Page 49 of Out of Bounds

I brought her out of the locker room to the tunnel archway. It offered a perfect view of the field.

"You’ve met Adam."

Kassie took her place next to me, inches away. She sighed. "That’s the one you’re mad at."

"Yeah, Adam Russell."

"The Marrs Manwhore."

I made a noise at the back of my throat. Even if he deserved every ounce of that nickname, I couldn’t let it slide behind his back.

"Sorry." Kassie crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her head, getting a good look at our group. "There are more people than I thought there’d be. I thought you had twenty on a field?"

"Eleven per team when we’re in a game. But we’ve got, I think, a hundred and three right now signed on—there’s been some drop-offs. We switch out during the week for practices. There’s around sixty on the field right now."

"Huh."

"Yeah."

"The blonde guy? Miles? He’s Cleo’s…?"

"Fiancé."

"And the guy with the tattoos?"

She might as well have asked about half of the football team. "Which one?"

"The one closest to us. The one with the scars?"

My eyes instantly flickered to King, obviously trying to check in on the situation. It made sense that was how Kassie picked him out of the crowd. After all, the field was full of football players. Plenty of tattoos. But I’d been pretty clear to my team about the rules. No one was allowed to ask about the jagged scars on King’s face. Anyone who wanted to press their luck with questions had to answer to me, personally.

I rubbed my jaw. "That’s King."

A pause followed, and I thought she’d point out that King’s jersey was the one she’d bought. Instead, she raised an eyebrow. "You guys have nicknames? You’re Four-A-Cross, right?"

She must’ve seen the Four-A-Cross jersey for sale too.

And she didn’t buy that one?

"No, that’s the game chant for me. King is his last name." Something in my voice must’ve stopped the line of questions about him because Kassie fell silent. It was a small thing, but it wasn’t my story to tell, and King didn’t like to tell it anyway.

Finally, she nodded. "And that’s June. King’s girlfriend."

King’s fake girlfriend.

"Yeah." I nodded. "Check your schedule, we’re going to her barbecue after Saturday’s game. And the football girlfriends are pretty easy to distinguish. They wear jerseys."

"Mm."

"Did you catch that?"

"Sure did, ball dribbler."

I waited for her to budge. I really did. But she didn’t move fast enough. I snagged her backpack again, dragging her back toward the locker room, and all the way to the end, to the last locker on the right.

"You can’t keep yanking me places—"

"This is my locker." I swung open the door. "This is my jersey. Do you understand?"

---