Grant had left twenty minutes ago, so no one knew I was back here. I squeezed my eyes shut and took a breath. Meditation, bitches. I’d need to become a namaste maestro by the end of these three weeks, but Reese Forster wasn’t here.

I whispered that to myself, over and over again. I hoped fervently it would give me some form of bearing so I wouldn’t get swept up in the craziness.

“—gotta call the woman and check in.”

Yes. I recognized that voice. I’d heard it from locker-room interviews, but I wasn’t going to name the Cruskinator. If I did, I’d be nutso.

I wasn’t going to be nutso.

Someone else responded, “You have a four year old, right?”

“Yeah. He’s such a little punk—”

He sounded so fond of his kid.

The Cruskinator kept talking, but the word rascal did it for me.

I could rattle off his stats for four years in a row—not the last four years, but a few years before that—yet hearing him call his kid a rascal grounded me.

He was a father, and a good father from what I’d read.

A different voice: “You guys seen Aiden?”

The door to the cage rattled, but it held firm. I forgot I’d locked it. It’d been an automatic motion for me, a policy Keith hammered into our heads so no campers could get in and steal the equipment.

That same voice: “Door’s locked. We don’t have any balls to shoot with.”

“Half the guys are heading to the cabins to call their families.”

That guy grunted. “True. We could come back later?”

Cruskinator asked, “When’s Forster showing up?”

The squeak of their shoes on the floor. They were moving away.

The screen door protested as someone hit it open.

“I thought tomorrow…”

They faded away after that, and I let out a deep breath.

Okay. I’d been acting like a twenty-something, which I was, but I needed to rein it in. I was twenty-seven. I was almost an adult. Kind of. God help everyone, but I was annoying even myself.

Yes, these guys were some of my idols. Yes, I had watched them when I was with Damian—and my throat was burning again.

Damian.

Being back here shouldn’t have brought him to my mind, but he was everywhere. Everyone grew up. Everyone had formed a family—got married, had kids, got divorced. One guy went to prison. Working here, we’d all had dreams, together, and my dream had been shattered.

And no one knew why.

I felt a tear slide down my face.