Chapter 29 #2
“Huh . . .” She was lost in thought, staring across the room at a row of textbooks in glass displays. It made sense why no liquids were allowed in here. Kind of.
“What are you thinking?” I asked her, realizing her frown was about more than Slater’s ability to make a girl’s knees weak.
“What if Sterling also has moves?” She looked over at me. “He was a freshman. Tiffany wasn’t. Hotshot QB from your hometown, what if he was also getting offers from girls to hook up, and she wanted a taste?”
“And it went south?” I asked dubiously.
Savannah turned her chair around to face me more. “Look, we both see it. The sports guys get a lot of attention from girls. A lot.”
“Attention doesn’t mean they have the right to do whatever they want,” I protested.
“I know that. So do most of them, thankfully. But there are those who think being on the team means anything is available to you.” She looked back at her screen.
“You see it every other week in professional sports — allegations of misconduct, investigations of assault. Some men are pigs. The uniform makes them worse. There’s a reason most women pick the bear over the man in the woods, Hadley. ”
I nodded slowly. “Shit, that’s really sad.” I gulped. “True, though.”
“What year was Tiffany?”
“Sophomore.”
“Only a year between them . . .” I flicked through my notes. “She would know him. In high school, there’s no way to escape the jocks, especially if the team’s decent.”
“Ugh.” Savannah threw her pen down. “This whole thing makes my heart hurt.”
I didn’t disagree, but it made me angry too. “We need to go to Chattanooga.”
“We do.” We exchanged a look. “Not on Saturday.”
“You want to go on Sunday?” I asked.
“I have a brunch thing with my dad on Sunday. Booster event.” She glanced at me. “There are legacies, boosters, donors, all that. I bet some of them remember him.”
“You can’t ask,” I told her, feeling a moment of panic. “You can’t let them know that we’re looking at this. If we raise suspicion, it could all blow up in our faces.”
“I’m not an idiot, Hadley.” Savannah opened her calendar. “We can go next Saturday.”
“How do you know I’m not busy?”
She gave me a flat stare. “Because you want to go now, and I can only imagine the level of willpower you must have to keep yourself in that seat.” She huffed in amusement. “Trust me, I know you’re dropping everything for this. So thanks for being patient.”
“It is hard.” Sitting back in the chair, I gave her a rueful smile. “A week after Saturday is a long time to wait.”
“You’ll live, you’ve waited since last semester, you can wait another week.”
Could I?
Instead, I nodded. We spent the next hour reviewing everything and checking our notes.
Savannah had found a snippet of my blog post, and I was able to show her what I had written before her dad made me take it down.
She didn’t say anything in his defense; the only comment she made was that I was lucky there was no trace of it anywhere when Coach Sutherland demanded my laptop.
I had to admit, the fact that her dad hadn’t let them take it was a huge bonus for me. The draft was still in my documents. Another reason why I was sure Mary would have the original draft of her own piece that they didn’t let her publish.
“You know, you said it was the first thing he asked for,” Savannah murmured. “Like he had a right to it.”
“Yeah, the guy’s a prick.”
“Or . . . he’s done this before and used to getting his way, and this is the first time he’s been told no.” Her fingers pulled through her ponytail. “My dad was brand new to this role when this happened with Mason. He was only finding his feet. He didn’t come here to make friends.”
I watched her closely. “He and the head coach are far from friendly.”
“I wonder if this is why.” She made a face. “Of course, not that he’d tell me.” She gave a little laugh.
“No.” I met her gaze. “But he might tell me.”
Savannah looked at me in alarm. “Hadley . . . I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“I wouldn’t ask him outright.” I thought about it. “He’s put a new social media girl on the team. He’s watching them,” I said with a conviction I was sure was justified. “If I ask him the right questions, he might tell me.”
“I think it’s risky,” she argued. “We also think he’s watching. But my dad is clever. He won’t fall for your brown eyes, gorgeous hair, and flirty smile.”
“Ew. I am never going to flirt with your dad. Ick.” I patted my bun. “But thanks for the compliment.”
“We could run this past Dante first.”
I rolled my eyes. “Why?”
“Because he’s involved in this, and they’re part of it, and you’re sneaky.” She thought about it. “I need someone sneakier than me to stop you from being impulsive.”
“Dante is your answer?” I asked her skeptically as she packed up. “Really?”
Savannah shook her head. “No. Noah.”
She completely blindsided me with that. “Noah Matthews?”
“Yes.” She was on her feet. “You may not put money on Dante to beat Jett Santo. I’d put every penny I had on Noah to take them all on and still be standing at the end of it.”
“Noah?”
Savannah was at the door, and I was hurrying to pack up and follow her when she turned to me. “Yes. Noah. Because when the scary-looking twin looked at Noah, he didn’t glower. He smiled. Like recognizes like. Noah is the only one I think who can stop you. So . . . let’s go talk to him.”
I hadn’t been prepared to outmaneuver Noah today.
How annoying.