Page 8 of Sealing the Deal

LEAVE OUR TEAM ALONE

ASHBORNE SCUM

GO BACK TO NEW YORK

So much for laying low and letting things calm down this week.

Hunter eases the car to a crawl, his hands steady on the wheel even as heads begin to turn. The moment they clock the black sedan, the energy shifts. People start to move in my direction, placards held like weapons.

“What would you like me to do, Mr. Ashborne?” Hunter asks quietly. “I can keep going slowly and get you right up to the entrance. They’ll probably move.”

Probably. Except I’m already picturing the headlines. New Stormhawks Owner Mows Down Protesters.

“It’s OK,” I say. “Let’s get out of here. Park at the diner we passed a few blocks back. I’ll walk in again.”

Hunter nods without argument and makes the turn, leaving the chanting behind us. Hank’s Diner is a one-story glass building that looks like it serves a good breakfast and maybe even a decent cup of coffee. But considering every table is full, and my face has been plastered all over the internet for the last five days, I decide today isn’t the day to find out. Instead, I shrug out of my suit jacket and reach for the non-descript gray hooded sweatshirt on the seat beside me. I pull it on over my shirt, then grab the red Stormhawks baseball cap and tug it low, feeling like a fraud for wearing it, but knowing it’s my only hope of blending in.

“Good luck,” Hunter calls as I step out of the car and start walking back toward the stadium, phone already in my hand.

GRAYSON: Protesters again. Can you meet me by the south entrance in five minutes?

DONNY: Sure!

I walk along streets with converted warehouses and low-rise brick buildings that remind me of Flic’s bar. I wonder if she’s somewhere in the parking lot, adding her voice and her anger to the protest. There’s no way she doesn’t know who I am by now. My name and face have been everywhere this week. I wonder if me stepping behind her bar to help on Sunday night softened her feelings when she learned who I was. I wince inwardly. More likely she’ll have read it as a power play. A billionaire playing at being one of them. Good intentions, skewed by bad timing and a worse last name. I should’ve stayed in my hotel that night. But I’d wanted to see the celebration and what I was about to become part of.

I duck around the side of the stadium, keeping my head down as much to shield myself from thick flakes of falling snow as from any fans who happen to walk past. Another few minutes’ walk and I find Donny waiting for me by an open back door.

His hand lands on my back in a friendly clap as I step into the stadium. “You OK, man?”

“Never better,” I reply, and we both know it’s a lie.

He snorts, slamming the door shut with a resounding clang before falling into step beside me as we move through the back corridors of the stadium. The air smells of decades-old sweat and strong cleaning products. Concrete walls are broken only by pictures of old Stormhawks legends.

“It’ll calm down once the playoffs start,” he says. “People will focus on the football.”

“That’s still eight days away, right?”

Donny grimaces, but nods. Eight days is a long time when tensions are running this high. But I say nothing as we ride the elevator up to the management offices at the top of the stadium. I’ll save it for the public relations meeting waiting for me in five minutes. I already know exactly how that conversation is going to go.

We step across the top floor. It’s sleek but a little soulless. Would it have killed them to add a potted plant or two? I shove the thought aside. Decor and mood lighting are going to sit real low on the priority list considering the shitstorm I’ve unleashed by buying this team.

Donny guides me into the glass-walled conference room, like he has done every day this week. I drop into a chair and pretend I don’t feel the stares of every person sitting at their desks right now. Some curious. Most scared. The “what-ifs” practically ricochet off the glass. The atmosphere this week in the offices hasn’t been much better than the crowd outside, but I can’t blame either group, considering who I am.

On one side of the office stretches a panoramic window of Denver. Farther south, beyond the low rises, are the skyscrapers that make up the business district, stretching up in steel and glass. And then there’s the sky itself. I thought I’d seen every natural beauty the world had to offer during my time working abroad, but the way that sky stretches on and on and on makes me hard-swallow every time I look up.

I like this city. It has texture. Character. And every time I catch a glimpse of the snow-capped Rockies, sitting so high it’s like they’ve been carved from that sky, I feel both awed and grounded. Like we can build all we want but we’ll never capture the kind of beauty nature created all on its own. I smile at the thought. It’s exactly the kind of comment that would have my little sister, Helena, rolling her eyes.

On the opposite side of the stadium, floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the empty football field. I might not know a damn thing about football, but even I can feel the electricity humming from the turf. The sense that this isn’t just a building, but something so much more. Isn’t that why I’m here?

“This is gonna hurt like hell, you know?” Donny whispers from beside me, nodding to the young publicist standing at the front of the boardroom, clutching an iPad like it might explode in his hands. Poor kid can’t be more than twenty-three. Hair sticking up like he ran here. Shirt wrinkled. Eyes wide and skittish. I doubt the PR team have slept much this week.

“No more than the time I watched you hit on the dean’s wife at our first NYU mixer.”

Donny exhales a laugh. “That man was punching. She was hot.”

My best friend, Donny—Donald Hubert Jr.—has a boyish face and a mischievous grin. He’s short in stature but not presence, and right now he feels like the only person in Denver who hasn’t put a target on my back.

We’ve been friends since we roomed together our first year at NYU. Just two guys trying to survive the shadows cast by our fathers. Donny has spent his life trying to live up to his family’s legacy and do right by the Stormhawks. And even though any sane person would be questioning their loyalty and sanity after I signed the paperwork and became the majority owner of my first NFL team, Donny is still right here at my side.