Chapter 25
CHASE
Ispend the next few days in classes with Pippa, doing workouts in the afternoon, and generally being reminded not to do things like moon anyone, especially not Commissioner Starkowsky, who holds the strings to my career.
Yes. I know better.
No. I won’t do it again.
Message received. Loud and clear, but I’m not sure how to read the mixed messages from Pippa. I’m ready to move on, preferably with her. Maybe settle down in the city or the countryside. Or both. Rings on our fingers. Kids, eventually.
I swallow hard. Maybe our parents are right. Perhaps we’re meant for each other, but after our evening at the fair, she went cold. Candle extinguished. Hearth dark.
I’ve searched for the spark between us. She’s almost, but not quite, gone back to acting as if she doesn’t know me.
It’s confusing and frustrating and disappointing. I try to joke with her, catch her eye, and find a way to hold her hand, but she’s wooden as though going through the motions of the day.
Tonight, we have some free time that I’d like to spend with her, but I can’t locate her. Perhaps there’s a teachers’ meeting? I hang out with the guys, swapping stories about reform school progress. In various versions of grunts and groans, they each relay how much they hate it.
“Come on, it’s not so bad.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re Mr. Fancy Pants,” Wolf taunts.
“You can’t blame me for the fact that my sisters made me play tea party with them.” It isn’t just that, though, and they all know it.
I come from a certain background. My parents are wealthy. Cap Collins was a football legend who went on to become richer than most in the industry as an owner and investor.
“I’ll admit that I don’t mind my teacher,” Declan says with a laugh. “She’s cool.”
“She’s cool? And you’re Mr. Cucumber,” Wolf says. “Cool as a cucumber.” He leans back, hammocking his head in his hands and gazing at the ceiling. The guy looks pretty cool himself, considering he’s usually like a caged animal anytime he’s told that he has to do something.
“If I’m Mr. Fancy Pants and Declan is Mr. Cucumber, what does that make you guys?”
“I’m just Wolf,” replies Wolf, aka Connor Wolfe. “And Grey is Mr. Mystery.”
“Why’s that?” I ask.
“He hasn’t said a word.”
We all turn to the linebacker who is unusually quiet, even for him.
“You doing okay, Grey?” I ask.
The chair he sits in is of ordinary size, but Grey makes it look miniature, hulking atop the cushion with his elbows resting on his knees and his hands clasped. The military dog tags he wears around his neck glint. “Yeah. I’m fine. Just thinking.”
“Care to illuminate us?” Declan asks.
“The dude is probably coming up with a way to inhabit Mars or cure cancer, always quietly pondering.” Wolf chuckles, speculating about the inner workings of our teammate’s mind.
Grey snorts, which is as close to a laugh as you can get out of him.
“Is it about your teacher?” Wolf asks, waggling his eyebrows.
Grey looks about as comfortable as a cat landing on a pincushion—another one of my grandfather’s sayings—so I bail him out.
“Actually, about my teacher-coach-high school crush...”
All eyes land on me. Even Grey’s. I share an abbreviated version of the story, but include the sponge cake incident. “Then just when I thought things looked promising, she got distant.”
“If you dated more, you’d be able to read her better,” Wolf says. He’s a quantity-over-quality kind of guy.
“Possibly, but I don’t want a fling.” I want love, marriage, a family, a house, some dogs...with Pippa. But maybe I ought to resign myself to the fact that it isn’t happening. Her distance and relative silence are making that clear.
Grey grunts. “But there’s the playbook.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Women are off-limits for the duration of our probation,” I grind out as if each word is painful to say. As if I don’t want it to be true.
Wolf kicks his feet onto a table and crosses then uncrosses and then crosses them again as if the reminder makes him restless.
Declan fidgets with a loose string on his ridiculous ensemble—big companies and designers offer us endorsements and all kinds of swag and gear.
Declan takes it to the next level by accepting designer clothing that more closely resembles an outfit a toddler would wear if given free rein in their parents’ closet than articles of clothing with price tags in the four-figure range. Grey just stares at his hands.
Odd.
I clear my throat. “Remember the playbook rules?” I repeat as much to myself as to the others.
Had it not been for the cotton candy between Pippa and me, the kids, the sudden rain, and later, an internal slap on the cheek to get my head together when we stood outside her apartment, we would’ve kissed.
I could’ve ruined everything. But the tingles on my skin at the memory tell their own story.
“Women are off-limits—they’re our coaches,” I stammer.
“So you’ve mentioned,” Declan grumbles.
“The only coach I answer to is Hammer,” Wolf says.
Wolf had been adamant that he wasn’t going to listen to some etiquette trainer, but then came the coach and commissioner’s ultimatum.
“The commish sent us here. Like it or not, he has more of a say in our career than Hammer does. So for the next month, these women are our coaches.” I say as if giving myself a pep talk.
“You sure you can’t have a word with the ‘ole commish? Weren’t he and your grandfather, ‘ole Cap, best friends?” Wolf asks.
“More like enemies.” I haven’t uttered a word about the deceit and scandal that recently came to light, with my grandfather’s name written all over it. I can’t. I won’t.
“I’m stuck on the fact that our coaches are women. Attractive ones.” Declan’s smirk is roguish.
“Guys, we’ve had this conversation.”
“Yeah, the coaches are hot,” Wolf says.
“You’ve mentioned? Don’t you mean your coach?” Declan teases.
“Dude, if one of us screws up. We’re all out.” I shift uncomfortably, having come so close to doing just that.
“You’re the one who was just telling us that you’d rekindled things with an old flame,” Wolf exclaims, sitting upright.
“Let’s see. The rules were, no kissing, no dating, eyes up, hands off, no falling in love.” Declan counts them off on his fingers.
Wolf gazes at me for a long, uncomfortable moment as if he just notices something now. He has a reputation as a player, a jock, or whatever, but the guy sees everything with those unsettling copper eyes of his. “Uh, oh. Boston, we have a problem.”
“Isn’t the expression Houston?” Declan asks.
“We’re the Boston Bruisers,” Grey says, reminding us all that he’s there. Sometimes he’s more like a beastly ghost than a man. I can’t blame him—the guy has been through a lot.
“Right,” Declan says. “What’s the problem?”
Wolf leans in as though evaluating his prey. “His problem is Pippa.”
“My parents want me to marry her. So technically, I’m not breaking playbook rules.”
“But do you want to marry her?” Wolf’s voice is low, measured.
“Yes, but there are three problems. The playbook, until probation is over. Her brother is my best friend and we all know about bro code.”
“And the last one?”
“I just told you. She benched me.”
“Oohhh,” Declan says.
“I already gave my two cents.” Wolf looks at me like I’m a lost cause.
I shrug, ready to head to my suite.
“You could go talk to her. DTR or whatever.”
We all whip our heads in Grey’s direction.
“Talk? What’s that?” Wolf directs the comment about the member of our team who talks the least.
“Do you mean DT as in defensive tackle?” Declan asks.
“It means to define the relationship, DTR,” Grey says as if he talks about this stuff regularly. He does not.
“Who are you and what did you do with Greyson Adams?” I ask.
All the same, I come up with a plan on the spot. But before I can gather supplies, an army of high heels clicks down the hallway, ending the conversation.
The headmistress, who is Wolf’s coach, takes the lead with the other women flanking her. “We have a meeting to discuss plans for the remainder of our time together.” She levels her gaze at Wolf. “Come,” she says.
To my shock and astonishment, the big, bad safety for the Boston Bruiser obeys and gets to his feet.
Ten minutes later, Cateline declares that we’re done at Blancbourg. I do a double-take because I’m not ready to say goodbye. Not to Pippa, anyway.
After a lot of back-and-forth banter, mostly between Wolf and the headmistress, she says, “For the next weeks, you will have an off-site opportunity to apply what you learned in the classroom to real-life scenarios.”
“Does that mean we’re done here?” Declan asks as if he sees the cage door open, but isn’t sure whether it’s safe to pass through.
Cateline snorts. “You’re done with classroom instruction, but not with your coaching. Your etiquette teacher will be your constant companion wherever you go and whatever you do for the next three weeks.”
I turn to Pippa, but she reviews something on her phone.
It’s now or never to play out my plans to break the rules.
Hopefully, they don’t carry quite as dire consequences as sneaking around the Hinnifin Hall boarding school campus and getting caught in a girls’ room.
Well, unless one of the guys finds out. Then it’s a team tackle for sure, and those are deadly, no joke.