Chapter 26 – Waylon
chapter
twenty-six
Waylon
Dr. Bob was watching me from the nightstand when I woke up.
I’d moved him from the dashboard when I got home from her building, set him right next to the alarm clock where his stupid plastic grin could judge me in peace.
Two days since the truck. Two days since she’d handed me this doctor bobblehead and my brain short-circuited so hard I told her I wanted to kiss her.
She hadn’t asked me to kiss her. She hadn’t said no, either. I’d been thinking about that for forty-eight hours.
You’ve lost it, Johnson. Fully lost it.
I reached under my bed and pulled out the flat mailer.
I checked the seal for the fourth time this week and held it in both hands.
Inside was a high school track jersey from Williston Northampton in Massachusetts, Gabby Thomas’s name across the back, from before anyone outside that school knew who she’d become.
Josie had told me about her on the hill at sunrise weeks ago, coffee going cold between her palms while the light turned her face gold. “I watched her run, and something in my brain just broke loose.”
Finding the jersey had taken four days and Trace’s Aunt Echo, who could apparently locate anything on the internet if you gave her enough context.
I’d texted Trace at four in the morning, which was unreasonable, and he’d appeared in my doorway eleven minutes later without asking a single question.
I gave him the school name, the year, the runner.
Echo came back with a seller in three days, and it shipped two-day express.
November eleventh was five days out, and I needed a plan.
Trace’s room in the Kappa Nu house looked like it belonged to a different building.
He had a king bed with sheets that had a thread count, a leather desk chair that cost more than my truck payment, and framed photos on the shelf: his dad shaking hands with Manning and his mom at a gala in a gown that could’ve funded a semester.
The Coulters were sports royalty three generations deep, and Trace wore it lightly, like he’d never once had to think about money.
The room smelled like the sandalwood candle Lena had given him that he burned every night yet would deny under oath.
I pushed through the door and found exactly what I expected.
Trace was on his bed with his back against the headboard, arms crossed, already watching me like he’d been waiting.
Ryder had claimed the desk chair with his legs kicked out, scrolling through his phone.
Lena was cross-legged on the floor against the dresser, textbook on her knees, and a highlighter between her teeth.
The bass from somebody’s speaker two floors down was humming through the floorboards.
I held up the mailer. “What’s the plan for Josie’s birthday?”
Lena pulled the highlighter from her mouth. “November eleventh. That’s—” She stopped and did the math. “That’s in five days.”
“I know.”
“Five days and nobody’s planned anything?” She set the book aside and pulled her braids over one shoulder. “It’s the same day as my mom’s birthday. I should have been all over this.”
Trace gave her a look. “You’ve been busy.”
“That’s not an excuse.” She uncapped the highlighter and capped it again. “Five days. Tight, but doable.”
I dropped onto the foot of the bed and set the mailer beside me.
Trace’s eyes went straight to it. A flat mailer that size meant fabric, the right size for a jersey, and Trace put it together fast and quiet the way he always did.
His gaze flicked from the mailer to my face, and his expression gave away nothing, which was how I knew he’d figured it all out.
He didn’t say a word. That was Trace. He’d carry your secret to the grave and never make a thing of it.
“We handle the setup while somebody else gets her out of the apartment,” I said. “Decorate her place. Cake. Make it feel like something she’s never had.”
Ryder looked up from his phone. “What’s in the envelope?”
“Her gift.”
He waited for more. I didn’t give him more.
“Cool.” He pocketed the phone and sat forward, cracking his neck. “I’m in. What are we doing for decorations? Because if I’m in charge, it’s streamers and a balloon that says ’You’re Old.’”
“Nobody is putting you in charge of aesthetics,” Lena said, already typing notes into her phone. “Kimmy will want in. She’ll lose her mind if we cut her out. Dollar store run, balloons, streamers, banner. I have the color scheme.”
“Kimmy and Lena take Josie out,” I said. “Dinner, keep her gone a couple of hours. Trace and Ryder and I will handle the setup.”
Trace raised an eyebrow. “You know her cake flavor,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.
“Red velvet. Cream cheese frosting.” She’d mentioned it at the tutoring center.
You might as well wear a sign that said whipped.
He held my gaze one second longer than necessary, long enough to let me know he saw exactly what this was, and then looked at his phone. “Noted.”
Lena set her phone down. “Should Marcus be there?”
The room went quiet. Everyone already knew the answer.
They were just waiting to see who’d say it first. Ryder stopped scrolling.
Trace’s arms uncrossed slowly. Nobody had forgotten trivia night, when Marcus called Josie a prude in front of everyone, and Trace told him to sit the hell down.
And nobody was going to pretend it hadn’t changed things.
Trace picked up his phone, calm as anything. “You know, let’s be specific about the date.”
“His Greek chapter has a social meeting on the eleventh,” Ryder said, like the information was simply available to him, which apparently it was. “Chair-level attendance. Not optional. He never misses them.”
Trace looked up. “So the eleventh works. He’ll be locked in for three, four hours.”
Nobody said anything else about Marcus, and nobody had to. Lena opened her textbook again, but her jaw was set so tight I could see the muscle jump. Ryder stretched both legs out and stared at the ceiling.
“I have Marcus on Life360,” Ryder said.
He held up his phone before I could react, tilting the screen toward me. The app was open—a little locator dot sitting in the northeast quad. Marcus was exactly where he was supposed to be. Ryder’s face stayed calm, like tracking a teammate’s location was the most natural thing in the world.
“Don’t look at me like that. I put it on him when his car was in the shop and he kept borrowing my wheels but never parked it where I told him.” He tapped the dot once. “Day of, I’ll be watching. Fifteen-minute warning if anything changes.”
I stared at the screen, at the dot. Ryder had a way of coming in clutch when you needed him.
“Good.” That was all I trusted my voice with.
Ryder pocketed his phone. Lena was deep in logistics, typing with one hand and holding her textbook with the other. Trace leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head.
“Alright.” Trace reached for his laptop. “Lena, you’re on Kimmy. Ryder, decoration run. Take Lena’s list, not your instincts.”
“My instincts are impeccable.”
“Your instincts got us a disco ball at the team fundraiser.”
“That disco ball was iconic, and you know it.”
“Both of you, zip it,” Lena said, pointing the highlighter at Trace, then at Ryder. “Nobody tells Josie.”
Ryder mimed locking his lips and tossing the key over his shoulder with so much drama that Lena threw the highlighter at his head. He caught it without looking, reflexes stupid fast, and the whole room laughed.
Trace looked at me. “You’ve got the important part handled?”
He glanced at the mailer and almost smiled before he turned to his screen.
“I do. I think she’s going to love it.”