notice. Normal commentary, cheering when a shot landed.

A second later, a guy with a red mess of hair fouled Adam — ugly, hard, nearly took him off his feet. A vicious smile. Adam straightened and then they were forehead to forehead, the redhead throwing an elbow, Adam dodging, hitting back, Rui flying in, players from both benches on their feet, someone huge from the other team pulling Adam down with another guy, trying to drag him by the arms, Adam shoving him, the guy falling and taking out a couple of thick men in black, punches, security outnumbering players now but the mess had already started, more than a dozen tall muscular bodies crashing together, some trying to separate, some trying to—

A few seconds ago everything had been fun?

Juan smiled at Chloe. “Great first day. Stay put for now, or you’ll get flattened.” He was clearly trying not to show his own panic, shouting something into his phone, names Chloe didn’t know yet.

And Chloe was trying to see what was happening in the center of that chaos, but in her chest, in her head— there was no fear. There was clean, healthy anger and a strange, inexplicable calm.