I'M SO PROUD OF YOU. SO PROUD

Chapter 1

Max

My hands were shaking again. I wiped them on my shorts, but the sweat came right back. Eight seconds left on the clock. Eight seconds between me and everything I'd ever wanted.

"Max." Coach Dan grabbed my jersey, pulling me close during the timeout, his dark eyes boring into mine. "This is it, son. Everything we’ve bled for comes down to this play. You got this, this is your shot."

I nodded because my throat was too tight to talk. The arena was so loud I could barely think—fifteen thousand people screaming, the band playing, air horns blasting. But all I could focus on was that scoreboard: Cardinals 78, Wolves 76.

And my teammates’ faces that were a mix of hope and desperation, their trust in me a heavy mantle across my shoulders.

The whistle blew, and we jogged back onto the court. My legs felt weird, like they might give out, but not from being tired. It was from nerves, from knowing this was my last college game ever.

My last chance to leave a mark before the world decided what came next.

Danny inbounded the ball to me at half court.

I glanced at the clock—six seconds. My hands itched as it held the ball, my body humming with something I couldn’t name, something primal that had been stirring in me more and more lately.

Two Cardinals players came at me hard, their arms reaching at the air where I’d been, trying to strip the ball. I spun left, then right, and suddenly I had space.

My eyes flicked to the basket this time—twenty-five feet away, well beyond the three-point line.

Coach always said take the smart shot, get closer. But something inside me said different. Something that felt like... I don't know. Like a voice that wasn't mine.

Shoot it.

Four seconds.

I I planted my feet, knees bending as muscle memory took over. The arena faded, the crowd, the lights, the pressure. All of it dissolved until it was just me, the ball, and the hoop. I launched upward, the ball rolling off my fingertips in a perfect arc.

Time slowed, each second stretching as the ball sailed through the air, spinning with a grace that felt almost otherworldly.

And I knew, I just knew.

Three seconds. Two. One.

Swish.

The net barely moved. Clean as a whistle. 79-78.

The buzzer went off and the place exploded. I mean, really exploded. People were jumping, screaming, crying. Confetti shot out of cannons, raining down on the court like snow. My teammates tackled me, all of them yelling at once.

"Holy shit, Max!"

"Did you see that?"

"You're insane!"

Danny grabbed me so hard I thought my ribs might crack. "Thirty-two points! Thirty-two fucking points!" His face was red, tears streaming down his cheeks. "You did it, man. You actually did it."

I tried to answer but nothing came out. My whole body was shaking now, and my chest felt like it might explode. Four years. Four years of early morning practices, of ice baths, of Coach screaming at us until we wanted to quit. All for this moment.

The cameras found me fast. Reporters pushed through the celebration, shoving microphones in my face.

"Max Rivera! How does it feel to win the championship?"

"That shot was incredible! Twenty-five feet out!"

"What were you thinking during that timeout?"

I grinned, couldn't help it. "I was thinking we needed three points and I had eight seconds to get them." The crowd behind the reporters cheered again. "My teammates believed in me, Coach believed in me. I just had to trust myself."

"But that distance! Why take such a difficult shot?"

I shrugged. "Sometimes you just know, you know? The shot felt right. I could see it going in before I even released it."

That was the truth, even if it sounded crazy. I had seen it. Like a picture in my head.

More questions, more cameras, but my eyes kept drifting to the stands. Looking for my family. There they were, ten rows up.

Dad was on his feet, both fists in the air, his face bright red. Mom was crying happy tears, holding up that poster she'd made with glitter and everything.

"That's My Boy #23!" Sofia was bouncing up and down like she was on a trampoline.

And there was Freya, right next to them in that yellow dress I'd bought her for her birthday. She looked like sunshine. When she saw me looking, she blew me a kiss and mouthed "I love you." My heart did this stupid flip thing it always did when she looked at me like that.

God, I was lucky. Four years with the most beautiful girl at school. She'd been there for everything—staying up all night when I couldn't sleep before big games, bringing me soup when I got sick, never complaining when basketball took up all my time.

I was going to marry that girl. Soon as I figured out where my life was heading after this.

But then I saw him.

The maroon jersey looked wrong on him, but then again, everything about Ace seemed designed to irritate me.

Ace Stiles stood right behind Freya, and my stomach dropped like I'd been punched. He was wearing wearing the opposing team's jersey—our rivals, the Cardinals.

The maroon jersey looked wrong on him, but then again, everything about Ace seemed designed to irritate me.

His arms were crossed over his chest. Even from fifty feet away, I could feel those ice-blue eyes burning into me. His face looked like he'd just watched someone kick his dog.

What the hell was he doing here? And why was he looking at me like that?

Ace was Freya's older brother, six-foot-three of pure muscle with dirty blonde hair and these weird tattoos all over his right arm. Pack tattoos, he called them. Whatever that meant.

I'd been dating his sister for four years, and in all that time, he'd never once been nice to me. Not even polite. He looked at me like I was something he'd scraped off his shoe.

"Beta," he'd called me once at Freya's birthday party, spitting the word like it tasted bad.

When I asked Freya what it meant, she just said Ace was weird about labels and to ignore him. But it had stuck with me.

The way he'd said it, like it was a curse, like he knew something about me that I didn't. His disgust for me clear in every glance, every word.

I didn’t get it. Everyone loved me—my teammates, my family, Freya. Everyone but Ace.

My stomach twisted, and that strange, restless feeling stirred again, deep in my chest. It wasn’t just nerves. It was something… more.

Something that made my skin prickle and my pulse race in a way I couldn’t explain. I tore my eyes away, forcing myself to focus on the celebration. This was my moment, not his.

“Max Rivera!” A reporter with slicked-back hair shoved a microphone under my nose. “That three-pointer was unreal! Walk us through it.”

I flashed a grin, the one I’d practiced for years. “We were down by one, eight seconds left. Coach called a timeout, and the whole team was looking at me like I had to pull off a miracle.”

My hands moved as I spoke, reliving the moment. “Danny got me the ball at half court. Their defense was tight, expecting me to drive. But something told me to shoot. I felt it, the shot was mine. I took one dribble, squared up, and let it fly. When it went in, I knew. The whole arena just… exploded.”

The reporter ate it up, and so did the crowd, their cheers washing over me again. But that restless thing inside me wouldn’t settle. It clawed at my chest, urging me to look back at the stands. I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not with him there.

"Thank you, thank you," I said to the reporters after a while, backing away. "I need to get to my family."

The crowd parted as I jogged toward the stands. Mom reached me first, jumping the barrier and throwing her arms around my neck.

"Mijo!" She was sobbing now, full-on tears. "I'm so proud of you. So proud."

"Thanks, Mama." Her familiar smell, vanilla and lavender, made my chest tight. She'd worked double shifts at the diner to help pay for my gear when I was younger. Never missed a game, not once.

Dad's hand landed on my shoulder, nearly knocking me over. His grip was strong from twenty years of construction work.

"That shot, Max. I've never seen anything like it. You looked like you were in some kind of zone."

"Felt like it too," I said, and it was true. Those last eight seconds had felt different somehow. Like I wasn't completely in control of my own body.

Sofia crashed into my side, practically vibrating with excitement. "Max! Max! Everyone at school is going to be so jealous! You're going to be famous!"

I laughed, ruffling her hair. "Not famous, just a guy who got lucky with a basketball."

"That wasn't luck," Dad said, shaking his head. "That was skill. That was all those hours in the driveway with your grandfather's hoop."

The mention of Grandpa hit me hard. He'd been the one to teach me how to shoot, how to follow through, how to believe the ball would go in even when everyone else said the odds were against me.

Lung cancer had taken him when I was eighteen, but I still heard his voice sometimes during games. "Trust yourself, mijo. The shot will find its way."

"He would have loved this," I said quietly.

"He did love this," Dad corrected. "He's watching, son. I guarantee it."

"Max!" Freya's voice cut through the moment. She pushed through the crowd, practically glowing with happiness. Before I could say anything, she launched herself at me, wrapping her legs around my waist. I caught her easily, and spun her around. She was tiny, barely five-foot-two but I love her.

"I can't believe you made that shot!" she said, kissing me all over my face. "I literally thought I was going to have a heart attack. My hands were shaking so bad I couldn't even clap."

I set her down and cupped her face in my hands. Her skin was soft, warm. Her green eyes were bright with unshed tears. "You okay? You look like you might pass out."

"I'm perfect," she said, standing on her tiptoes to kiss me properly. "You're perfect. This whole night is perfect."

She tasted like cherry lip balm and felt like peace in my arms. This was what mattered. Not basketball, not championships, not whatever weird stuff was happening in my head lately. Just her. Just us.

A throat clearing behind us made us break apart, and I turned to find Ace standing there, somehow having materialized out of the crowd without me noticing.

Up close, he was even more intimidating, six-foot-three of solid muscle, courtesy of four years of college hockey and two years playing at Elite Sport University.

His dirty blonde hair was disheveled, like he'd been running his hands through it, and those piercing blue eyes held something I couldn't quite identify.

Annoyance? Disgust? I knew he hated me so I wasn't surprised, actually I was already used to the look.

"Ace!" Freya turned toward her brother with a brilliant smile. "Isn't it amazing? Max played so well!"

Ace's eyes flicked to his sister, and for just a moment, his expression softened. The harsh lines around his mouth relaxed, and something almost tender crossed his features.

It was gone so quickly I might have imagined it, but it made me realize that beneath all that hostility, Ace truly loved his sister.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Amazing." Then he walked away without a glance back.