Page 97 of The Wrong Quarterback

I handed Casey the card, watching the flicker of hesitation in her eyes. She always acted so shy when I tried to buy her anything. She hadn’t realized yet that I would buy her literally anything she wanted. Since the moment I met her, everything I had done was to set us up for the future and make it so I could. “I’ve got a late practice tonight. Grab some dinner on me,” I told her.

Casey shook her head. “Parker, you don’t need to?—”

Before she could finish, Nat snatched the card right out of my hand with a wide grin. “Don’t mind if we do. Your man just got a deal with Nike, he can definitely afford to treat us to a nice dinner, Case.” She flashed the card at Casey like a victory. “We’re going to get steak by the way,” she said, tossing me a mischievous grin.

I smirked, raising an eyebrow as I looked at Casey. “You better.”

Nat made a swooning sound while I kissed Casey, and then I left their dorm room, heading to practice, which was in fact scheduled to be an hour shorter than usual.

When I got out, night had fallen, and when I checked my app, I saw that Casey was headed to the restaurant, a fancy steak house on the outside of town.

Perfect.

“I need you to distract someone for me,” I told Jace as we changed and headed out of the locker room.

He squinted at me. “Why does that sound so…foreboding? But yes, I’m in.”

“Why aren’t you asking me to help?” said Matty, sounding annoyed.

“Because he needs someone with a big dick,Matthew,” said Jace, sounding completely serious. “Mine is obviously the better choice.”

Matty blinked at him. “It’s A HALF INCH.”

I snorted. “You have tutoring tonight…and morals. I’m trying to be nice. Give you a break for once. Wouldn’t want you to be haunted or anything.”

Matty wrinkled his nose…and shivered as he no doubt thought about our little night in the cemetery. “I can benefarious…but I do have tutoring.” He side-eyed me. “Real tutoring might I add.”

“See, right there, that was judgy. You need to work on that, Matty, if you’re going to be in thePussy Posse,” said Jace, acting like he was giving him really important advice as he slapped him on the back.

Matty flipped him off. “I’m vetoing that one.”

“Me too,” I agreed, glancing at my app again. They were almost at the restaurant. “But we can discuss that later. We don’t have a lot of time.”

“Let me know if I need to bail you both out of jail,” Matty sighed as we parted ways.

I grinned at him. “We’d only need that if I get caught, and that’sobviouslynot going to happen.”

Matty was shaking his head as Jace and I got into the truck, a small smirk on his lips.

“That guy totally likes nefarious things. He’s just lying to himself.”

“I agree,” I told him, before launching into an explanation of my plans for the evening.

Jace was gaping at me as I finished.

“Let me clarify this real quick. You’re going to get your girlfriend kicked out of her dorm by having me distract the front desk so no one sees you breaking in. Then you’re going to light a fire so that the sprinklers go off and ruin the room. Andthenyou’re going to use a fire escape ladder that you bought online to scale down the building so that no one sees you leaving. Did I get that all right?”

“Well, it’s not breaking in anymore since I have a key,” I corrected him as I pulled into a parking lot a few buildings down from Casey’s dorm.

“THAT YOU STOLE AND COPIED.”

I winked at him. “I don’t see the problem in that sentence.”

Jace sighed, blinking his eyes a few times. “Alright, so we’re doing this. I didn’t have it written on my calendar to add breaking and entering andfireto my dossier today, but I can pivot.”

I snorted as I got out of the truck and grabbed my bag out of the back. “It’s just a littlefireif that makes you feel better.”

“Hey, I didn’t sayfirelike it was a bad thing,” Jace said as we started walking toward the dorm.

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