Chapter 12
Noah
“Is there anything else?”
I thought it was a reasonable question, but she reacted like I’d asked her if she skinned puppies in her spare time.
“Else?” she asked scathingly. “Isn’t suicide, self-destruction, sabotage, overall scheming, lying, and mind-fuckery enough?”
I forced myself not to react, and pursed my lips as I met her outraged stare. “Or, you could have just said no.”
Green eyes narrowed faster than a defense on a blitz.
I held back the sigh as I tried not to rise to her provocation. “I’m going to head out. Dante will be telling Savvy the short version, but he won’t be able to fight off the full interrogation, so . . .” I gestured to the door with my thumb. “I’ll just pick him up on the way down.”
“You’re leaving.” She said it so flatly that I knew it was a statement, not a question.
“I am.” I glanced at the door one more time. “Well, we are.”
“Just like that?”
What was this attitude?
“The conversation’s over.”
“Convenient.”
I looked back at her, recognizing she wasn’t angry, not really; she was scared and looking for somewhere to put it. Unfortunately for her, I was a very big target.
“You’re looking for a fight,” I told her bluntly. “I’m not the guy you want to fight with.”
Her eyebrow arched. “Why? Because you’re big and bulky and a tough guy?”
“What?” I shook my head. “No.” My voice stayed flat. “Because if you swing at me, I swing back. And I don’t think that’s what you actually want.”
Briar’s eyebrow rose. “You sure about that, number fifty-nine?”
I rolled my head on my shoulders. “Yeah. So like I said, I’m heading out.” I gave her a tight smile. “Thank you for everything you shared with us, and tell Diana that too.” My eyes flicked to the bedroom door once. “I’m sorry for her loss, and everything that’s happened.”
I was at the door and outside on the stairs before she could reply. I passed Dante, who had stopped halfway on the stairs, and I heard him say he’d talk to Sav later. I felt him at my back, and we left her building in silence. Only when we were clear did I turn my head to look at him.
“That was intense,” I said with a shake of my head.
“She’s fiery,” he said with a slight smile. “Complete flip to who she pretends to be at work.”
“She’s got a screw loose if you ask me,” I muttered. I didn’t entirely mean that. “Maybe pretending to be so calm and timid during the day makes her worse.”
He snorted, and I smiled slightly, feeling the tension between my shoulders begin to ease.
“I never expected all that,” I admitted as we headed back to the dorm building.
He shook his head. “I was beginning to think Sterling was innocent, but I never expected all of it. Not even close.”
“And she killed herself?” I didn’t look his way. “I hate that the most.” My mind turned inward, remembering the sharp ring of the phone in the middle of the night, and Dante was too perceptive not to see it.
“Experience of that?” he asked quietly.
I grunted. “Yeah.” I saw his look. “I don’t talk about it, not then and I won’t now, so don’t ask.”
His eyebrows rose slightly, but he said nothing, simply heard me and let it go. I wasn’t na?ve. I knew he wouldn’t let that rest between us.
“Savvy wants the lowdown,” he said, smoothly changing the subject. “I . . .” he hesitated. “I don’t think we need to tell Hadley how close she is to her potential source.”
This was exactly why he was the team leader and a generally good guy. Pill popping aside. And perhaps his complete obsession with his girl and the whole ‘who hurt you’ mentality he had when it came to her.
I didn’t say any of that. I simply agreed, and we both fell silent as we headed back to the apartment.
Dustin still wasn’t back, and somehow, Savvy had gotten there before either of us. She must have run.
I let them say their hellos, which involved a lot of touching I didn’t need to see. When I came back out of my room, they were talking quietly, and Savvy told me she was making tea. I took the bottle of water Dante gave me, already knowing I was going to turn down the hot drink.
Sitting on the couch in my usual seat, I waited until she was ready, and she and Dante were on the couch.
“So?” Savvy looked between us. “Is it worse than we thought?”
She looked apprehensive and excited at once; it was a weird look and distracted me for longer than necessary. She blushed and touched her cheek.
“Most of the bruising is gone, Noah,” she reminded me, completely misinterpreting the look.
I hadn’t even been thinking of the fact that I’d given her two black eyes. “Yeah, sorry. Again.”
She smiled at me, pure and heartfelt. “It was a simple mistake.” Savvy shrugged. “If anything, I should be begging you to forgive me for startling you.”
Dante opened his mouth to speak, and she simply put her hand over his mouth, not even looking at him. That’s how well they knew each other now. It was freaky how quick it happened, but good, because they were basically made for each other.
“Whatever he’s about to say,” she told me, “we both know he wasn’t there. He wasn’t there, and the fault was all mine.”
My eyes flicked to his and back to hers. “I think we both know neither of us is innocent here, and it was a mistake on both parts. How’s that?”
Complete BS. I hit her. I should never have hit her. No matter the circumstances or anything else, I woke up swinging, and I shouldn’t have.
Savvy pretended to think about it. “Nope, but if it makes you feel better . . .”
She yelped when Dante pressed his hand against hers, which was still over his mouth, and from her glare, I assumed he’d bitten her to get her to take her hand away.
“You’re both in denial,” he grumbled. “But, it’s over, and we’ve moved on.”
Savvy took it for what it was. “So? How bad is the Tiffany-Mason thing?”
“It’s worse than we thought,” I told her.
I let Dante fill her in on what we’d learned. Savvy wasn’t Hadley. She never interrupted as Hadley would have. Savvy listened with only the occasional question, letting him talk. I said little because he pretty much covered it all.
When he was done, she looked so sad it was endearing.
“I think I might cry,” she admitted softly.
“I . . . It’s so horrible.” She pushed herself off the couch and away from her man.
“And we went charging into their lives, all guns blazing, ready to fight, ready to drag them to justice.” Her laugh was scornful.
“We’re lucky they were willing to talk to us at all. ”
I hadn’t looked at it that way. Now I was even more grateful that only Dante and I went tonight. From the look on his face, I knew he felt the same.
“We might have lost sight of the game plan,” I spoke mostly to Dante, and he nodded slowly.
“Yeah, we need to think more clearly,” he agreed, standing and going to Savvy. He pulled her into him, wrapping his arms around her, and she buried her head in his chest. He looked over her head at me, and I knew what he wasn’t saying.
“I’m going to go finish that paper I had,” I told him, getting to my feet. “We can catch up later when we tell Dust. Yeah?”
Savvy said something much like ‘thank you,’ but it was muffled in Dante’s hoodie.
In my room, I kicked off my sneakers and flopped onto the bed, wincing at the sound of the springs and the fact that my feet hung over the end of it.
My mind was racing with everything we’d learned tonight, and the memories of my past swirled around with it.
Not for the first time in the last few weeks, I wished I’d never transferred from my old college. Sure, I wouldn’t have had a national championship, but I also wouldn’t be involved with this.
With my eyes closed, I forced myself to make a pros and cons list of transferring to Wrighton, the home of the Lions.
It was a sad fact that there were now more cons than pros. Holding a championship trophy paled in comparison to everything else.
I liked my old school. I liked the program. The coaches were experienced, but they just weren’t pro-level experienced.
Wrighton Head Coach, Bobby Ray Sutherland, was. He was next level with experience. His record spoke for itself, which is probably what they counted on, because since coming here, I learned very quickly that the man fell short on his ability as a decent human being.
My transfer was so smooth it should have raised a flag. He played me immediately — no redshirt year, no sitting out.
Knowing everything as I did now, I had the chilling realization that maybe my transfer had been too smooth. Had I really been eligible, or had they made me eligible?
There were a lot of ways to own a player. A scholarship was one. A secret was better.
If it were the latter, my ass could be toast.
I sat up, my back against the wall, after grabbing a pad of paper and a pencil. I worked out the timeline for when I’d expressed interest in moving to a D1 school and when it actually happened.
They said I’d been fast-tracked, but I assumed that it was all within the rules and guidelines. I scribbled down everything I knew. As I’d said to Briar earlier, there was no one more invested in my career than me.
I knew every statistic about me.
With a loud exhale of relief, I looked over my work. I’d been lucky; I made it with a week’s grace.
Still, the uneasiness in the pit of my stomach didn’t go away.
Minutes later, I was up, changed, and out into the cool night air.
I like to run when my thoughts become too crowded, and I couldn’t get to a weight bag. Running cleared my head. Hitting something cleared it faster.
Recently, I’d kept running to the morning training schedule. But sometimes you just needed a clear path, the ground beneath your feet and a good few miles to clear your head.
I ran over campus, down side lanes, around the back of a building, and to the parking lot where Hadley kept her car. I avoided Hadley’s building and, by association, Briar’s. I told myself it was route efficiency.
I made a left and took the back way to the library. The steady thump of my feet on sidewalk settled my frayed edges.
By the time I was back at my dorm building, I felt like myself again.
What I needed, what I knew I couldn’t have, was a good round of sparring in the gym.
As I stretched my legs to cool down, I considered it. Would I be able to find a gym and a sparring partner?
A low whistle sounded behind me, and I turned to see Dust approaching, his arm around Hadley’s shoulders.
“If you say you run for fun, we’re going to have to re-evaluate this friendship,” she said with a wide grin.
“I was being chased by aliens, running was my only option,” I deadpanned.
Dustin laughed, and Hadley grinned. “Okay, I admit, I also like running,” she said, and I believed her.
I ignored their whispers and lowered conversations as we headed up the stairs to the rooms. I was surrounded by couples, in what, the space of three, maybe four weeks?
I liked this room when I got it, because it was huge, and I was with guys who were single and focused on the game, only the game.
Now I lived with a loved-up quarterback and a loved-up wide receiver. And the focus had shifted from the game to a huge cover-up that made me feel shitty.
That cons list was growing, because all the good my run had done me evaporated the moment I walked through the door. I’d had about thirty seconds of peace, which was now ruined because Savvy was telling Hadley everything we’d learned.
Dante handled most of the questions as they came out of Hadley faster than an automatic. He’d taken one look at my appearance, raised a brow, and never mentioned the fact I’d left.
The more they spoke, the closer I inched to my bedroom door, and I almost, almost, made it before Hadley turned to me and I knew I was about to get an earful.
I held my hand up to stop her. “Yes, I know where she lives. No, I won’t tell you.
Yes, I told Dante and not you. No, I didn’t tell you for any other reason than that Dante was with me at the time.
Yes, they said only Dante and me.” I glanced at Dust. “Sorry.” He shrugged it off like I knew he would.
“And yes, Dante told Savvy first, because . . .” I looked between the four of them. “Well, do I really need to say why?”
Dante smirked, and Savvy blushed.
“And do you really think, when we haven’t seen him, all day,” I gestured to Dustin, “that I wanted to interrupt anything with you two?” This time, Hadley flushed. “So yeah, I didn’t tell you. Savvy has told you now. That’s all you need.”
I looked at them, waited for her protest. When it didn’t come, I nodded. “I need a shower.”
In the quiet of my room, I heard them talking, and with a sigh, I kicked my shoes off, went into my bathroom, and locked the door.
My roommates respected my privacy; I wouldn’t put money on Hadley to do the same.
As I started the shower, my phone buzzed with a text.
Unknown: You run fast for a guy your size
I lowered the toilet lid so I could sit on it and reply.
Me: You saw me? Or you followed me?
I added Briar to my contacts.
B: Running isn’t reserved for athletes
I huffed out a laugh. Jesus, she was so defensive.
Me: I don’t run with headphones in
I’d lost too many ear buds that way.
Me: If you wanted my attention, you should have called out
B: Who says I wanted your attention?
I read her text twice.
Me: If you didn’t want my attention, Briar, why are you texting me?
She didn’t answer.
I took my shower, brushed my teeth for the night, and by the time I’d finished my nighttime routine, she still hadn’t replied.
When I poked my head out into the living area, there was no sign of the others, and both my roommates’ doors were closed.
With a bottle of water in hand, I went to bed with noise-canceling headphones on and texted my brother.
Fifteen minutes later, we were playing a game, and I did my best to push everything from today to the back of my mind.
Sleep came eventually. Peace didn’t. It wasn’t as easy as that, unfortunately. There were some things that refused to be buried.
I knew that better than most.