The next text came three days later, but this time Jett was the one who sent it.
Practice ends at 5. Your house at 5:40. Kai has evening weights until 7:30. Leave the side gate unlocked. Laundry room again is fine. Or the garage. Your choice.
Marisol stared at the message for almost a full minute before answering with a single word.
Garage.
When Jett arrived the side gate was open and the garage door was cracked just enough for a person to slip through. The space smelled of motor oil, rubber, and the faint residual detergent that still clung to her skin from the last time. Marisol stood beside Kai's old weight bench, arms crossed, still in her coaching gear—black leggings, team polo, hair in a tight ponytail that made her look younger and harder at the same time.
She didn't speak when he closed the door behind him and locked it.
Jett set his bag down and simply looked at her.
"You're quiet," he said.
"I've been thinking." Her voice was low, steady, but the way her fingers dug into her own arms betrayed the restlessness underneath. "About the dinner. About the laundry room. About the fact that I keep telling myself I'll stop and then I unlock the gate the second you ask."
He waited.
Marisol exhaled hard through her nose. "I can't keep pretending this is just sex I can't control. It's not. You're in my house. You're around my son. You're under my skin every hour of the day. And the worst part is… I don't want you to stop."
The admission hung in the warm, dim air of the garage.
Jett stepped closer. Not touching yet. "Then stop fighting the shape of it."
Her eyes flicked up to his. "What does that mean?"
"It means you stop pretending you're still the one setting the boundaries. You're not. You haven't been since the equipment room. You text when I tell you the window is open. You bend over when I decide the risk is acceptable. You come when I let you." He tilted his head slightly. "You're already mine, Marisol. The only thing left is for you to say it out loud."
A muscle jumped in her jaw. For a second pure defiance flared—old professional pride, maternal guilt, the last scraps of the woman who used to shut down athletes with a single look. Then it cracked.
She looked away, toward the concrete floor, and the words came out rough.
"I'm yours."
Jett closed the remaining distance. One hand slid to the back of her neck, thumb resting against the rapid pulse there. "Louder."
"I'm yours." Stronger this time. She met his eyes again. "I hate how true it is. I hate that my son is thirty minutes away lifting weights while I'm in his garage waiting for you to fuck me. But I'm still here. I'm still saying it. I'm yours."
He kissed her then—slow, deep, claiming. Not the frantic collision of the laundry room. This was deliberate. She melted into it with a soft sound that was half relief, half surrender.
When he broke the kiss he turned her around and guided her hands to the edge of the weight bench. She braced herself without being told. Jett peeled the leggings and underwear down just far enough, pushed her polo up, and entered her in one smooth thrust that forced a broken moan out of her throat.
He fucked her with measured, heavy strokes, one hand on her hip, the other reaching around to cup her breast under the polo. Every time she tried to push back harder he slowed down, forcing her to take the pace he set. The garage was quiet except for the wet sound of him moving inside her and the soft, helpless noises she couldn't fully swallow.
"Say it again," he ordered against the back of her neck.
"I'm yours—" The words broke on a particularly deep thrust. "Fuck, Jett— I'm yours."
He kept her there until she came twice, the second orgasm leaving her shaking and silent, forehead pressed to the padded bench. Only then did he finish inside her, grinding deep while she clenched around him in aftershocks.
They stayed joined for a long moment afterward. His hand stroked slowly up and down her spine, almost gentle.
When he finally pulled out, Marisol stayed bent over for several seconds, breathing hard, before she straightened and fixed her clothes with trembling fingers. Come was already slipping down her thigh; she wiped it with a towel she must have brought in advance and shoved the evidence into her pocket.
She turned to face him. The defiance was gone. What remained was something quieter and more permanent.
"What happens now?" she asked.
"Now you stop fighting me in front of Kai. You still call me Jett at practice and Coach Vega when he's listening, but when I look at you across a room you don't look away first. When I text, you answer. When I decide I want you, you make the window." He reached up and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "You already accepted the role. Now you live in it."
Marisol nodded once, slow. "And if someone finds out?"
"Then we deal with it. But they won't. Not if you're careful."
She let out a short, almost disbelieving breath. "You're nineteen and you're talking to me like you already own the rest of my life."
"I do."
The simple statement landed harder than any of the thrusts had.
Marisol stared at him for a long second, then stepped forward, rose onto her toes, and kissed him—softer this time, almost grateful. When she pulled back her voice was steady.
"Thursday. After practice. Same window. I'll leave the side gate open."
Jett nodded. "Good."
He unlocked the garage door and stepped out into the late-afternoon light. Marisol followed a few seconds later, scanning the quiet street out of habit. No Civic yet. No neighbors in sight.
They walked toward the side gate together, not touching, the picture of coach and athlete discussing recovery or film. At the gate she paused.
"Jett."
He looked back.
"Don't make me regret saying it."
"You won't."
He left her there and headed for his car parked two streets over.
Marisol stood at the gate a moment longer, one hand resting on the metal, the ache between her legs a steady reminder of the words she had finally spoken out loud. She was his. The knowledge settled into her bones with a weight that was equal parts terror and relief.
She turned back toward the house.
Across the street, half-hidden by the low hedge of the neighbor's yard, a woman in a dark windbreaker and sunglasses watched the entire exchange. She had seen the way Marisol's hand lingered on the gate after Jett walked away. She had seen the flushed, unsettled look on the coach's face. She had seen enough.
The woman lifted her phone, snapped one quiet photo of Marisol still standing there, then slipped the device back into her pocket.
When Marisol finally went inside and closed the front door, the watcher smiled to herself—small, private, and interested—before turning and w
alking away down the sidewalk without a sound.
The next name on Jett's list had just found him first.