Page 108 of Blitz'd

“He needs to see the doc. You can follow him after you get changed, kid.”

Follow him.

He isn’t telling me to fuck off, or leave him alone.

He’s just telling me to take a shower and get out of my gear.

My gaze flashes around us again—to all the eyes on us.

To Easton’s smug smirk.

And I realize Coach is right. Thereissomething I need to do before I go with Zander. Especially since I have a feeling they aren’t going to let me pack him into my car and drive him to the hospital myself.

“Okay.” I nod once, squeezing Zander’s fingers again. “You’re right. Sorry, Coach.”

Thank fuck this shit happened near the end of the game, so I don’t have to go through the motions while he’s getting carted off and checked out.

“I’ll be fine,” Zander murmurs, squeezing my hand one more time. “Just—” He winces when he smiles, like the motion hurts. “No bragging if you win. Not fair.”

My jaw clenches as I’m forced to stand and make my way back to my side of the field like I’m not leaving my heart lying there on the fucking grass waiting for the fucking athletic trainer to come out.

In the end, I don’tcarewho wins. I just care about the smug expression I see on Easton’s face when I walk by him and the look he shoots across the field like he’s done something worth getting praised for.

* * *

The minutes it takes for the game to end feels like hours, and this is the first time I don’tcarethat we won. By the time I can get to my coach to ask where they sent him, Zander’s already gone. They wanted to send him to get scans, to double check that he didn’t have a concussion. My first instinct is to follow right behind him, even though I know he’s probably going to be back in a room in some huge machine, maybe flirting with the nurses out of instinct and nerves.

And I intend to—I really do. But I have to see something first. Because as much as I have my suspicions about Easton, there’s something bothering me. It’s the way he jerks his head when the game is over, like he’s signaling something to someone.

I shoot Zander a text and he tells me he’ll let me know once he’s done getting looked over. Iwantto go to him right now, but he insists I wait until he’s finished with the doctor.

It makes what I need to do a little easier, because the bastard whohithim is smirking when he answers his phone with a quick“We can meet up once I’m back.”

He sounds fuckingsmug.

I keep an eye on Easton all the way back to school… and I watch him peel off as soon as he gets the chance. There’s something about the set of his shoulders and the way he keeps looking at his phone thattells meI’m not imagining things.

And my instincts are never wrong.

I follow him silently as he slips into a nearby restaurant, and it’s easy enough to grab the booth behind him.

It’s easier still to realize that he’s not sitting there alone.

“Fuck, that worked better than I thought it would. Did youseeSlade’s face?” Easton sounds smug, and my jaw clenches. I have to remind myself I’m in a public place, and there’s no way I can do what I want to do right now. Not when I need to get to the hospital to check on Zander.

“Yeah, well… I don’t think you hit him hard enough, you asshole. He got up andwalked. You were supposed to fuck him up, not give him a love tap.”

I’m trying to sort out who the second voice is when Easton does it for me.

“Come on, Justin. That was a solid hit. I held up my end of the deal.”

Deal.

Justin… Justin was the asshole who started all of this. The fucker who slept with Zander’s girl and had him coming across the field to kiss me. In another world, I would have been slapping him on the back and telling him that his fuckup was the best thing that had ever happened to me.

In another world, I would never have given him a second glance.

In another world, he hadn’t fucked upthisbad. Because from the way the two are talking it’s obvious… They’ve been planning this for a while—theywantedto hurt us both. I could understand Easton—that asshole has had a problem with me from the second we’d met.

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