Noah's POV
I slam the door to the utility room shut behind me and stagger into the dark.
It's not even a real room. Just a closet. A narrow space stacked high with broken folding chairs, extra towels, the vague scent of bleach and sweat and old linoleum.
A single, flickering bulb buzzes overhead like it's got a vendetta. I slide down the wall, heart thundering, breath sharp and shallow. My hands shake. My mouth tastes like copper.
It's not the fact that Logan and I were outed. That part's… fine. We've been done for a long time. Dead in the ground. If people want to dig up bones, let them.
No, that's not what's bothering me.
It's what he said.
A druggie cheat.
That's what the world sees when they look at me.
Noah Bennett. Former star player. Current pity hire.
The guy whose career crashed and burned in a public inferno.
The guy who was paraded on nightly news segments for a week—"falsely accused", the headlines said—but they never really corrected the narrative, did they?
