Against the Rules (Even The Score #4)

12. king

CHAPTER 12

KING

STARING DAGGERS

After Coach Lawson’s speech, we left for the hallway, leaving him and his daughter behind. I leaned against the wall, silent, while my friends debated on the plan for tonight.

"Are you bringing your lady? " Adam wiggled his eyebrows. "If we can’t go to Gianna’s ? — "

"Stop pressuring him, Adam," Kassie interjected.

"I want to see who has King acting like a dumbass!"

Piper beamed. "I bet she’s so cute."

I couldn’t say anything. The fucking disappointment dug its nails into me. The bone-crushing disappointment that the one girl I wanted was the one girl I couldn’t have. What were the odds?

The coach’s daughter?

The one I sent all those videos to. The ones where I beat myself off, moaning her name. The shirtless pictures, the voice messages about how I wanted to eat her pussy until my tongue pruned. The texts, detailing how I couldn’t wait to cum on her tits.

Coach Lawson’s daughter.

Jesus fucking Christ .

More football players streamed out but I didn’t acknowledge any of them while they chaffed me for spilling the coffee. My entire focus was on the one girl standing out in the crowd of athletes.

Willow.

The girl who rearranged her hair washing schedule for me, the girl I talked to for three hours yesterday while she combed out her curls. Soft, sweet Willow. Looking completely out of place in the training center. So beautiful, it hurt to look at her.

Her shirt bared her shoulders and clung close to her waist. Hinting at her killer body underneath. My eyes dropped to her skirt. It curved along her hips like it was made for her, like it wanted to stroke her ass too. I could just imagine bunching it up in my hands. I had imagined it this morning when I sent her a video of me, pumping my cock.

"King?"

I jerked over to look at Adam.

"Are you going to text her or what? Tell her she’s meeting us tonight. You can’t hide this girl forever."

I couldn’t respond. Not with Willow so close.

"Hello," she interrupted, staring daggers at me.

Fuck. Her voice.

"Oh my gosh, you’re Willow." Piper snaked around Adam and grabbed her hand. "I’m Piper Fontaine—I’m not a football player—obviously. Sorry, I’m Adam’s—he’s my boyfriend. He’s a linebacker. Let me start again?—"

"No, that’s pretty good," Adam laughed. "I’m her boyfriend."

"Kassie," Kassie introduced herself. "Also not a football player."

Ryan pointed to himself. "Ryan Cross, offensive team captain. Welcome to Marrs University. Think of me as a point of contact. If you need anything, I’m always a call away."

"We’re loitering." Adam grinned. "This is King. He doesn’t know when to shut up, if you can tell by the zero words he gives per minute."

Fuck .

The longer Willow stayed, the more my friends would blurt out, completely unaware that the coach’s daughter was the girl I’d been frothing at the mouth over for a week straight.

"I need to talk to you," Willow said, a clipped edge to her words.

Think of something .

"I’ll escort you to Cleo’s office." I put a hand to her back, leading her down the hallway. It was so easy to touch her but as soon as my hand grazed her back, I dropped it, and took a careful step to the left.

Touching her was stupid. Worse than stupid. It would be the stupidest shit I’d ever done, and I’d done some stupid shit.

"Who’s Cleo?" Willow asked but I directed her down a quieter hallway, away from all of the other athletes I saw on a day-to-day basis. Where the hell could I take her? If anyone saw us together, it’d get to Coach Lawson.

The coach I owed everything to.

A storage closet caught my eye. It was better than a meeting room.

I ushered her inside, flipping on the lights. It was cramped and full of cleaning supplies, not the best location, but the most private one.

The second I had her, alone, there was…Willow.

Even if her jaw was clenched and she looked about as pissed off as she could, it was hard not to stare. I’d been waiting to see her for so long, I wanted to touch her like a mirage. To see if she was real.

Willow crossed her arms over her chest. "You lied to me."

The anger didn’t translate to her words. She didn’t sound furious, she was hurt.

Fuck .

"Ms. Lawson?—"

"Ms. Pruitt," she snapped. "Is it K or King? I’m losing track."

"It’s King," I finally said.

"Is that supposed to be a nickname?"

"It’s my last name. But…they call me the King."

Every other date I’d been on, girls brought it up as part of a pickup line. Willow was the first to roll her eyes. She mumbled something under her breath and faced me again.

"So all of it was bullshit then? Your dad’s name? Mom in and out of the hospital? Are those great lines to get girls in bed and I fell for it?"

"No. All of that’s real."

She gazed at me for a long moment, and I didn’t know what to say. This was fucked up. It hurt.

"Ms. Pruitt." I took a deep breath. "I apologize if I in any way pushed your boundaries or made uncomfortable advances towards you. I didn’t understand the circumstances?—"

"Why are you talking like that?"

"It’s best if we delete each other’s numbers."

Stunned, Willow's arms fell. She didn’t understand the situation, but I did.

It was a painful whistle back to reality.

"We’re not…hanging out?" Her eyes dropped down to the ground. "I—I thought…"

Say something .

"Considering who your father is, it would be inappropriate."

Her lips curled. "My father is Dr. Marcus Pruitt, a poetry professor. I don’t know what he has to do with this conversation."

"You know who I mean."

"Your coach."

I nodded. "You're the coach’s daughter. I can’t."

"I am not Lawson’s daughter."

"To everybody else, you are."

"He ruined my parent’s marriage and now he’s married to my mom, so I’d appreciate it if you could remember who you’re talking to."

Her new shitty stepfather was…Coach Lawson? That didn’t make sense. I knew my coach through and through. I couldn’t imagine him fucking up someone’s marriage.

"I don’t believe that," I said, less to her, and more to the situation.

"I don’t care what you believe."

"It doesn’t matter. You’re still considered his daughter on campus. Everyone’s going to know who you are."

"What?"

"You’ll be—" I tried to think of the best term for it. "Campus royalty."

The irritation melted away. "I—I don’t want that."

"It doesn’t matter."

"But—but there’s forty thousand students here. That can’t be true."

There was nothing I could do to stop it. Even if the summer term was quieter, she didn’t have more than a couple of days before her picture was in the school paper, front-page.

" Everyone is going to know who you are," I confirmed. "And everyone on the football team knows you’re off-limits."

"What the hell is off-limits?"

"No one’s allowed to touch you."

"What kind of archaic cultist bullshit…?" Willow whispered to herself before she shook her head, stumbling back. "This is a nightmare. King, this is why I asked if you were—why didn’t you tell me?"

"I should’ve told you," I said quietly, "so I could’ve deleted your number."

Willow flinched.

It was just the two of us, alone in a storage closet with a limited amount of time before someone came looking for her. This was it. I had to forget all about Willow Pruitt. My angel.

I reached for the door handle, but she stopped me.

"You have my nudes."

Oh, shit .

Just the thought of the collection made my throat dry. All of the photos we swapped, saved under our Vanysh accounts, the long voice messages, all the screenshots I took when Willow sent me selfies.

It wasn’t my phone anymore. It was a museum dedicated to her.

Fuck.

If one of my teammates found the stash, all hell would break loose. If Coach Lawson asked to check the time and stumbled into my pictures, he’d have a heart attack.

"I don’t want you swapping my photos with your teammates."

I wouldn’t do that in a million years. Did she think I would do that? Hurt pulsed through me.

"You have videos of me too," I muttered.

She pushed her phone towards me and held out her hand. "I’m deleting mine, you’re deleting yours. Nothing slips through the cracks. What’s your passcode?"

"Five—" I started to answer before I stopped myself. "Nothing."

"What is it?"

Fuck, you can’t find out .

I unlocked it myself and handed it over. With a grunt, I pulled up our messages.