Chapter 15 #2
I found her coming out of the one place I really didn’t want her to be. The school paper building. It didn’t take long to put two and two together.
I didn’t know where to start looking, and I’d been going to the library, and I caught sight of that fucking ponytail that kissed the top of her ass every time she walked. Her head was down, her brow knitted in concentration, and she looked . . . guilty.
In fact, she looked guilty as fuck.
“What have you done?” I murmured as I picked up my speed to catch up to her. When I fell into step beside her, she looked at me as if I were the reason she had problems.
“What do you want?” Hadley snapped at me. She took in the baseball cap, the hoodie with the Alabama Lions logo on it, and my gray sweatpants, and her glare grew hotter. She snorted. “Of course you’re a gray sweatpants guy.”
I looked down at my clothes. “Huh?”
“Like you don’t know.”
“Still acting like a crazy person, I see.” I matched her glare when she looked at me. “Look, I’m not here for your shit, but—”
“I’m off my assignment, I know.” She was white-knuckling her backpack strap something fierce. “You don’t need to tell me.” She gave me another glare. “In fact, you . . . you don’t need to be anywhere near me. What with me being forward and all.”
Shit, how did she know I said that? I stopped walking. “Why are you glaring at me, and what the fuck does forward mean?”
“The opposite of backward,” she snapped. Her gaze swept over me with one derisive look. “But you probably understand that very well.”
She started walking again — nah, fuck that, she was power walking.
“Did you just call me slow?” I demanded, hurrying to catch up with her.
“Well, I didn’t say you were fast,” she muttered, not realizing I was at her elbow.
“Okay.” I grabbed her elbow and steered her off the quad.
“Enough is enough,” I muttered, ignoring her protests and attempts to break free of my grip.
“Shut up, Peterson,” I snapped at her. Spotting a short path between two buildings, I guided her to it.
I pushed her lightly against the wall. “Shut up and listen.”
“I’m going to scream.”
“You’re not screaming,” I said flatly. “You don’t want the attention.
And neither do I.” This woman was demented.
“You’re already on every social media platform chasing me like a lovestruck lunatic, so no, you won’t scream.
Because we both know you don’t need any more attention brought to yourself.
Not with me, anyway. Probably not at all. ”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Hadley snapped, hands on her hips, defiance radiating from every pore.
“Look, let’s cut the bullshit, okay?” I took a step closer. “I know you were digging into the program. You know I know you were digging into the program, so can we just get this over with?”
“Well, I didn’t know you knew,” she huffed. Her hands dropped off her hips, her posture becoming less aggressive, her eyes searching mine, seeing if I was bullshitting her. “Get what over with?” She sounded suspicious, and I was beginning to think that was her default setting.
I looked at our surroundings. It was a path, some might say an alley, because it was a shortcut from the quad to a back pathway.
It looked dark and shady, but it was on campus, between two buildings.
Besides being in my apartment or her dorm room — neither of which either of us would agree to — this was the best we were going to get for privacy.
“Look, I’ve seen some of your blog from last semester—”
“How?” Her focus was razor-sharp again. “My blog got taken down.”
I gave her a look, and her eyes narrowed further. “You should know better than anyone that what’s on the internet stays on the internet.”
Hadley’s eyebrows raised briefly, and she gave a soft snort. “You’d think that, but you’d be wrong.”
“What?”
Her look changed to one of assessment, and within moments, I was longing for the suspicious glare rather than this one. This one looked like she was dissecting me in her head.
Hadley looked up and down the path, seeing it was empty, and then she looked up, and I realized she was looking for open windows. Clever, I hadn’t thought of that. When she looked back at me, her eyes held a gleam in them that made me slightly nervous.
“Tell me what you know, and I’ll tell you what I just found.”
“You don’t get to negotiate,” I growled. “Not yet.”
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t get to have an opinion on what I do.”
“Funny,” I grumbled, “because I’ve got about fifty of them.” She opened her mouth to protest, but I spoke over her. “You’re not supposed to be digging.”
“So?”
“You’re still digging.”
She met my eyes. “I know.”
Silence. Heavy and sharp. Icy around the edges. This conversation was already a mistake. That didn’t mean I was stopping. I could hear Dante telling me to warn her to be careful. We weren’t asking her to stop. Were we?
Fuck, I no longer knew what the fucking play was.
I stepped back. “Mike told me you asked about Mason Sterling.”
Her breath hitched. Bingo.
“How do you know that name?” she whispered.
“I wish I didn’t,” I said, and I meant it.
She looked at me then — really looked — and something in her expression changed. Softened. Hardened. Both at once.
“Tell me.” She wasn’t begging or demanding. Just steady. “Tell me what you know.”
God, I was so tired of this; it was taking over everything. I decided to risk it.
I adjusted my ballcap, pulling it lower. “You can’t tell anyone I told you this.”
She smirked. “Off the record, got it.”
I gave her a flat look, and she grinned back. Good God, she was a handful. “I mean it, Peterson, this isn’t just about me.”
When she saw I was serious, she lost her attitude and nodded slowly. “Tell me what you know, I’ll tell you what I know, and then we can see where we go from there.”
“We go nowhere,” I snapped, instantly regretting it when her defenses shot back up. “This is hard because you won’t listen.”
She waited, eyebrows raised.
“This is a D1 school,” I started, but saw the flat look, and gave her an exasperated one of my own. “The athletic program is hard.”
She didn’t blink.
“Knock it off,” I bitched. “You’ve seen our schedule. That’s the offseason. During the season, it’s fucking insanity.” I waited until she gave a reluctant nod. “This program doesn’t lose,” I stressed. “Not players. Not staff. Not money. When something threatens that—”
“What do you mean?”
“It gets handled.”
Her mouth tightened. “Handled how?”
“Quietly.” I held her gaze. “Some players get help, but still need help.” I gave her a meaningful look.
Hadley’s eyes widened when I didn’t keep going. “You’re talking about academic favors?” she scoffed. “That’s not news. That’s barely even—”
“Will you just shut up?” I snapped. “God, you’re so fucking impatient.”
“You were stalling.”
No, I was surprised that everyone except the athletic department seemed to know we got help to stay eligible. This was clearly the worst-kept secret in the school. Or maybe it wasn’t a secret?
“Slater, I’m waiting.”
I fixed her with a glare that made her back up a step, and she bumped into the wall behind her.
I took a step closer, my palm flat against the building. I leaned down to her, the bill of my cap knocking into her forehead. I turned it around impatiently.
“Will you please stop being so fucking impatient?” I muttered. “You’ll listen,” I told her. “And you won’t interrupt again.”
She glared up at me. “Fine.”
“Slater?” The voice floated down the alley. “Dustin? Is that you?”
Fuck. Coach Merriman. What the fuck was I going to do?
I had one second and only one option.
I kissed Peterson.