Chapter 1: The Aftermath of Promotion
rk
The locker room air was thick enough to chew. Jackson leaned against the cold metal of his locker, the humid breath of the place sticking his t-shirt to his skin. Antiseptic and old sweat. The buzz of the fluorescents was a drill in his teeth. He watched the water drip from his hair, each drop hitting the tile floor with a final, tiny slap.
Across the aisle, Gio Marchetti shrugged out of his soaked compression shirt.
Jackson’s breath hitched, just a little. It was a purely clinical observation, he told himself. Assessing a teammate’s condition. But there was nothing clinical about the way Gio’s shoulders moved, the ropes of muscle in his back shifting under skin sheened with sweat and the faint, silvery ghost of an old scar. The kid—no, not a kid anymore, the man—peeled the fabric down his arms with an effortless, rolling flex. The muscles in his back rippled, a landscape Jackson had once mapped for weaknesses, for teaching points. Now he just mapped it.
Gio tossed the shirt into his gym bag and reached for a towel, the movement causing a deep groove to form along his spine. Jackson’s mouth went dry. He’d put that strength there. He’d been the anvil, and Gio had been the hammer, and now the hammer was heavier, sharper, didn’t need the anvil at all.
“You gonna stand there all night, Voss? Or you actually gonna shower?”
Gio’s voice was a low rumble, filtered through the towel as he dragged it over his face. He didn’t turn around.
Jackson cleared his throat. “Thinking.” His own voice sounded gravelly, unused.
“Dangerous pastime.” Gio finally turned, slinging the towel around his neck. His chest was broad, defined, a testament to a discipline that had long since eclipsed his teacher’s. Water dripped from his dark hair onto his collarbone. His eyes, sharp and assessing, found Jackson’s. “About the breach drill? Hernandez was slow on the pivot.”
Jackson forced his gaze up, meeting those eyes. “Hernandez is always slow. It’s the new guy, Ruiz. He’s got the instincts, but he’s reckless.”
“He’ll learn.” Gio shrugged, a massive movement. “Or he’ll wash out. We’re not a daycare.”
We. The word settled in Jackson’s gut. It was Gio’s ‘we’ now. Gio’s team. Gio’s calls. Jackson was senior advisor. A glorified consultant. A relic.
“Right.” Jackson looked away, fumbling with the lock on his locker. The metal was slick under his fingers. He was aware of every inch of space between them, charged and suffocating.
“You did good work with him today, though.” Gio was closer now. Jackson could smell him—clean sweat, cheap soap, the underlying scent of pure, exhausted masculinity. “The way you talked him down after he froze at the door. Didn’t yell. Just… logic. He listened.”
A spark of old pride flared, instantly doused by the heat of Gio’s proximity. “He was scared. Yelling at scared men makes them stupid.”
“I know.” Gio’s smile was a quick, white flash. “You taught me that.”
Their eyes locked again. Jackson saw it then—not respect, not exactly. Something more potent. Acknowledgement. The student acknowledging the source, even as he’d grown far beyond it. The look was a mirror, and in it Jackson didn’t see the hardened team leader. He saw a gap, a hollow, a yearning so sudden and profound it felt like a kick to the diaphragm.
Gio’s gaze flickered. It dropped, just for a fraction of a second, to Jackson’s mouth, then down the tense line of his throat, to where his own sweat-damp shirt clung to his chest. The look wasn’t assessing. It was… something else. Something that cracked the professional veneer and let a glimpse of sheer, predatory heat bleed through.
Then it was gone. Gio’s expression smoothed back into its usual confident mask. He gave a short, almost imperceptible nod, as if confirming something to himself.
Jackson’s heart was a frantic drum against his ribs. He couldn’t move. The image detonated in his mind, blinding and unbidden: Gio’s hand, not clapping his shoulder in camaraderie, but fisting in the damp fabric of his shirt. Shoving him back against the lockers with a deafening clang. That cool, commanding voice dropping to a whisper. You’ve been staring all night, Jackson. That’s not very professional.
The fantasy didn’t stop. It spiraled, shameful and vivid. Him, stumbling. Gio, relentless, spinning him around, bending him over the sticky vinyl bench. The hot, humiliating smack of a firm, open hand against his shorts, not through layers of tactical gear, but here, now, in the brutal fluorescence. The sound would echo. He’d bite back a sound, not of pain, but of something else, something that tasted like release.
His face flamed. He hoped the general redness from exertion covered it.
Gio’s smirk returned, wider this time, edged with a knowing glint that sliced right through Jackson. He’d seen. God, he’d seen something.
“Get some sleep, Voss,” Gio said, his tone final, dismissing. He turned and walked toward the showers, the powerful muscles of his back and shoulders working with each step. A king walking away from a subject.
Jackson stood paralyzed, the buzz of the lights swelling to a roar in his ears. The metallic scent of blood from someone’s split lip earlier mingled with the damp. He stared at the empty space where Gio had been, his own body humming with a traitorous, electric ache.
The echo of that imagined slap seemed to hang in the humid air. It was a phantom pain, and a promise. His professional pride lay in shreds at his feet. Beneath it, something darker, older, and infinitely more terrifying stirred, stretchings its limbs after a long, long sleep.
He finally slammed his locker shut. The bang was unsatisfying. It didn’t drown anything out.
Outside, in the parking lot, the cool night air did nothing to clear his head. He fumbled for his keys, his hands unsteady. As he unlocked his truck, he saw Gio’s vehicle, a dark SUV, parked two spots over. The interior light was on. Gio was just sitting there, looking down at his phone, the stark light carving his profile out of the darkness—the set jaw, the strong line of his neck.
He must have felt Jackson’s stare. Slowly, he turned his head. Their eyes met through two panes of glass and twenty feet of darkness. Gio didn’t smile. He didn’t nod. He just looked. Held the gaze for three endless heartbeats.
Then he turned away, started his engine, and pulled out, the red taillights bleeding into the night.
Jackson slid into his own truck, his body throbbing with a confusion that was equal parts humiliation and a desperate, clawing need. The steering wheel was cool under his burning palms. He rested his forehead against it.
The lesson was over. The game had changed. And he had no idea what the rules were, only that he was already losing.