Page 80 of Saving the Halfback

Ethan shook his head. “Addict, trying to function without his drugs.”

I punched Ethan in the arm, and he smiled at the attempt. “Don’t be a dick,” I said. I was torn. I knew what Lachlan did helped him, but also, I understood why Ethan hated it so much.

“I’m not addicted,” Lachlan mumbled. “I didn’t sleep at all last night. It’s okay, Bailey, I’m used to Ethan being a dick. I know he doesn’t agree with my life choices, and I have chosen not to let it bother me.”

“Won’t be calling me a dick when you get the whole team disqualified.”

“They would do that?” I asked.

“No, I’d get kicked off the team,” Lachlan said.

“Yeah, and who is going to take your place? A junior? Might as well disqualify us. Oh yeah, and all the games we win while you were playing will be disqualified, turned to losses.” Ethan didn’t have to honk the horn to get Nolan to come out; he was waiting at the end of his driveway. Hot damn. Was my heart really going to go into a frenzy every time I saw them in their jerseys?

“You’re drooling,” Lachlan sang lazily.

I turned and glared at him while Nolan got into the truck. “Wow, you look like shit,” he said to Lachlan. I grinned and Lachlan rolled his eyes. He took one look at Ethan and opened his mouth, but I quickly shook my head. Nolan snapped his mouth shut and let it go.

I blasted music the whole ride to school. Nolan sang with me while Lachlan and Ethan remained quiet and broody. Though, out of the corner of my eye, I caught Ethan smiling on more than one occasion.This is what we needed, I thought to myself,some sort of normalcy.

When we pulled up to the school, Lachlan tensed, and I knew this was going to be a hard day. I suspected Nolan knew something when he stepped up on one side of Lachlan as we walked into the school. I took his other side and slipped my arm across Lach’s back, holding his hip. He didn’t flinch away from my touch.

Ethan walked behind us, not saying anything. We created a bubble around Lachlan, and where he was once tight and rigid, he relaxed into me, and I could see the relief in his eyes.

Nolan expertly intercepted the fist bumps and cheers as random people noticed our jerseys and were amped up for game day.

Ethan broke off from us to get his jersey on, while the other two followed me to my locker. As we weaved through the crowd and came up to my locker, I was confused by the note taped to it. At first, I figured I had the wrong locker, but my name was on the paper. Lachlan was faster than me, snatching the note and reading it quickly before shoving it into his pocket.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Nothing.” His voice was cold, his eyes staring daggers at anyone who glanced our way.

I was a little bothered that he took the note without telling me what it was. Was it okay for me to question him, though? Maybe with Ed, it wasn’t okay, but Lachlan and Nolan were showing me that a lot of what Ed expected wasn’t realistic or normal.

I busied myself switching out my books, but I didn’t miss Nolan tapping Lachlan’s arm with the back of his hand. I watched Lachlan slide the paper to him. I closed my locker. “You can’t both know and not tell me. It had my name on it, so technically, it was mine.”

Lachlan tried to take the note back, but Nolan pulled it away and handed it to me. I ignored their little staring contest as I read it.

Help us out. We can’t figure out if you are a slut, sleeping with the whole football team, or a dyke trying to be one of them.

Nolan and Lachlan stared at me, waiting for my reaction. I looked around to see if anyone was watching—maybe I could pinpoint who had written this—but no one seemed to be paying attention.

“It’s bullshit.” Lachlan took the note and ripped it up. “You know it’s bullshit, right, Bailey? The team doesn’t think this way about you at all.”

“It’s true,” Nolan said. “Everyone thinks you are badass. We all know you’re going to be one of our star players.”

I smiled. “Yeah, no pressure. I’ve never even played a single high school game.” I rolled my eyes. “So, whoever wrote this isn’t on the team. It doesn’t matter, then.”

English was half filled when I got there. I found my way to my desk and froze when I saw the note with my name neatly scrawled across it. Again, I looked around to see if anyone was paying attention, but no one said anything. I picked up the note and sat down, debating for a moment if I was even going to open it. They were just words. They meant nothing. Except, I was lying to myself—again.Damn it, Bailey, stop lying.

Which coach did you suck to get on the team?

Hadley was my first suspect, but she’d walked in the door not long after me, wearing her cheer uniform and hanging off Chase’s arm. She hadn’t even been in the room. They looked like the picture-perfect couple, with her in her short skirt and Chase wearing his jersey. It had to be someone in the room, right? Someone who knew this was my desk.

It’s not someone from the team, I reminded myself. It didn’t matter, because it wasn’t someone from the team.

I shoved the note into my pocket and focused on the class. Only…it wasn’t the last time I would find a note that day.

As the final bell rang at the end of the day, and I headed out to my locker with Nolan in tow, I nearly beat my head against the metal door when I spotted another note with my name written neatly across it.

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