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✧ PLAYLIST ✧
Songs for Noah & Cara
NIGHTS LIKE THESE — Benson Boone
feel like shit — Tate McRae
stupid — Tate McRae
drunk text me — Lexi Jayde
would’ve been you — sombr
i wish i knew how to quit you — sombr
Close To You — Gracie Abrams
Fallin’ (Adrenaline) — Why Don’t We
Slow Down — Chase Atlantic
A Little Death — The Neighbourhood
Someone To You — BANNERS
Let’s Fall in Love for the Night — FINNEAS
Us — James Bay
Dress — Taylor Swift
You Are In Love (Taylor’s Version) — Taylor Swift
Do I Wanna Know? — Arctic Monkeys
So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings — Caroline Polachek
Kiss Me Slowly — Parachute
Feels Like — Gracie Abrams
Complicated — Olivia O’Brien
Free Animal — Foreign Air
Sex — The 1975
The Wave — Colouring
ILYSB — LANY
Where do we go now? — Gracie Abrams
I miss you, I’m sorry - Gracie Abrams
Break My Heart Again - FINNEAS
Heaven — FINNEAS
Forbidden Love — Maxchalant & Maiah Manser
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0JcgGuRWtIioOEroBsFy77?si=-v_Lf_nJSjG9rk-O5k6aqA&pi=twgY3FeIRfekC
NOAH
The room is quiet, but not in a peaceful way.
It’s the thick, humming silence that always comes after I’ve pushed someone past their limit — that heady, electric haze that clings to the air like steam after a scalding shower.
The girl — Ashley? Ashlyn? I’m ninety percent sure it started with an A — is sprawled across my mattress in a way that says she didn’t just fall apart; she detonated. Her chest rises and falls in uneven, desperate pulls, lungs trying to catch up to everything I just wrung out of her. Her thighs are still trembling, little aftershocks shivering down to her curled toes.
And yeah. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hit that smug part of my brain that likes being good at things.
I’m good at my job on the field, sure. But I’m better at this — the thing people whisper about like it’s folklore. The thing that always lives up to the rumors.
I roll away from her, letting the cooler air of the penthouse wash over my skin and cut through the heat still slicking my chest. My pulse is already backing off the cliff, finding that steady, familiar rhythm that always comes after I conquer something — or someone. Post-game or post-sex, the comedown is identical: adrenaline, tunnel vision, victory, silence.
“Holy shit,” she whispers, voice raw and scraped thin.
I look back over my shoulder. Her pupils are blown wide, her expression dazed — like she’s not entirely sure if she met God or the devil tonight. Honestly, depending on who you ask in this city, I could pass for either.
“You good?” I ask, voice still rough, vocal cords rasping from overuse.
“Am I good?” She laughs once — breathless, shaky. She pushes her tangled blonde hair out of her face, blinking up at me like she can’t decide if she wants to worship me or sue me. “Noah, that was… I mean, I heard the rumors, but…”
I give her the grin.
The one that sells jerseys.
The one that distracts from the fact that mentally, I’ve already stepped out of this room and onto something else entirely.
“Glad I could live up to the hype.”
I stand, stretching my arms over my head until my spine pops. I don’t bother covering up — there’s nothing here she hasn’t already seen, and modesty isn’t a personality trait I possess. Six-three, two-twenty, all muscle and momentum. The kind of build people study on film the way they study opponents.
I grab my boxers from the chair.
Behind me, the shift happens — the sheets rustle, the vibe tilts, and the mood slides from afterglow into expectation. That’s the part I never stick around for.
“So…” she says softly. That hopeful, trying-to-sound-casual tone. I hate that tone. “Did you want to… maybe order food? Or watch something?”
I pull on the boxers, then a gray tee that covers my ribs and the ink carved there. When I turn, she’s propped on her elbows, sheet pooling at her waist, eyes soft in a way that tells me she’s building a story in her head.
One I’m not going to star in.
“I’m actually beat,” I lie, easily. I’m not tired. I’m never tired. I’m just done. “Early morning at the facility. Trainers will ride me hard if I’m late.”
The disappointment hits her face quick — like a hairline crack splintering across glass. “Oh. Right. Football.”
“Right. Football.”
“I just thought, since it’s Friday…” She trails off, biting her lip as she reaches for her dress. “I didn’t realize this was a hit-and-run.”
I lean back against the floor-to-ceiling windows, arms folding across my chest. The glass is cool against my skin, grounding. Outside, Atlanta is laid out beneath me — a glittering sprawl of amber lights and restless movement. I earned this view. I bled for it. I’ve traded privacy, sanity, and more concussions than my mother needs to know about to get here.
“It’s not a hit-and-run,” I say, keeping my tone light. Detached. “We had a good time. Now the time’s up. Simple.”
She huffs, struggling to zip her dress, movements sharp with frustration. “You’re kind of an asshole, you know that?”
I smirk. Dimples and all. Reflexive as breathing. “I’ve been called worse.”
She freezes, staring at me.
Searching for the softness she swears she glimpsed earlier.
Searching for the version of me who smiles for cameras, signs autographs, kisses babies at charity events.
That guy is a paycheck.
This one is reality.
“You really don’t do relationships, do you?” she asks, voice quiet.
“I don’t even do sleepovers, babe.”
She winces. “Don’t call me babe.”
“Sorry. Habit.”
She grabs her purse and heels, annoyance radiating off her as she heads for the door. But something stops her — that desire to get the last word. So she turns, hand on the doorknob, and takes one more lingering look at me: messy hair, jaw scruffed, posture relaxed like nothing touches me.
“You know,” she says, voice trembling with emotion I wasn’t expecting, “one day you’re going to meet someone who doesn’t care about your stats, or your money, or any of… this. And when you treat her like this, it’s going to destroy you.”
I let out a low, humorless laugh. Not mocking. Just… honest.
“No, it won’t.”
“Why? Because you’re Noah Beckett?”
“Because,” I say, meeting her eyes dead-on, “I don’t let anyone close enough to do any damage.”
She mutters something that sounds like unbelievable, then slams the door behind her. The sound echoes down the long hallway, bouncing off marble and empty space.
Then everything settles into my favorite thing.
Silence.
I drag a hand across my jaw, letting the tension loosen, then head into the en-suite bathroom. The lights flick on, revealing a reflection I know too well — green eyes too sharp to hide anything, hair that looks like it’s been through a wind tunnel, a mouth that’s kissed so many girls I couldn’t list them in alphabetical order if someone held a gun to my head.
And none of it has meant a damn thing.
I turn on the faucet and splash cold water onto my face. Droplets slide down my chin and hit the porcelain sink, tiny echoes in the quiet.
People think my life is chaos — the parties, the headlines, the reckless passes, the fast cars. They see the whirlwind. They assume it reflects the inside.
They’re wrong.
The chaos is external.
In here? In my head? It’s frozen. Controlled. Silent.
I grab a water bottle from the mini-fridge, crack the seal, take a long drink, then wander out onto the balcony. The sliding glass door glides open, and Georgia humidity hits me like an old friend — thick, warm, familiar.
I rest my forearms on the railing and take in the city. Atlanta buzzing beneath me, alive and hungry.
I’m twenty-six.
My arm alone is worth nine figures.
I have the city at my feet.
I have a bed that’s rarely empty unless I want it to be.
I’m not lonely.
I’m free.
And I intend to stay that way.
