Page 20 of Play Maker

Shit.

Jackson.

“Lo?” he calls out, voice groggy. “The power’s out. You up?—”

My heart jackhammers against my ribs. I whip my head toward Kolby, who’s awake now, eyes wide, body going taut.

“Closet,” I hiss.

He stares at me like I’ve lost my damn mind.

“Closet! Go!”

Grumbling under his breath, he grabs his clothes and scrambles across the room, squeezing into the smaller closet of the two, the one I keep all my jackets, shoes, and a broken guitar.

I yank the covers up to my chin and school my face into something that doesn’t scream,I just slept with the Kolby freaking Grimes.

Jackson appears in the doorway, messy hair, a beanie jammed down over his ears.

“You take Kolby home last night?” he asks, already surveying the room like he expects to see him somewhere.

“Yeah,” I lie smoothly, voice scratchy. “Dropped him off at the townhouses after I locked up.”

Jackson frowns. “That bad out?”

“Blizzard hit harder than they said.” I shrug. “Truck’s dead. Needs a jump.”

“I’ll get the cables,” he says, already turning toward the stairs. “You can follow me down in your Jeep.”

As soon as he’s gone, I yank the closet door open.

Kolby glares at me from behind a puff jacket and a rolled-up sleeping bag, his hair a wild mess, his jeans half-buttoned.

“You’re going to have to sneak your ass to the Jeep,” I whisper. “You’re riding hidden. Congratulations, you’re cargo now.”

* * *

Kolby’s tucked behind the back seat, hunched low, his broad shoulders barely fitting. He’s shoved a ratty old blanket over himself like it’s gonna make him invisible. If Jackson even glances in my rear window at a stop sign, it’s game over.

I throw the Jeep into drive and ease out onto the road, heart thudding hard enough it echoes in my ears.

The first mile is pure hell.

Jackson taps Kolby’s taillights ahead of me through the blowing snow. I grip the steering wheel so tight my knuckles ache. Every time the Jeep bounces over a patch of ice, I hear Kolby shift in the back—heavy breathing, the brush of his jacket against the vinyl, the faintest grunt when he tries to wedge himself deeper into the floor space.

I sneak a glance in the mirror again, catching a flash of his dark eyes under the edge of the blanket.

“You’re not exactly subtle back there,” I hiss under my breath, careful not to move my mouth too much in case Jackson can somehow read lips from that distance.You never know.

Kolby shifts again, slow and deliberate, like he’s testing how far he can push me. “Maybe you shouldn’t have made me hide like a goddamn kidnapped mascot,” he mutters, voice rough from sleep and something sharper.

Heat creeps up my neck.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have been naked in my bed when my brother showed up,” I snap back, barely audible.

“I had on boxers,” he snaps back.

“Fewer clothes than when you banged my head on the edge of my bed.”

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