Page 36 of Change Your Play

Cars passed, but I stayed on course, rigid in my seat. I caught sight of them before the border into Texas.

The dark blue Marrs bus chugged along at a comfortable pace. Cleo was sitting in one of those seats, probably curled up with her laptop, typing away an email.

Was all of this a mistake?

Maybe she was just relaxing on her computer, and I was imagining all the tension between us, those tight cords that kept us wound close.

No.I didn’t believe that.

What could she have been thinking when she wrote that letter?

My car approached the back of the bus, and I revved the engine. It was my chance to convince her that this wasn’t a short-term thing. I needed her to see that.

It was a lonely highway, no one was with us, and I easily overtook the bus and hugged the wrong side of the road, keeping up.

Someone had to notice the jackass next to them.

“There we go,” I muttered when I saw the first confused face shifting to take in the car. When they turned away, I revved up the engine again. I shook my head. “Notice the jackass, come on.”

Being a number one asshole to get attention is something footballers know instinctively.

More faces pressed to the glass. Faces that surrounded Coach Lawson and acted as his everyday yes men. Five people pressed their faces against the glass, until one of them ushered someone else over.

I took moments from the road, glancing up at the glass. My heart squeezed in my chest. It had to be Cleo. Let it be Cleo.

Coach Lawson.

He peered out the window, fogging up the glass, and I caught eyes with the biggest hardass in the Birchwood conference. He squinted at me. Before I could wave, he disappeared.

Easing up on the accelerator, I took my place behind the bus again, following on for half a mile. If Coach Lawson wanted me off the road, he would’ve made it happen. All I had to do was wait.

Chasing a girl across state lines, I could almost hear the questions. Was it really worth it?

Absolutely.

There was something about Cleo I couldn’t quantify into words that anybody else could understand. I’d been lost, bumbling from one direction to another, all to find out that she was the end goal I’d been searching for. It was easy for me to float through everything because none of itmattered.

But she did.

She mattered to me.

Everything she did mattered to me.

The way she knocked me off my guard, the way she teased out parts of me I thought had eroded away. The way she marched through the world with her high heels clicking against the pavement, ready to get shit done. It just made me want to follow her, like a sick man trailing after a doctor, holding on for that medication.

The bus relaxed its speed, and my chest tightened. The final conversation approached as the Marrs bus came up to the outskirts of one of the last towns on the state line.

“Here we go,” I muttered, pulling in next to them.

With a low hiss, the bus's dark blue door opened, and I stepped out of the car.

Coach Lawson was the first one to walk off the bus. “Kid, what is this?”

“Hello, sir.” I nodded respectfully. “I don't mean to be an inconvenience here but—”

“You've been trailing—practically kissing the bus's ass since Lake Murray—”

Heels clicked against the steps of the bus and I leaned to catch a view of the sight beyond Coach Lawson.

---