Page 61 of Off Limits

Dex laughed, his hazel eyes glittering with humor. “I’m surprised he didn’t get in trouble.”

“It was a few years ago, and he ordered it at, like, two a.m. on a Saturday. That’s probably the only reason he didn’t get put on some sort of watch list.”

“Night crews really don’t give a fuck,” Dex agreed. “I guess I’ll be normal and not ask for a pepperoni dick since it’s dinnertime on a Tuesday.”

“Probably a good idea.”

He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Pizza yay or nay?”

I hesitated. I had money for once, but I was so used to penny-pinching that it felt weird to spend it on takeout.

“I don’t have cash on me.”

“No problem.” He unlocked his phone and tapped on the screen. “I’ve got it.”

“Why?” I couldn’t understand or explain the flash of anger that hit me.

He looked up from his phone and met my eyes. “Because I always order the same thing, and there’s more than enough for two people.”

“Not just the pizza,” I said, the words pouring out of me like water through a faucet. “I mean the lunches and the leftovers for the past few weeks.”

“Because you need to eat, and cooking for one sucks.” He shrugged like it was no big deal. “It’s easy for me to just make extra, and there’s no point hoarding leftovers and tossing them out if you’re here to help me finish them."

“But why do you care if I’m eating?” I pressed.

“Because not eating enough is incredibly dangerous to your health, and I know how hard it is to get over an eating disorder.”

I was about to tell him I didn’t have an eating disorder, I was just poor and a terrible cook, but stopped as his words registered.

“What do you mean?” I asked carefully. Was he talking about himself? Or was this about someone he knew?

He raked his hand through his already messy curls. “Have you heard of orthorexia?”

I nodded. I wasn’t an expert or anything, but I’d read about how it was an ED where people restricted all food except what they considered to be healthy. I’d also read that it usually wasn’t about losing weight and was instead about controlling the purity of the food you consumed.

“My first year at college was a…let’s just say it was an adjustment,” he said, his eyes on the floor between us. “The team had a nutritionist on staff that made individualized meal plansfor us so we could ‘avoid the freshman fifteen’ at the dining halls.”

That didn’t make sense. Dex was an elite athlete. Even if he ate nothing but junk food, the hours he put into practices, workouts, and games would be enough to burn it off. Not to mention having the metabolism of a teenager.

I’d spent years watching Dex eat enough for two people and never gain an ounce. Why would they put him on a diet?

“I didn’t even see it happening until it was too late,” he continued. “At first I just stuck to the plan, but the more I heard him talk about all the toxins and chemicals in food and how they were slowly poisoning us, the more I obsessed about what I was eating, and the more I cut out of my diet.”

“Is that why you didn’t come home for Thanksgiving that year?” I asked.

He nodded. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to hide that I wasn’t eating, so I figured it was better to just stay on campus so I’d be safe.” He huffed out a bitter laugh. “I passed out during a team workout the week everyone came back. One minute I was doing a set of presses, and the next my spotter was shouting for help and fighting to keep the bar from crushing me.”

“Jesus,” I breathed, my chest tightening with fear. “You were bench pressing?”

He nodded and looked up, finally meeting my gaze. “I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if Khaled hadn’t been there or if he hadn’t caught the bar in time.”

“Please tell me they fired that asshole nutritionist and someone kicked his ass because what the fuck? Even I know that you have to make sure athletes eat enough. You don’t put them on a fucking diet or tell them that food is poisoning them.”

The corners of his mouth tipped up in a little smile. “They fired him, but sadly, he didn’t get his ass kicked.”

“Did anyone else get hurt because of him?” I asked. I could only imagine the damage someone in his position could do to a team of athletes.

He nodded, his smile fading. “I wasn’t the only one. Thankfully no one was seriously hurt, but it took a while to break that way of thinking and even longer to build back the muscle we all lost.”

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