Page 32 of Step Alpha

For fates’ sake. What am I doing wrong now?

“Can you even see in that rearview mirror?”

Rearview mirror.Right. I reach up and adjust it, so I can see behind me. “I guess that would be helpful,” I snark.

To my utter shock, when I steal a glance at Wilde, his lips are curved in the faintest of smiles.

Maybe I’m starting to grow on him.

Maybe…

Gawd, no. I can’t think about Wilde and drive a moving vehicle at the same time. I turn my focus onto driving, slowly backing into the street, turning the wheel and putting it into drive then rolling forward.

“Speed limit’s twenty-five,” Wilde observes.

I look at the speedometer. I’m going fifteen. I give it a little more gas, and we lurch forward. Out of my periphery, I think I see Wilde smile again.

But that can’t be right.

I find myself driving the route to school since that’s a familiar path. Once there, I circle around it. Wilde stares at the football field where the team is still practicing.

“Did you decide not to train with them?” I ask, even though I know he’s going to bite my head off.

He doesn’t, though. He just lets out a disgruntled sigh. “Coach said no.”

“Oh.” I steal a glance at Wilde and am disconcerted by the haunted expression on his face. Like he’s come unmoored from his life and doesn’t know how to get it back. “Why?”

He shrugs. “Dunno. He said when I figured out why I could come and talk to him again. A fucking riddle.”

“Huh.” I mull that over, and I drive away from the school and that particular source of his pain. I don’t know Coach Jamison personally. I mean, of course, I know him. He’s a freaking legend in Wolf Ridge. But we’ve never spoken in my life. “What was the conversation exactly?”

Wilde shifts restlessly in his seat. He points down the road. “Drive down to Cave Hills. That’s where the DMV is. We can practice the driving test.”

Ack. The roads will be way busier in Cave Hills. My hands get clammy, but I do what he says. I figure it will be his fault if I get in an accident, right?

No, scratch that. I would die. Logan would be ashamed of me–again–and I’d rather jump off a cliff that give him another major reason to think I’m a fuck-up.

“Basically, I asked if I could train with the team, and he said no.”

“That was it?”

Wilde rubs a thumb across his lower lip, looking out the window. “I told him my dad wanted me to train with the team. He asked what I wanted.”

“And what did you say?”

“I said,nobody cares what I want.Then he said no.”

“Well, there’s your answer.”

Wilde looks over at me. I come to a major stoplight and brake. Wilde shoos me forward because I’m hanging too far behind the other car. “What’s the answer, Runt?”

“He asked what you wanted.”

Wilde stares at me. “Explain.”

“He doesn’t want you there if you don’t want to be there. Why would he? He’s not going to waste his time on someone who hates football.”

Wilde’s body tenses. He scrubs a hand across his face. “I don’t–” his voice sounds strangled. “I don’t hate football. Why in the fuck would you say that? I was playing for the top college football team in the nation. NFL scouts were crawling up my ass.”