Tate’s POV
The warmth from the Valdez apartment clings to me like a second skin as I walk through my own front door. It lasts approximately ninety seconds.
The hallway is dim—my mother's doing, probably, because Victoria Mercer prefers ambient lighting that flatters her bone structure even when no one's watching. I'm halfway to the stairs when I see Ezra.
He's pressed against the wall near father’s study, shoulders curved inward, his cheek an angry red that hasn't had time to fade. His eyes are down, fixed on the marble floor.
My father stands three feet away, adjusting his cufflinks with the calm precision of a man who just disciplined a dog and is already moving on to the next item on his agenda.
"What happened?" The words leave my mouth before I fully process the scene, but my body is already moving—stepping between them, positioning myself in front of Ezra like a wall. "What did you do to him?"
"Your brother knocked a glass of water onto my desk. Onto documents I spent three hours preparing for tomorrow's committee briefing."
Governor Mercer doesn't raise his voice. He never needs to—his tone carries the quiet authority of a man who's learned that volume is for amateurs and silence is where real power lives.
"A small correction for carelessness, nothing dramatic. Don't make it into something it isn't, Tate."
"A small correction." I look at Ezra's cheek. "He accidentally spilled water and you hit him? That's your version of proportional response?"
"I'd watch your tone, young man." My father's eyes settle on me with the same flat calculation he uses on political opponents. "And while we're discussing proportional responses, I've been meaning to address your recent... escapades. The girl, the one from the south side."
The warmth in my chest freezes solid.
"I've heard the name, Tate. Valdez. A scholarship student with a father in prison and brothers who run with street gangs."
He says it the way he'd describe a pest infestation—clinical, faintly disgusted, already strategizing removal.
"I've allowed you your freedom until high school graduation. Football games, parties, the usual adolescent nonsense—I've tolerated it because it keeps you visible and relatable, which has value. But freedom has limits, and you're approaching yours rapidly."
"She's just a girl from school, Dad. It's not—"
"Don't insult my intelligence by minimizing it. I have people who keep me informed, and what they're telling me is that my son is publicly attached to a girl whose family name appears in police reports more often than in phone books."
He steps closer, and I hold my ground even though every instinct screams to retreat.
"Football is a hobby, Tate. An entertaining one, and I've indulged it longer than I should have. But Princeton and law school are not suggestions. Don't throw it away over some momentary fascination with a girl who has nothing to offer you but liability."
"Is that what you told Mom before your third affair, or was that speech reserved for the first one?"
The silence that follows is surgical. My father's expression doesn't change—not a flicker, not a flinch. He simply looks at me the way he looks at legislative obstacles—something to be managed, redirected, and ultimately overruled.
"We're done here," he says, and walks away.
His footsteps echo down the hallway with the unhurried confidence of a man who considers every conversation settled the moment he stops speaking, because in his mind, it is.
I stand in the hallway with Ezra pressed against the wall behind me and bitterness lodged so deep in my chest it feels permanent. The house stretches around us, vast and silent and worth more than the entire block Harley grew up on.
And it has never felt emptier.
***
Friday night lights burning white against black sky. The roar of a crowd that doesn't care whose son I am—they care what I can do, how fast I run, how far I throw, how many times I get knocked down and stand back up.
Football is the one thing that's entirely mine. I earned every snap, every starting position, every scout who showed up junior year with a clipboard and my name circled in red.
Division I programs. Real programs, real futures, real lives built on talent and discipline and the kind of hunger that can't be manufactured by wealth.
And my father treats it like a phase—a toy I'll outgrow once I accept the destiny he's already written for me.
I play with a recklessness that borders on violence—hitting harder than the play requires, running routes with an aggression that makes my receivers flinch when I release the ball.
Every tackle I deliver carries the echo of my father's voice. Every sprint downfield is an attempt to outpace something made of cufflinks and committee briefings and the cold certainty that my life was decided before I took my first breath.
My teammates notice. They give me space in the huddle, exchange glances I pretend not to see. Then, mid-play, my eyes catch movement in the stands.
Black silky hair, familiar worn leather jacket, sharp posture among the slouching crowd—sitting up straight, clapping, actually cheering, her voice lost in the noise but her presence unmistakable.
Harley.
At my game, in the stands, watching me play.
The sight lands somewhere I wasn't prepared for—below the anger, beneath the armor, in the soft unprotected place I've spent eighteen years pretending doesn't exist.
The game is a blur of adrenaline and muscle memory—passes I don't remember making, plays that run on autopilot.
We win, but barely, and I can't shake the awareness of Harley’s presence in the stands the entire time. Coach's post-game speech washes over me like white noise.
After the game, Harley meets me at the edge of the field with a bottle of water and that expression she wears when she's trying to look casual and failing.
"What are you doing here?" I'm still breathing hard, still raw from the game.
"We're in a relationship, remember?" She says it simply. "People in relationships support each other's interests. You showed up to my family dinner—I showed up to your games."
I nod, quiet. My father's words echo against hers, ‘a girl who has nothing to offer you but liability,’ and the contrast is so stark it nearly splits me open.
The girl who has nothing showed up.
The man who has everything never has.
Harley studies my face, the casual performance dropping away, replaced by something sharper—concerned. Whatever I'm carrying on my face tonight, she sees it without me saying a word.
"What happened to your cheek?" Her voice drops, her eyes fixed on the scratch near my jaw—from the game, nothing serious, but she's already reaching for it.
Her fingertips rise toward my skin with an instinct that bypasses every wall she's built, hovering a breath away from contact. Then she catches herself and her hand freezes, suspended between intention and retreat, and her eyes widen slightly.
She pulls back, but it's too late. The gesture hangs between us—too tender for a fake girlfriend, too honest for a girl who swears she feels nothing
"Harley! Tate! Oh my God, hi!"
Sloane's voice shatters the moment like a rock through stained glass. She materializes from the dispersing crowd with a brightness that's all wrong—smile too wide, tone too warm, friendliness radiating off her.
"Amazing game, Tate. Listen, I'm having a little get-together this weekend. Nothing crazy, just close friends, good music, good vibes... You two should absolutely come. I'd love for us to start fresh. What do you say?"
Everything about the invitation feels wrong. Sloane doesn't offer clean slates—she offers traps with better decorating. But declining would signal weakness, fear. The acknowledgment that she still holds power over us.
Harley meets my eyes and I read the same calculation in her expression.
"We'd love to," I say, and the smile I give Sloane is the one my father taught me—polished, impenetrable, revealing nothing.
"Perfect!" Sloane beams, already turning away. "Saturday at eight. It's going to be so much fun."
She disappears into the crowd, and the dread settles into my stomach like a stone dropped into still water.
Nothing good comes from Sloane's hospitality.
We both know it, but we're walking into it anyway.