Page 257 of Out of Bounds

“Don’t you want to hear the responses?” Cleo raised her eyebrows. “I have phones ringing off the hook right now.”

“Do Ineedto hear about it?”

The head intern shifted back on her heels, surprised. “You don’t…want all the details?”

“I trust you, Cleo. You’ll do right by me.”

For a long moment, she blinked at me in surprise and I remembered something else that Kassie told me. Taking a sharp right turn, I walked back to the tech workers, getting the animations back on the screen, but without the motion. King was stuck on the screen, halfway between throwing a football.

“Hey, do you know about unplugging electronics?” I asked. “She taught me that too. If someone’s not working, you can just unplug it and plug it back in and it works great.”

“We’re good, Mr. Cross,” one of the tech workers muttered.

“Ryan?” Cleo called behind me.

“One minute,” I told her over my shoulder and rolled up my sleeves. “How can I help with the screens? Do you need something copy pasted? What can I do?”

“We don’t need help, Mr. Cross.”

I took a step forward. “I can find some cords. Do we need cords?”

“Ryan,” Cleo repeated.

“You know what you could do?” A tech worker nodded at me encouragingly. “You can countallof the TV screens in the stadium. We have no idea how many we have. That’d be the most helpful thing you could do.”

“Ryan! Cross!” Cleo barked.

I glanced back, ready to start counting TVs, when I saw the look on Cleo’s face. She motioned off to the bleachers across the field, an incredulous look on her face, and my eyes flickered over, to the dark hoodie by two white columns, taking hesitant steps like she hadn’t been to the stadium dozens of times.

Kassie.

Slowly, I released the breath I didn’t realize I was holding and made my way across the empty stadium. I didn’t think about it. I just walked.

That was her. I knew it was her, I knew in my bone marrow it was her. The way she walked, the way her dark braids over her shoulders. The way she shoved her hands in the pocket of her hoodie. I could’ve picked her out of any lineup, blindfolded.

The grass melted to the dark hallways, the dark hallways lead to the stairways with metallic clangs, and each of those vibrated with every step. And every step was one step closer to her.

She was here, and if she was here, that meant I had a chance.

And I had no intention of fucking up that chance.

108

Kassie

Mutual Middle Fingers

I didn’t want to wait by the entrance of the stadium. There were too many people I recognized and knew from the lunch-ins. I took a detour in the half-hallways behind the bleachers. Every TV around me flickered on with my animations. Everywhere I checked, I could see what I’d spent months on.

My steps became smaller and smaller until I stood in front of one of the digital posters, Ryan. Holding up a football. Tilting his head back, eyes narrowed—Mr. Intense himself.

Walking up the stairs behind me.

He didn’t look like any of the projects I worked on, he didn’t even look like himself. Bloodshot eyes, his hair was messier than usual, and there was a heaviness to his limbs that hadn’t ever been there before. But if all of that was bad, I couldn’t imaginehow much worse it could’ve been ifanythinghappened with the Henry Miller situation.

I crossed my arms and my heart thumped painfully in my chest.

“What thefuckwere you thinking?” I demanded, voice cracking.

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