Chapter 11
Hadley
I wasn’t supposed to be here.
Not here, here — like, inside the facility.
I’d been given access for my assignment.
That part was fine. But this particular room?
The one tucked behind the athletic office with filing cabinets older than my parents and a printer that sounded like it needed to be read its last rites?
Yeah. This room hadn’t been on the official tour.
Mike had run off to grab a protein shake before film, and I had ten minutes to kill.
Ten minutes is enough time to get coffee, scroll TikTok, reflect on life choices .
. . Or, if your name is Hadley Peterson and you have a serious desire to push the boundaries, it was enough time to apparently wander into a storage room full of old paperwork that should’ve been shredded a long time ago.
I knew this office was here. One of my ‘old’ sources had mentioned something about the paper archive, and ever since, I’d been itching to get a reason to get inside this building and into this room.
I told myself I wasn’t really snooping. My introduction to football was seriously lacking, and all I wanted was a ‘cheat sheet’ on what the heck spring training actually meant and what the point of it was.
They had media coverage, but they only played against each other on the team?
Who the hell was tuning in to watch that?
So instead of saying that to Mike, because the poor guy was actually a decent human being, I was ‘immersing myself in the experience.’ Or if asked by Head Coach Sutherland, I’d say it was ‘understanding the ecosystem.’ If the dean asked me, it would be ‘collecting context.’ In truth, it was snooping to find out what this shady-as-shit program was hiding.
My intentions had been good.
They really had been.
I’d been here for four days, trying to learn what this was for Mike’s sake, because he worked way too hard to be someone who didn’t get to play football. But when I found this little room actually did exist, and I saw all the filing cabinets still full of paperwork, my fingers itched.
A cabinet labeled Spring Training caught my attention; it felt like a sign from the gods.
I flipped through a stack of old spring roster packets, searching for anything about defensive ends so I could make Mike seem more than just a ‘freshman who breathes loudly when nervous.’ I wanted to have my cover ready in case I got caught. Before the real digging started.
What I did not expect to find so quickly was a name violently scratched out with so much pressure that the paper had nearly torn. Everything inside me froze, and as my fingers hovered over the scratched-out name, my mind shouted at me to pretend I hadn’t seen it.
For my own good.
But as my dad liked to lament, I’d never been any good at pretending.
I scanned the rest of the document; the rest of the roster appeared normal — names, numbers, positions, heights, GPAs, academic standing, and player evaluations.
It could have been a simple mistake: a name was added when it shouldn’t have been, and it was just manually omitted rather than reprinted. That definitely could have been it.
But this name . . . It seemed like someone wanted it obliterated from memory.
It felt personal the way it was scratched out.
The paper had been torn, indicating the person was either furious or frustrated.
I looked closer. Whoever did it had used a pen, not a marker, so faint indents were still visible beneath the black fury of ink strokes, which was frustrating because I couldn’t read the full name — just the first letter and part of a curve.
No explanation, or notes and no follow-up. Just this person removed from the roster, as if there was no mistake he should have been included.
Weirder still? Next to Player Evaluation, the section was blank.
Not zeroed out, or incomplete. Not ‘did not participate,’ which I had seen next to a few names — just nothing.
This again suggested it could be someone included who shouldn’t have been.
It was the most reasonable explanation, but this program and the word ‘reasonable’ didn’t belong together.
Not when it was just one big glossy cover over an infestation of rot.
I took a slow breath, feeling the hairs on my arms stand up. Did this mean something? Was this the ‘more’ I was looking for?
Was this . . . a story?
“Shit.” I stepped back, looking at the paper as if it were poisonous.
I thought about the guys I’d spoken to and what Mike had shared.
All of it was with Coach Sutherland’s permission, of course.
Mike didn’t have any missing evaluations.
Neither did any of the current players. Every player I spoke to had piles upon piles upon piles of data.
One of them even joked that their coaches were obsessive, filling in evaluations if a player sneezed weirdly.
How they missed limps or shallow diaphragms made me even more suspicious, but to question openly would get me in hot water with Head Coach Sleazeball.
I looked at the date, realizing it was almost four years ago. Maybe they didn’t use computers back then. I snorted softly at my own ridiculousness.
One thing I had learned in my last few days was that everything about this game, the player, and the sport was about stats. They had a statistic for everything.
I swallowed, glancing over my shoulder to make sure I was still alone.
Turning back, I flipped through the file to see if there was anything else about the scratched-out name.
I noticed two more places where the name was scribbled over, not with the same force, but whoever they were, they’d definitely pissed someone off.
They were removed from the playing schedule.
The same thing happened on the academic sheet.
When I flipped to the next page, they were just . . . gone.
Not reassigned, benched, or transferred. Just . . . gone.
I checked the list to make sure I wasn’t being paranoid, but no, thirty-four names, including Scribbled Out, and then it was thirty-three. Where did they go?
A pit opened in my stomach. What happened to him? More importantly, why did it look like someone wanted to pretend he’d never existed? I glanced toward the hallway, listening for footsteps. Nothing. Just the hum of the cursed printer and the distant thud of weights.
“Don’t be dramatic,” I whispered. “People leave programs all the time. Injury. Grades. Family stuff. It doesn’t have to be weird.” I scoffed. “Hell, he could have died, Hadley.”
But something in my gut told me there was no normal explanation for what had happened here. It was weird. Every part of it was weird. My gut was a great judge of character, so I was listening to it. I shoved some of the papers in my bag.
I flipped back to the roster, tapping the scratched-out name with my finger. Who was he? And why did this look like the entire department was pretending he had never been here?
I reached for the next stack of papers — older spring files, old reports, whatever else these filing cabinets had swallowed over the years — when a voice made me jolt so hard I almost dropped the folder.
“What are you doing in here?”
I spun around, folder half hidden behind my back like a guilty toddler. Dustin stood in the doorway, brow furrowed, sweat still visible on his forehead from practice, looking at me as if he’d caught me rewiring a bomb.
Well.
Crap.
This was going to be a problem, not just emotionally — physically. I remembered him leaning over me in the coffee shop. My spine locked up, my lungs forgot how to breathe, and the folder behind my back suddenly felt as heavy as a guilty conscience, and I couldn’t find a single word to say.
Dustin filled the doorway with the same dread-inducing energy as a pop quiz I hadn’t studied for — only with a much better aesthetic.
Arms crossed, brows furrowed, wearing that familiar look of irritation I was getting used to, except this time, there was something else tucked beneath it.
Something that looked a little too close to concern. And that caught me off guard.
And I still hadn’t answered him. Fantastic.
His frown deepened as his impatience grew thinner. “What are you doing in here?” he repeated, slower this time.
His eyes darted to the cabinets behind me, then to my hands behind my back, then back to my face.
That wasn’t good. I knew I wasn’t going to fool him.
“I . . .” I croaked like a frog.
One eyebrow arched.
Shit.
I squared my shoulders, suppressing my panic, and gave him my most haughty look, as if he were the one who shouldn’t be here. “I was looking for background context,” I said, voice much steadier. “I’m sure that’s allowed. Technically.”
He stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him with a soft, ominous click. “Technically?” he echoed. “You’re sure that’s allowed? Why don’t you sound sure, Peterson?”
God, why did he have to smell like clean sweat and sunshine and trouble?
I cleared my throat. “I am sure.” Nope, there was no way in hell I was supposed to be in here, and from the frown on his face, he knew it.
“You’re supposed to be with Mike.”
“I am with Mike.”
“Uh-huh.” He pretended to look around the room. “Well, I see you in here, but where is he?” His gaze swept over me, noting my soft boots, long denim skirt, sweater, and light scarf. “Is Mike what you’re hiding behind your back?”
I resisted the urge to step back when he moved closer. It felt unfair that someone that pretty could loom. “He went to get a shake.” I sounded weak, and I knew I needed to fix that. “This is still part of the facility,” I said, lifting my chin. “It’s not like I broke into a vault.”
His gaze flicked to my side, then to the crumpled folder still behind my back. His dark eyes held mine. “Yeah? In here . . . it kind of gives off vault energy,” he said. “What are you hiding?”
“Nothing.” So stupid. It was very obvious I was holding something behind me. Think better, Hadley.
“Said with the confidence of someone hiding something.”