Chapter 11 #2
I exhaled sharply. “Look, Dustin—”
“No.” He shook his head, staring me down like I was trying to convince him that the sky was green. “You’re snooping, aren’t you?”
“I’m not—”
“You are.” He stepped closer, close enough that his shadow brushed mine.
“You think I don’t know what snooping looks like?
You think I haven’t seen them come through here?
Reporters? Scouts? Agents?” His voice stayed low, but the intensity tightened with every word.
“What have you seen that’s made you . . .
curious?” he murmured, stepping closer. “I know you don’t need any more trouble, Peterson. ”
I swallowed. Annoyingly, my throat clicked. “And what do you think you know, Slater?”
He smiled, reaching past me, crowding me into the space between him and the cabinet behind me as he leaned over me. I don’t know if he thought he was intimidating me; all I knew was that I didn’t like the way my body kept reacting to his proximity.
“I know my coach isn’t happy you’re here. And we’ve had plenty of wannabe reporters pass through these doors. So what makes you the one who makes him even more grouchy?” His eyes dropped to my lips and back up again. “What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
He scoffed, moving back a step, letting us both breathe. “We talked about this. You’re a shit liar.”
“Maybe he doesn’t like my curious nature.”
Dustin gave me a flat stare. “Yeah, that must be it. So if you know he doesn’t like it, then stop.” He looked around. “This would be a great example of knowing when to stop.”
“So you’re saying that I’m not allowed to be curious,” I said, too quietly.
The smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I think you might be better off being curious about something else. Not about whatever you think you’ve found and are hiding behind your back.” Something flickered across his face then — something sharp and quickly buried.
I blinked. “What aren’t you saying?”
“Peterson.” He ran a hand over his hair, breaking our stare to look back at the door, and I wondered if he was thinking about escaping. “Don’t pull at threads you don’t understand.”
“What if they need pulling?” Whoa, Hadley, why don’t you just tell him your plan like a Scooby-Doo villain?
Dustin looked back at me sharply. Too sharply. “If there was something that needed to be pulled, let someone else handle it.”
“Like who?” I demanded, stepping closer, I’d caught the scent of a story now. “The program that buried those threads in the first place?”
Dustin’s jaw clenched.
We stood there in the dusty little room, the air hot and crowded despite the space between us. My hands tightened around the folder — the one I wasn’t supposed to see, the one he hadn’t yet demanded I hand over.
“Dustin,” I said quietly. “What do you know?”
His eyes snapped to mine. For a fraction of a second — barely there — something slipped. Recognition. Calculation. Whatever it was, he shut it down fast.
He took a step closer. Not aggressive, but deliberate all the same. Enough that the air shifted again, enough that I felt it in my chest.
“You don’t want to ask me that,” he said. His voice was calm, flat . . . final.
“Why not?”
His gaze dropped to the folder behind my back, lingered there, then lifted back to my face.
“Because I said you don’t want to ask me,” he said, “which means, don’t ask.”
I swallowed. “You know something.”
His mouth tightened. “I know enough to tell you this needs to end now.”
He reached past me, took the folder from my grip — not roughly, but not gently either. Like it was already his. “This? In here? Not smart, Peterson.”
“I—”
“Go home,” he said flatly.
“Dustin—”
His dark eyes caught mine. “I’m not asking, Peterson.”
He opened the door and held it, waiting. Not looking at me, making it clear that the conversation was over because he’d decided it was.
I turned back to the cabinet, shoved the drawer closed, and walked past him without a word. I didn’t look back, but I heard the door close, and I walked up the corridor quickly in case he decided to look into my bag.
I walked right into Mike, who was half finished with his protein shake, and he looked relieved to see me.
“Phew, thought I’d lost you,” he said with a smile. “Coach would have chewed my balls off if I hadn’t found you.” He flushed bright pink. “Um, chewed me out, not, um . . .”
“It’s okay, Mike,” I told him with a smile. “I curse a lot myself.”
He grinned. “You’re too pretty to swear,” he said, and his flush deepened.
He was just too innocent for this program to turn him into whatever it did to these players. “You’re very sweet to say so,” I told him, patting his hand.
Mike was now a bright shade of red, and in his attempt to change the subject, he blurted out a question I wish he hadn’t, because Coach Sutherland was walking toward us. “So, what were you doing down there?” He looked at the corridor I’d just walked up.
The head coach’s gaze narrowed on me like a laser, and I tried not to appear intimidated.
“Bathroom,” Dustin said, already moving past us.
“Yeah, bathroom,” I said. I looked back down the short hall and saw the door that led to the women’s bathrooms. “I needed the bathroom.” I turned around and almost stepped back as I saw how close Sutherland was to me.
“I found one,” I said with bright, fake cheeriness. “He was kind enough to show me.”
“I told you not to wander this facility,” he growled.
Jesus Christ. “Well, you know what they say, Coach, when you gotta go, you gotta go.”
His glare intensified, and I moved a little closer to Mike. I didn’t give a damn about the message that was sent.
“Whittaker,” Coach Sutherland said to Mike without looking away from me, “you leave her side again inside this facility, and we’re going to have a very long talk about your future with the Lions.”
Head Dick didn’t miss my gasp of surprise at the blatant threat to Mike’s future. He smiled sinisterly and walked past me, narrowly missing shoulder-checking me.
Dustin whistled under his breath. His eyes held a warning — not reassurance. I ducked my head because he’d just saved my ass, and I was sure he’d take the opportunity to remind me of it. But for now, he was walking away, leaving me with Mike, who looked like he was ready to cry.
“Fuck . . .”
“I’m really sorry, I really needed to go to the bathroom,” I lied.
He nodded, but he looked heartbroken. “I shouldn’t have left you, it’s on me.” He tried to smile, failed, and I felt worse. “Maybe you should leave . . . for today?”
I rubbed my stomach. “Yeah, actually, I was hoping you would say that. I must’ve eaten something bad.”
Mike winced in sympathy. “I’ll walk you out,” he offered, almost back to his bright, lovely self.
“Thanks, Mike.”
As Mike held the door open for me and said he hoped I felt better tomorrow, I was sure that the story I’d come here to write was much closer than I initially thought.