Chapter 35
Noah
The dorm was quiet as I left it the next morning.
I knew they hadn’t gone ahead to training. I’d been awake for hours. Staring at the ceiling, seeing nothing in the dark.
Over and over, my mind had one question. Had I done the right thing?
But it wasn’t the deal that kept me awake. It was the outcome of agreeing to it. She’d sent me a resignation text and gone to bed. I’d sent ‘thanks for letting me know’ and stared at the ceiling.
There had been no more social media posts.
Hadley deleted both accounts. There were still posts, not from us, but like most things on social media, there’d be another scandal to come and attention would be diverted.
For now, it was running with a life of its own, and I knew I couldn’t stop it, but also I knew I couldn’t add to it.
I had to hope Sutherland saw it the same way I did.
There’d been a piece of paper on the countertop, a note from Dante. One word.
Agreed.
I didn’t need anything further. One word was all it took.
I bypassed the locker room and headed straight to Coach Sutherland’s office. I ignored Coach Holt’s question of why I was there so early.
I rapped my knuckles on the door to Sutherland’s office, and when he looked up, I went in and closed the door.
“Coach.” I sat down without being told to. The look on his face indicated he noticed and didn’t like it. My look said, too bad.
“Bright and early today, Matthews. You seem to have left your manners in your dorm room.”
“Mmhmm.” I pulled out a sheet of paper, placing it on the desk.
He picked it up and read my chicken-scrawl handwriting. This had taken me twice as long to write as it should have because I’d made it as legible as I could.
“Looks like a contract.”
“Thank fuck, it took me an hour to write it.” I handed him a pen.
“You want me to sign this?”
“We discussed it. That’s the agreement.” I gave him a hard look. “You changing the goalposts, Coach?”
His look told me he didn’t like the accusation. “I don’t recall agreeing to stop having one set of rules for others.”
I shrugged. “You benched us the other week because Dustin was hooking up with Hadley. You said it was because he was late. That was shit. We called you out for it.” I gave him a flat look. “Basically, stop being a cunt.”
His eyebrows were in his hairline. “You forget who yo—”
“Oh, I don’t,” I told him casually. “I know exactly who you are.”
I tapped the paper. “Sign. She resigned. The posts are down. Give me the hard copies of the photos, sign the paper, and we’ll never talk about this again.”
“I never agreed to give you the photos.”
“And I never assumed you were stupid. You know I want them.” I glanced at my watch. “You take any longer, the team’s going to ask where you are.”
He picked up the pen and pointed it at me. “You lose this attitude when I sign, and you walk out that door.”
“When you lose yours, Coach.”
He signed the paper. I’d expected more resistance. The fact that I got so little told me Sutherland had calculated this outcome before I even sat down. His glare became hotter when I handed him a copy. “Safety in numbers,” I murmured.
I left him with a copy, and I tucked mine into my gym bag.
“We done?” I asked him, getting to my feet.
“We’re done. With this,” he clarified. “You’re late for practice.”
“Am I?” I walked out, not bothering to close the door behind me.
I hid the paper in the locker room before it became too crowded. There were no cameras here, and I didn’t trust the fucker not to come in when I was training and take my insurance.
I changed into my training clothes, and walked out to the low murmur of some of my teammates.
“Why were you in Sutherland’s office?” Coach Holt demanded as he joined me.
“Housekeeping, Coach.”
He studied me. “I don’t know what the fuck that means,” he started to walk away and turned back. “Be careful, Matthews. Keep your head in the game.”
I nodded. My head was in the game. My head was only ever in the game. Until this semester, when I lifted my head up and found a pile of shit looking back.
Dante and Dustin came out about ten minutes later. Neither looked in my direction, and I didn’t expect them to.
I knew our friendship would change because of this, and I’d accepted that when I told them what I’d done.
No victory came without losses.
A few minutes later, Coach Sutherland approached them, and I watched as he pulled Jason Moore to his side.
They huddled around him, and I saw Dante look my way once.
He stood with his feet apart, his arms folded, and his face a mask of indifference.
But when he did look at me, I felt the heat of his anger from where I stood.
Please don’t let Sutherland fuck this up. I watched Jason’s posture, not Sutherland’s face.
“Matthews!” Holt shouted from the end zone. “You here to train or look pretty?”
I couldn’t help the chuckle. “Thought it was both,” I told him as I joined him. I saw the sleds being pulled onto the ground. “Nooo,” I groaned.
“Not for you,” he told me. “Whittaker.”
Mike looked up and then, as the coach waited, he snapped his ass into gear and joined us.
“Matthews showed us yesterday he’s a slippery bastard.”
Mike wet his lips. “Um . . . Coach?”
“Matthews is going to help you raise your game, so that I can then make you better.” Coach Holt walked away. We both stared after him.
Mike turned to look at me. “What’s happening?”
His guess was as good as mine. “You cleared for practice yet?” I asked instead.
“No. Well . . . kind of.”
I gave him my full attention. “Which one is it?”
“Light exercise.”
I pointed to the sled. “Let’s go.”
I spent my morning improving Mike’s work with the sleds. I was getting a drink of water when I felt someone behind me. Turning, I saw Jason Moore.
“Yeah?”
He looked uneasy. “What did you do?”
“When?”
“Coach Sutherland told us to relax, to play ball, and focus on next season.”
“Sounds like good advice.”
He didn’t walk away. “When I asked Spence what that meant, he said to thank you.”
I waited, but he didn’t say anything else. “Okay. Good talk.” I moved away.
“Do I?”
I turned back to him. “Do you what?”
“Need to thank you?” He looked over his shoulder and saw Dustin watching us.
“No.” I gave him a small smile. “Best get back to training before we’re both running suicides.”
Moore nodded and ran off.
And that was how training went for the week. I helped coach Whittaker, and my roommates avoided me. Not with hostility. It was more careful than that — like they were still deciding how to be around me.
I knew it would be this way. They didn’t want me to ask forgiveness, and I wasn’t sure I had the right words even if they did. They may not have liked how it happened, but at the end of the day, the outcome was acceptable.
When I came out of the shower after practice, they would already be gone, and I’d head to class alone.
Classes didn’t distract me, even though they should have because finals were coming up, and I was determined to pass on my own merit. The thought that Coach Sutherland might need to ‘bump’ my grades up made me uneasy.
No. I was going to do this myself.
There was no after-class training now that the spring game was over. We had our spots, finals weren’t that far off, and it was time to focus on school again.
But as the week progressed, all I wanted to do was get to the gym and punch it out. I just wanted to spar.
I’d lost access to wheels, so I did what I should have done the first time. I took the bus to Halston.
The gym was quiet, but not empty.
I changed in the men’s bathrooms. It was all very well and good getting in a car with your workout clothes, but I’d worn sweatpants, a T-shirt, and a hoodie on the bus.
I spent some quality time with the punching bag, but it didn’t ease the tension in my bones. I saw the manager and nodded toward the ring; he nodded back.
We spent twenty minutes or so dancing around each other, getting a few hits in, and even that did nothing to satisfy the beast inside.
I exchanged some pleasantries with him, but when I left, I felt no better. I could phone and talk to Tate. But I’d already had him tell me how to word my contract with Sutherland. And he was worried after he’d learned what was happening. I didn’t need to add stress to my little brother’s shoulders.
When my phone rang, I truly didn’t expect to see the caller’s name on the screen.
I answered. “Mason?”
“How does it feel?” he asked, his voice neutral.
I’d expected to hear from him earlier; honestly, I thought I’d get a few swear words from him in a text. When I got nothing, I knew I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was.
“How does what feel?” I asked as I walked to the bus stop.
“Being the hero of Wrighton U.”
“I’m not a hero.”
“Finally, we agree.”
I rolled my eyes. “Why are you calling? Is it to fall out with me? Because I don’t think I was even on your Christmas card list to now suddenly be off it.”
He gave a grunt of acknowledgment. “What you did took balls — balls I don’t think I’d have had. I know everyone else is probably pissed at you.” When I went to speak, he spoke over me. “My sister is very vocal with her disapproving silence.”
“So, you’re okay with it all?” I asked skeptically.
“No. Never will be okay with it, but that’s fuck all to do with you, Matthews.”
Fair.
“Well, thanks for calling. I’m . . .” I was what? Resigned to being lonely and losing the girl? No. “I’m okay,” I lied.
“You played poker with Sutherland and won with that shit game face?”
I looked around. He was leaning against a car and grinned when he saw that I’d seen him.
I hung up and walked over to him. “Hey.”
He held out his hand, and I shook it.
“You want beer and a bucket?” He gestured to the bar I’d been to before.
“Aren’t you driving?”
He shook his head. “Nah. No idea whose car that is.”
I gaped at him as he walked past me and headed into the bar. I followed. Soon we were sitting at a window booth, a beer each, and a bucket of wings and some sides.
“So,” he started. “How’d it play out?”