[Axel’s POV]
My jump shot is fucked.
Three days of the ball clanging off the rim. Coach Bennett keeps giving me the look—the one that says he's mentally calculating my trade value.
The problem isn't my form. The problem is every time I line up, I see Selene pushing past me in that hallway. Chocolate cake in her hands, gold balloons tied to her wrist.
I see her face when she came back out—not crying, which was worse. Just blank. Erased.
I knew what Cassian was doing. We all knew.
Mateo and I tried to stop her. Made up excuses about free throw percentages, and she walked right past us anyway.
The ball hits the rim again, and I want to throw something through a window.
"You planning to make a shot today, or is this performance art?" Mateo materializes beside me with two Gatorades.
His curls are stuck to his forehead, and he's got that look that means he's thinking too hard about things he can't fix.
"Fuck off."
"Noted." He tosses me a bottle anyway. "You've been off since Tuesday."
Tuesday. The day Selene walked in with a homemade cake and walked out with her life in pieces.
I don't say anything, just drink the Gatorade like it might drown the image.
I've respected Selene for two years. Not polite professional respect—real respect. The kind you give someone who actually sees you.
Two years ago, I was having "adjustment issues." What they meant was: Axel Nielsen doesn't play well with others. Standard rich-kid-from-Reykjavik assumptions. Cold fish. Dead eyes.
Selene called me into her office and didn't ask me to explain myself. She just sat there in silence until I was ready to talk.
No one had ever done that before.
I told her about my father. The endless comparisons to my older brother. The way nothing I did was ever quite good enough. She listened like my words mattered.
When I finished, she said, "You don't have to be your brother. You just have to be the best version of you. The one you want to be."
I laughed. Actual laughter.
Last year, Mateo had his own shit—family drama, money problems. I found him in the locker room at two a.m., just sitting there. I did what Selene taught me: I sat with him. Didn't talk. Just existed next to him until he was ready.
Since then, there’s been a silent (mostly, from my part) camaraderie between us that I don’t know how to name.
Especially because, and I don’t need him to say it outloud, because I’m not blind, Dr. Marlowe is… something more important to us than just team therapist.
The lingering looks, touches, the constant seeking of her company, whenever it’s possible and appropriate. I never push, I don’t try to take Cash’s space. But I’m also not going anywhere.
So yeah. I'm furious at Cassian. But I'm also furious at myself for not doing more.
For not grabbing Selene's arm and telling her the truth right there in the hallway, consequences be damned.
Practice ends. I'm in the shower trying to scrub off three days of guilt when Mateo appears at my locker. Already dressed, spinning his keys around one finger, "Let's go."
"Go where?"
"You know where."
I do know. We both know.
It's the kind of unspoken understanding that happens when you've shared hotel rooms and late-night conversations and the particular brand of loathing reserved for teammates who treat women like collectible accessories.
Fifteen minutes later, we find Cassian in the weight room doing bicep curls in front of the mirror. Alone. Admiring himself like he's auditioning for a cologne commercial.
He sees us in the reflection and doesn't even pause his reps. "If you're here to lecture me about Selene, save it. She's just being dramatic."
Mateo reaches him first. I watch his shoulders go rigid—the same way they did last year when his brother called asking for money he didn't have. Controlled. Dangerous.
"Dramatic," Mateo repeats, like he's testing the word for poison. "That's what you're going with?"
Cassian sets down the weight with exaggerated care. Turns around. Smiles that franchise-player smile that's sold a million jerseys and zero authentic human connections.
"Look, I get it. You both have this weird thing with her. But Selene knew what she was signing up for. I'm the face of this team. That comes with perks."
Something in my brain snaps. I cross the distance between us and slam him against the lockers hard enough to rattle the metal. His head cracks back, and for one beautiful second, I see actual fear in his eyes.
"Say her name again," I tell him, my voice coming out flat and arctic. "I fucking dare you."
"Jesus, Axel—"
"Her name. Say it."
Cassian's smile falters. Good. I want it to falter. I want it to shatter like that cake on the bathroom floor.
Mateo steps up beside me, and when he speaks, his voice is cold in a way I've only heard once before—the night he told his brother to lose his number.
"Your problem, Cash, is you think everyone plays your game. You think we're all keeping score the same way, with the same rules. But some of us actually give a shit about people who aren't ourselves."
"Touching." Cassian tries for sarcasm, but his voice cracks. "You two done? I have a workout to finish."
I lean in close enough to smell his overpriced cologne. "If you come near her again, if you text her, if you so much as think about her in a way I don't like… I will make it my personal mission to ruin every single thing you care about. Starting with your face, pretty boy."
I let him go then and he staggers, catches himself, tries to resurrect the smirk. It doesn't quite work. There's something unsettled in his eyes now, something that knows he just crossed a line even his star status can't erase.
We leave him there. Don't look back.
Our usual bar is called The Seventh Circle, which is either ironic or accurate depending on the night. We claim our corner booth, and Sasha brings whiskey without being asked.
"So that happened," Mateo says.
"It did."
"Feel better?"
"No." I down half the whiskey in one swallow. "Should've done it three days ago."
"We tried to stop her from seeing it… That's something."
"It's not enough."
Mateo's quiet for a long moment, swirling his glass. Then: "She resigned."
The words hit like a punch. I set down my drink carefully, because if I don't, I might throw it. "What?"
"Sent the email three days ago. Effective immediately. She's done with the Ravens."
Of course she is. Why would she stay in a place that chose Cassian's ego over her humanity? I think about her texts—the ones I sent and she ignored.
The apology that felt pathetically inadequate even as I typed it.
"We should do something," Mateo says suddenly.
"Like what?"
"Something real. Before she leaves. Something that says... I don't know. That we actually gave a shit. That not everyone here is Cassian fucking Drummond."
He's right. This is what we do—Mateo has the ideas, the wild creative impulses that sound insane until they work. I have the follow-through, the stubborn refusal to quit until the thing is done.
"What did you have in mind?"
His grin is pure chaos. "I know a guy who can get fairy lights on short notice."
I clink my glass against his. "Let's do it."
We spend the next hour planning. My jump shot's still fucked. But for the first time in three days, I feel like I'm aiming at the right target.