Page 90 of Out of Bounds

Must Be Important Stuff

I managed to get three hours of sleep after the most challenging game of the season so far.

For most of the night, I gazed up at the ceiling, with my hands on my stomach. Resisting the urge to walk over to that shitty thousand-dollar piece of plastic and tell Kassie some bullshit emergency to get her to come over. Something to get her in my dorm with nothing but a pair of panties on that I could rip off with my teeth.

Dozing didn’t work. Every time I finally started slipping off the sleep, the dreams came. Kassie, lying on my bed, drawing something, her dark hair down her back. The same hair I could sweep aside while I stood right behind her, palming her ass. Leaning down far enough to press my cock between her legs.

My alarm went off at five o’clock in the morning and I knocked my phone off the nightstand.

"Fucking fantastic," I muttered under my breath, pushing up from the bed. The raging hard-on hadn’t been an addition to the dream. My balls ached. I swore under my breath, staggering out of bed.

Everyone else got to sleep in for Sunday morning. Everybody except for me.

I had a coach-led meeting on campus to discuss yesterday’s performance. Walking into the training center, I couldn’t hide the exhaustion. I was tired. Tired as shit.

Tired as shit. My balls hurt. What a goddamn Sunday.

"Ryan Cross?" A woman reached for my hand and shook it. "Brittany Harrison, I’m a statistician from Meyerland Solutions. Lovely to make your acquaintance, my boys are big fans."

"Nice to meet you," I grunted, and before I was finished with her handshake, another one hovered close by.

"Scott Nishimoto, analyst from Thorne U, glad to be aboard."

"Thanks for joining—"

"Hack Smith, director of communications. If you remember me, it’ll be from summer training—"

"I remember you," I told him, reaching over to hold the door to the meeting room. "Great to see you again. Good to see you too. Welcome in." I nodded to another person, trying to talk over me. "Yeah, it certainly was a game yesterday. Yep. Yeah. Thank you."

The rest of the meeting filed in accordingly, all waiting for Coach Lawson to join the room, but I stood there for a moment with my hand on the door, holding it open in the quiet hallway for just a couple of seconds. If I could get ten minutes to close my eyes, I’d be fine. But those ten minutes wouldn’t come.

Footsteps hurried from the right side of the hallway, and I glanced over my shoulder, expecting to see another person coming in to hyperanalyze my teammates.

I stared. "Kassie?"

She came to a sudden stop outside of the door, in the patchy Romans hoodie I wanted to throw away, with her dark hair tied in a bun. Her face was clear and bright. For the first time in a while, she went without makeup. I had to tear myself away from studying her face. So beautiful.

But why was she here? I couldn’t figure it out. We didn’t have practice.

"Good. I didn’t think I was going to catch you in time." Kassie breathed out and shrugged off her backpack to pull out a small bag. "I thought, worst comes to worst, I open the door and throw it at you."

I cleared my throat, ignoring the way it tightened when she came close. "What are you doing here?"

"I got you—uh—" She tugged out something wrapped in paper and held it in front of me. "I bought breakfast and I thought—you know—I’m already there so…it’s a breakfast sandwich. If you eat without chewing, you can finish it before the meeting."

For a long moment, I stared at her.

She brought me a sandwich?

"Don’t look at me like that." Kassie pushed it towards me again. "It’s bacon, egg, avocado, a bunch of other shit, the highest protein one on the menu. I know it’s not specifically on your diet plan but it’s…something."

Slowly, I unwrapped the sandwich. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d eaten something like this for breakfast. The bacon dripped grease on the paper and the egg ran down the side of the bagel. And it smelled so fucking good.

Goddamn.

I lowered the sandwich. "You came here to drop off food?"

Kassie flushed. "I rescheduled with Cleo. I’m approving the social media calendar."

---