Page 129 of Out of Bounds

"Oh my god." Kassie pinched the bridge of her nose. "Holy shit. Oh my god."

"Ryan!" Cleo’s voice echoed from the door.

The hoodie swallowed Kassie but with her hair down, it perfectly hid everything, even the bite mark. Which was a little disappointing but we had team photos in less than twelve hours. It was a necessity before Cleo lost her shit.

I grabbed her again and went back to the front door. All I had to say was that the dinner didn’t go well. We canceled the movie night. I’d reschedule for something else.

I pulled open the door. Standing in front of us was Cleo, with her arms folded over her chest, and Miles standing next to her, amused. The moment Cleo saw us, she got into it.

"Whathappened?" she demanded. "I don’t get any updates, both of you went dark on me. Oh my god. Kassie. Whathappenedto you?"

Oh, shit.

Except, she wasn’t talking about the hickeys, hidden beneath four layers of clothing. She was talking about the makeup and the heavy blush and Kassie’s hair, in a complete, tangled mess. It was hot as hell.

"I got sick," Kassie blurted out.

She swallowed. "I feel awful and…Ryan’s been taking care of me."

I raised my eyebrows but Kassie ignored my gaze. I guess she could say I’d been taking care of her. I could still taste her come on my tongue.

"Sick?" Cleo demanded.

"Wait, you’re not feeling great?" Miles frowned. "When’d you start feeling sick?"

They were starting to corral Kassie and I stepped between them, keeping that healthy distance. But I wasn’t the only one concerned. Doors down the hall opened and some of the athletes on the floor made a show of checking out the scene.

Shit.

"You’re sick and you didn’t think to tell me?" Cleo asked, shocked. "Kassie."

"It’s nothing serious," she assured her.

"If it’ssomethingserious, we’ll need to quarantine everybody and figure out if Ryan has it, I’m not having the flu ruin our next game." She shook her head. "Grab your stuff, we’re going to UrgentCare."

"UrgentCare?" I repeated, dumbfounded.

Kassie grabbed my arm. "UrgentCare?"

"We either quarantine you away from the football team or we get an expert’s opinion on it," Cleo informed us.

If we had a real conversation about this, we absolutely didn’t need UrgentCare and we absolutely didn’t need to quarantine Kassie away from the football team. I wasn’t eating her pussy and then going five days without seeing her. Fuck no.

"Alright. Let’s go," Kassie nodded and pushed past me.

"We’re going?" I stared at all of them. "To thehospital?"

"Yep. Make haste."

50

Kassie

An Embarrassing, Stupid Situation

I figured in the car ride with Ryan, we’d come up with an actual plan. Talk things out. But when I was put in Miles’s car and Ryan drove behind us, I realized we were actually driving to UrgentCare and my neck was actually smothered in hickies, and on the grand scale of things, this was a bad fucking idea.

Being embarrassed over something is one thing. Being embarrassed over a stupid situation is another. From the drive to the first clinic, too full to accept anyone, to the drive to theactualplace that Cleo wanted to go to in the first place, to the paperwork, to the waiting, waiting, waiting, too much time passed for me to pull a ‘just kidding, guys.’

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