Chapter 32 #2
“We all are under a lot of strain,” Noah snapped.
“Do you think he remembers he dragged us into this? He got involved. We got involved. Because of him. Do you think I really care if the right guard’s getting a B-minus instead of a C-minus?
” He shook his head. “No, I don’t give a fuck.
I know that my grades are my grades. Do you think I care if they pay a redshirt to sit on the bench and keep his mouth shut, when the injured first-team player plays when he shouldn’t?
No. It’s none of my fucking business.” He stood.
“None of this has fuck all to do with me.”
“I’m sorry.” I was. I heard what he was saying; in truth, I agreed.
It was really bad to know that this was happening.
But it wasn’t happening to us, and I knew I got here on my own merit, and I knew I was a starter because no one in their right mind would bench me.
Or Noah. “You can step back,” I told him, and I meant that too.
“Use this thing with him and Savvy and take a step back, distance yourself if you want. You were really good at being the strong, silent type.”
Noah’s lips twitched. “I was.”
“And you’re right about the grades, and you’re right about the redshirts. And it really was none of our business.” I paused. “But that’s not all of it now.”
Noah didn’t move.
“There’s a girl,” I carried on quietly. “Somewhere out there, there’s a girl who filed a complaint, it took her three attempts because she was so scared, and it got buried.
They pulled Mason Sterling before anyone could talk to him.
They deleted the article before it ran. Someone was in that storage room scratching his name out with so much force they nearly tore through the paper.
” I let out a heavy sigh. “And today, I get a photo of Hadley and me on my phone from an unknown number. Which means someone is watching us. Which could mean someone knows we’ve been asking questions. ”
Noah’s jaw was tight.
“So yeah,” I told him. “We can step back from the grade altering. We can step back from bench politics and the redshirt payoffs and all of that.” I looked at him, and he met my gaze.
“But someone got hurt. They got silenced, and the someone who did that, they’re still out there.
And someone in this program knows that, and they’ve been watching us.
” I rubbed my jaw. “And absolutely no one should see her like that ever.”
The stress ball rested beside him.
“I’m not telling you what to do,” I reminded him quietly. “I mean that, but I needed to remind you what you’re stepping back from.”
The silence that followed wasn’t comfortable. I don’t think it was supposed to be.
I sat on the edge of his bed. “It’s okay.” My words were sincere. “I thought about it too, but . . .”
“But he’s your friend, and you want to support him. Yeah. I know how you feel.” Noah rubbed his hand over his face. “What’s the picture? Can I see it?” He actually smiled, and I was grateful because I’d had enough heavy shit today, and I knew he wanted to change the subject.
I handed him my phone wordlessly. Noah snorted out a laugh.
“It’s not that funny.”
“Look at you, you look so desperate, man.” He tossed the phone back. “She saw that, and her reaction was to say you were a couple?”
I nodded, looking at the image from another angle, not like ‘oh fuck, my life is screwed’ but actually looked at us both. Noah was right. I looked eager for Peterson to lean forward. We were in our own world, and it was actually really hot.
“Yeah. She said if it’s blackmail, then blackmail is about power, so she took the power back.
” I licked my lips. “She made sense at the time, but now I have to go home on Sunday with my fake girlfriend to meet my parents.” I scowled when Noah snickered.
“It’s not funny. I need to convince my mom I’m into her.
Otherwise I’ll need to show my mom that picture and explain why I’m faking it. ”
Noah was laughing again. “You need to convince your mom you’re into Hadley? Or you need to convince yourself you’re not?”
I closed the image. “It’s just sex.”
“No one gets to see her like that ever?” he mocked. Noah sat at his desk and stretched his legs out. “I don’t think you need to fake it.”
“I don’t want to date Peterson.”
He scoffed. “Why not? She’s hot, funny, smart, and looks like she knows how to handle herself. Sounds like a catch to me.”
He was obviously insane. “She’s pushy, loud, stubborn, a crazy cat lady, and I’m still not one hundred percent sure she wasn’t behind this.” I tapped the phone for emphasis.
“Like a reverse Kathy Bates in Misery?”
“Oh fuck, if she comes at me with a sledgehammer, we need to run.”
“While we can,” he said, smile fading. “You really think it was Hadley?” He shook his head. “I can’t see it. She’s less . . . subtle but still brutal.”
I looked away. Yeah, the more I thought about it, the less likely I thought it was her too. “I’m looking for Briar,” I admitted to Noah. “I know I just told you to step back, but I ran into her about five minutes after I left Hadley that night.”
Noah waved off my concern about oversharing. “This is different,” he said softly. “The social media girl.” He whistled. “It’d be a pity if it were her.”
“You liked her,” I remembered with a knowing smile.
“I did. But then I saw her with some guy and realized she’s taken. And she’s not a student, I don’t know why I assumed she was.”
“Her height.” He looked at me. “She’s petite. It’s hard to place an age on her when she’s always hiding behind her hair.” I tapped my leg. “But when she was introduced, it was as a member of the marketing team, not as an intern or student shadowing or anything.”
Noah looked surprised. “How depressing would that be? Posting on social media every day?”
“It’s PR — just a different platform. Naya is obsessed with likes on her posts. I bet if it’s your paid job, you’re even more invested than an eighteen-year-old like my sister in how many views you’re getting. Hadley chasing me across the field must have been a nightmare for them.”
“Yeah. They’re going to want to know why you two didn’t declare your love for each other before now.”
I hadn’t thought of that.
“Do you want to help me interrogate her?” I asked him only half jokingly.
“Of course. That’s what friends do.” He held up his phone. “Must be something in the water; Hadley said she and Savvy wanted to ask me something too. It’s why they came looking for me.”
“What is it?”
He shrugged. “No clue. She said she’ll catch me later.”
I rested my head against the wall, watching him. I scratched my cheek. “What do you think of her, really?”
He didn’t hide his surprise that I was serious. “Honestly? I think she’s pretty great. I think she’s also really invested in the program scandal, and I think that would make me cautious about getting too involved with her . . . but other than that, I think you might be punching above your weight.”
I flipped him off, but his words stuck with me, needling the back of my mind long after the two of us headed back to the stadium for training.
He was right. She was too caught up in everything already crashing down around us, and I was fighting to keep the program from pulling me under.
I wasn’t fighting nearly as hard when it came to her.