CHAPTER ONE: THE NEW KID

Liam Carter didn’t believe in sparks.

Not on the field, anyway. Chemistry was a myth. What people called chemistry that effortless flow between players wasn’t magic. It was muscle memory. Timing. Repetition. Rehearsal until instinct replaced thought.

Magic had no place in football.

But the first time Noah Hayes stepped onto the training pitch, something twisted in Liam’s gut—hot, immediate, and entirely unwanted.

He told himself it was instinct. A coach’s eye recognizing talent. That sharpness in Noah’s movements, the hungry way he attacked the ball. Controlled chaos. Feet fast enough to blur, like his body was always just ahead of his thoughts.

Too fast. Too reckless.

Too goddamn young.

Liam crossed his arms tighter, narrowing his eyes as Noah sprinted past the back line with a grin that didn’t belong here, not in this league, not on a rookie.

“Watch the offside!” Liam barked, sharp and sudden.

Noah barely turned his head. Just lifted a hand in a lazy, cocky little salute like he’d heard the command and decided it didn’t apply to him.

Liam exhaled through his nose. He knew boys like that. He used to be one.

He hated them now.

By the end of practice, sweat clung to the players like a second skin. The August sun was a punishing bastard, and the air smelled like turf burn and old ambition. Liam ran drills longer than usual, partly to test the new kid’s stamina and partly to punish the part of himself that noticed the curve of Noah’s throat when he tipped his water bottle back.

Noah didn’t falter once.

If anything, he ran harder.

And smiled more.

As the rest of the team jogged off the pitch toward the showers, Liam stayed behind, arms crossed, watching Noah take a long breath at midfield. Hands on his hips. Chest rising and falling. He turned and their eyes locked for the first time that day.

It hit Liam like a slide tackle to the ribs.

There was no smugness in Noah’s face now. Just something quiet. Curious. Like he was studying Liam in return, like he’d noticed the attention and decided not to look away.

Liam did.

He turned toward the sidelines, jaw clenched. “You’ve got potential,” he said without looking back. “But this league will eat you alive if you keep playing like a damn showreel.”

A pause.

Then footsteps in the grass. Close. Too close.

“Thanks for the welcome, Coach.”

The voice was lighter than Liam expected. Rough around the edges but young, teasing. Still, there was a current beneath it—a challenge. The way Noah said Coach wasn’t respectful. It was... curious. Like he was trying the word out in his mouth.

Liam didn’t turn. “Go cool down.”

“I’m cool,” Noah said, and Liam could hear the smile in it.

Then he walked away.

Liam waited a full minute before letting his lungs start working again.

In his office later, Liam scrubbed through the day’s footage alone. He told himself he was analyzing team cohesion. Tracking patterns. But the cursor hovered on Noah’s frame too often too long.

He hated how he noticed the way Noah moved when no one was watching.

Loose. Unselfconscious.

A kid who played like the world hadn’t knocked him down yet.

Liam had been that kid once. Before the tear. Before the surgeries. Before he learned that the game always takes more than it gives back.

And now here he was. Thirty-eight. Reconstructed. Revered. Alone.

He clicked off the footage.

He told himself it was nothing. Just a new player. A new challenge.

He didn’t believe it.

That night, Liam stood under the hot spray of his shower until the water ran cold. He didn’t touch himself. Didn’t even let his hand drift low.

Discipline, he told himself. That’s how you win.

But somewhere beneath his ribs, something was already bending.

Not breaking.

Not yet.

Just... bending.