2
Lexi
“Good luck getting rid of that one, Lex. He’s stuck to you like a leech,” Connor remarks as Blake Boden finally runs off to join Ace and Julia in their search for the switched seat numbers.
I roll my eyes and shake my head. “He’s a gamer. He likes to win things, and because I’m a challenge, he wants to win me. Simple. He’ll get over it eventually.”
Connor shakes his head on a chuckle. “He seemed pretty determined.”
“Yeah, well, he was determined to take the Dragons to the championship last year, and he failed at that. So I assure you, a conclusion rooted in disappointment is possible for him.”
Connor’s laugh is stilted and a little weird—like it always is—but undeniably loud. It pulls Blake’s attention from the far side of the field, and I wave a hand in front of Connor’s face to shut him up. “Were you not at orientation? Keep it down, Connor, please.”
“Is there a particular reason you’re dead set against giving him a shot? Other than the fact that he’s a football player?”
“That’s enough of a reason, isn’t it?” I scrunch up my nose as I challenge what I think is a clearly dumb question. Connor has known me since elementary school. When we were teenagers in high school, our friendship even blossomed into a coupledom—though, we weren’t a romantic match. He should know me well enough to know that I don’t get involved with football players.
Being the stepdaughter of the New York Mavericks’ owner, I’ve been surrounded by them since I was a little girl. And I’ve seen and heard way too many things to not understand that football players are the opposite of an ideal mate for a girl like me.
If I’m honest, I’m not sure there’s anyone out there who is an ideal partner for me. On paper, Connor should technically be one, but even that relationship went back to just friends before we started Dickson University as college freshmen.
“I don’t know, Lex. You always got along so well with the Mavericks when we were kids.” Connor shrugs. “And you haven’t really dated since we did.”
“Oh, come on.” I roll my eyes, my laugh smug. “You can’t believe that, can you? That I haven’t truly dated someone since we were teenagers and using each other to study the mechanics of kissing?”
“Well, I haven’t dated anyone since then.” Connor blushes and turns his head. “And you’re always occupied with the lab and school. I just assumed.”
I sigh. “Relationships and physical attraction are a study in human behavior, Conn. I couldn’t exactly consider any of my research conclusive without going further than a kiss.”
“Understood.” He’s silent then, turning to face the stadium at large and putting his back to me.
I ponder over his state of mind. A year ago, I never would have considered that I might have hurt his feelings because, to me, the concept of emotion tied to other people’s behavior is somewhat asinine. You can’t control it, so to base your own well-being on it is risky, statistically speaking. But my little brother explained it to me last summer, when I accidentally sent my mom to her room crying after what was, to me, a simple interaction.
It might not be rational, but for better or worse, total forfeiture of emotional control is evidently a characteristic of neurotypical human behavior. And I’m trying to be better about taking that into consideration.
“I’m sorry, Conn, if the news came as a shock,” I say, my voice quiet but as sincere as I can manage. “I didn’t mean to spring that on you.”
“It’s fine.” He shakes his head, turning briefly but declining to meet my eyes. Truth be told, neither one of us is the best at making direct visual contact. I sigh, and he pauses briefly before speaking again, his gaze still in the opposite direction. “I’m going to go double-check that the gate we came through is still unlocked.”
“Okay.” It’s a pointless endeavor, seeing as I have the combination, but I don’t deny him the task. Frankly, it’ll be better for us both if he gets a little space. I don’t like the gnawing feeling of awkwardness between us. We’ve known each other too long, and he’s one of the only people I don’t have to pretend with.
It’d be easy to be with him since he understands all my quirks, but there is absolutely zero physical attraction to him on my end, and I’ve done the research on how damaging dry sex is on the vaginal microbiome.
And a life full of UTIs, other infections, and no orgasms?
No, thank you.
Plus, it feels all kinds of wrong to be with someone you know isn’t right for you. I might not be the best with emotional things, but I’m not impervious to the fact that something like that can be hurtful to the other party. And the last thing I want to do is hurt people, even if my mouth deviates from my purpose every now and then.
Connor’s back retreats toward the far end of the field, disappearing into darkness just past the fifty-yard line. I look down at the stopwatch to check the time, noting that only half of it is left. Ace and Julia streak by, running hand in hand from one side of the field to the other, Blake Boden in their wake. I look down at my phone, feigning avid concentration, but the pulse of his presence as he comes to a stop in front of me is undeniable.
It’s concussive, and I really wish I could nail down the physics of why that is. A hormone? His muscle density triggering an atmospheric shift?
I wish I freaking knew.
Whatever it is feels stupidly magnetic.
“Can I help you?” I ask, glancing up from my phone briefly and then looking back down. “By the looks of things, you haven’t located the seats yet, and we’re more than halfway through your time.”
“I just noticed that you lost your sidekick. Maybe—”
“What in the hell is going on here?” a stern voice asks from behind us, spinning us both around right in the middle of Blake’s sentence. A bright flashlight shines directly in our faces, and I hold up a hand to block the piercing power of it. When it finally clicks off, it takes ten seconds for my eyes to adjust back to the darkness. Blake’s correction is quicker.
“Director Hughes,” he says immediately, the volume of his voice heightened in an effort to alert me and everyone else to the seriousness of the situation. The athletic director catching us in here is about as worst-case scenario as it gets.
All the kids in the stands scatter and run, and I suck my lips into my mouth over how freaking guilty that makes us look right off the bat.
My throat feels clogged, and my cheeks feel hot as I fight to keep my carefully crafted Double C persona in place. It’s a form of masking, of course—something I’ve gotten so good at over the years I hardly even realize all the times I’m doing it—because underneath, I am a basket case of embarrassment and disillusion.
This shouldn’t be happening.
I covered all the bases. I made sure the stadium would be deserted and planned this for the night of the staff banquet so Coach Gordan, Coach Jimmen, and Coach Niles would be occupied. I checked and double-checked the shift change on the security patrol of the interior and turned off the cameras with my signal jammer.
I don’t know how they figured out we were in here, and boy, does that grate on my nerves.
I’m not used to not knowing. Since I was six years old, I’ve known almost everything .
Clearing my throat, I steel my nerves against my growing uncertainty and lift my chin with confidence I’m no longer feeling. “Good evening, Director Hughes. I’m so sorry you got pulled out here in the middle of the night.” I laugh softly, shaking my head and willing a reason for being here to come to mind.
“I’m afraid it’s my fault, sir,” a male voice says, startling me from my side. Blake is still there, his best Leave It to Beaver smile in place, even though I half expected him to be gone or—if not in a cloud of desertion dust—silent. All the do-gooders I know would have dropped this in my lap and left me hanging in a heartbeat. “I left my backpack with my AirPods, computer, and some other notes and gear here after practice, and I enlisted some friends to come help me look for it so I can turn in my Engineering Dynamics final paper on time. Silly of me, I know, but I didn’t back it up anywhere other than my laptop’s hard drive, and it’s due first thing tomorrow morning. I know how important it is to keep my GPA up so I have eligibility to play next year.”
My stomach flips as our athletic director’s eyes narrow, his hands settling on his hips in a posture of frustration. “You should have notified security, Blake. You don’t just sneak in the stadium and start rooting around.”
Blake nods. “Of course. I… Well, sir, I was a little embarrassed, as I’m sure you can imagine. But it won’t happen again, and we’ll get out of here now.”
“Did you find the backpack?”
Blake shakes his head, dejected. He’s playing the part of a damsel pretty well for someone who benches over two hundred pounds. “No, sir. I have a few more places to look on campus, though, before I give up all hope.”
“Coach Gordan know about you leaving this to the last minute?”
Blake winces, hooking his thumbs into his pockets and shrugging in a form of visual gee golly gosh . “No, sir. He’d be pretty disappointed, so I’m trying to make it right. Can we just keep this between us for now? I promise, if I don’t get the paper turned in on time, I’ll tell him myself.”
Director Hughes groans. “You’re killing me, Boden.”
Blake nods enthusiastically. “Yes, sir. I know.”
Hughes takes one long, deep sigh but then, finally, nods. “Fine. But you need to gather up all your friends and get them out of here, pronto. And I swear, if I find any damage or problems in the light of day, I’m coming for your ass.”
“Of course,” Blake agrees. “I wouldn’t expect anything less, sir.”
“Jesus Christ, football players. You’re all going to send me to an early grave.”
“Again, sorry, sir. Truly. We’ll get out of here now.”
Blake grabs me by the elbow and starts to walk, dragging me along with him toward the players’ tunnel he arrived through. He makes a big show of yelling out to the abandoned stadium in case any of the others are still here. “Come on, guys! I don’t think my backpack’s here! Let’s go look at the pedestrian court!”
“How Director Hughes didn’t know you were full of shit, I’ll never know,” I mutter under my breath as we make our way through the hall, the locker room, and out to the other side, where the darkness of navy-painted walls consumes us. Blake comes to a stop and I keep walking, but he reaches out and grabs me again, slowing me before I can get away.
“Hey. Where are you going?” he asks.
“I’m leaving. Just like you told him we would,” I explain slowly, troubled by his struggle to understand.
He shakes his head and tightens his grip on my arm. “You can’t just leave. You owe me.”
“I owe you?” I narrow my eyes. “For what exactly?”
His smile is one hundred versions of cocky all combined into one. “For saving your ass.”
“My ass doesn’t need saving,” I scoff. “It’s not sentient. But even if it did, I’d have saved it myself.”
“You know what, though?” He shakes his head, his blue eyes so bright in comparison to the dark navy walls of the hallway they almost glow. “It didn’t look like it. It looked like you were floundering.”
I frown. I loathe the idea of being anything other than self-sufficient. I planned, I prioritized, and still, I ended up getting caught. But I’m not an invalid. I know I would have figured a way out of it without Blake Boden’s help.
“I was thinking,” I retort sharply. “About to speak, believe or not, before you butted in.”
“My dad always says ‘about to’ never got anyone anywhere.”
Annoyingly, he’s not wrong. The truth is, I was drowning in my thoughts, scrambling for a valid excuse to give Director Hughes for our very illegal presence in the stadium. And until Blake piped up with his “I lost my backpack” masterpiece, I didn’t have a single plausible reason. I would have come up with one, though. I know I would’ve.
“Fine,” I sigh, my shoulders sagging. “What exactly do I owe you, then?”
“Pizza.”
His smile is so big it’s borderline unnerving, and worse, it makes my mouth twitch like it wants to smile back. I don’t, of course. Smiling in this situation makes zero logical sense.
“Pizza?” I repeat, brow furrowed. “You think I owe you pizza ?”
“Yeah.” He nods, full of irritating confidence. “And you’re going to get it with me. Right now.”
“ Now ?” I echo, horrified. My adrenaline is still spiking from our near run-in with trouble, and all I want is a warm bath and the soothing hum of my white noise machine. Pizza grease, a crowded restaurant, and whatever voodoo Blake Boden exerts on my nervous system sounds like a trifecta of bad ideas. “Can’t we do this another time? I mean, I’ll pay up, but…not now. ”
“The semester ends Tuesday, Lexi. I know if I let you walk away tonight, I’ll never see you again.”
“I keep my word,” I argue, slightly offended.
“I want to believe you. I do. But I don’t.” He shrugs, annoyingly unbothered. “So, you’re coming with me now. It’s paramount to the balance of the universe.”
“Oh, right. The Cosmic Balance Theory of Pizza. I think I’ve heard of it, Mr. Theoretical Physicist.”
“What’s it going to hurt to believe it’s true? Just for tonight?”
I narrow my eyes. “This wasn’t in my plans.”
“So, change them.”
Dinner last night flashes through my mind—the promise I made to my family, my little brother’s hopeful expression lingering like an itch I can’t scratch.
I promised I’d be open to change.
I guess that starts now. With pizza and Blake freaking Boden.