Page 18 of Out of Bounds

Goddammit.

It started off slow—and I didn’t move fast enough. Heads swung over, mouths fell open, eyebrows shot up. And it wasn’t like Kassie blended in. Her ripped jeans and dangling pencil earrings stood out amongst the jerseys. Anybody would’ve clocked her as somebody who didn’t belong here. And besides that, I never brought girls around.

Everybody noticed.

In between two dumbfounded cheerleaders and King, with his eyebrows shot to his hairline, June almost dropped her bag when she spotted what caused the commotion. She pointed at Kassie and mouthed three words. "Is that her?"

Very subtle.

"What…?" Kassie glanced up, and a laugh escaped her. "What’s going on?"

"What the hell?" Adam’s voice barely carried through the glass.

We were trapped zoo animals, and the linebacker was the annoying little kid, chucking peanuts through the bars. On some level, he had to know I was going to make him pay for this. We’d be running laps for hours. But Adam didn’t care. He completely stopped the hallway’s flow of traffic, gaping at us.

"Hey!" He banged on the glass."You found her! Look at you!"

Kassie lifted her eyebrow at me. "Her?"

"That’s enough," I growled.

I strode over to the door before Adam could make his entrance, which wasn’t fucking happening. The handle jiggled, and I had to shove it down to keep it from opening.

"In Cleo’s office?" Adam’s muffled voice slipped through the crack of the door. "You sick puppy!"

I’d known my friends for years. I’d gladly take a bullet for them. But for the first time in my life, I felt something else. It was a new feeling that crept up at the back of my neck. A sick feeling. It left me wanting to give half-explanations to Kassie to cover up their actions.

I was embarrassed. Their entire charade embarrassed me. I’d never even been close to that before and Adam had mortified all of us enough to write books, the fucking pranks had me ripping my hair out. But—goddamn.

Couldn’t they calm down and relax for two minutes?

In front ofher?

"Did he say…?" Kassie asked, mystified. "How do they know me?"

Because I hadn’t focused on anything but Kassandra Ragar for an entire week. Because she was the first woman I'd ever brought into our sanctuary, the training center. Because she’d morphed into a running joke in our small group chats, outside of the whole team. Half of the guys were convinced she wasn’t real, that I’d just paid a girl to get some publicity with.

I cursed under my breath, pushing against the door.

The door thumped into place and I flipped the lock. Through the small window, my teammate's face fell as I snapped the miniature blinds down.

Jackass.

"Oh, good! You’re here!" Cleo rushed in through the other door, her arms full of folders. She started pressing buttons on a phone with the ends of her pink nails. It was the same old routine, but Kassie threw me a confused glance as I took thechair next to her. Cleo nodded to the phone. "Thank you so much for hopping on."

The public relations major wheeled another chair over and started listing off dozens of names I’d heard before.

They were the regulars to call during emergencies—Coach Lawson, probably sitting back at his desk, offense coaches, defense coaches, the assistant coaches, assistants of the assistant coaches, assistants of the assistants of the assistant coaches. University leaders, the university vice president, the university president—if she didn’t have a ribbon to cut—and a handful of high-donating alums who specifically dropped six to seven figures to buy themselves into our meetings.

Pressing one of the buttons on the table, an enormous screen made a low whirring sound as the projector sprung to life. The War Room had gotten an upgrade from Cleo’s fiancé. Light flashed against the screen and there was the current bane of my existence.

That damn photo.

Kassie snorted and it took her a moment to realize everyone else was silent. "Oh…yeah—I’ve seen it." She shot a glance at me. "That’show your team knows me."

Sure. We could go with that.

"All publicity is good publicity—yes—but, this isnotpublicity," Cleo started, waving down at the camera on her laptop. "This is…we’re going to nip this in the bud. Make sure it’s in our favor."

---