16

Miles

It Was All You

I found the note.

It turns out, you can actually feel a heart crack.

With a dry throat and wild eyes, I passed our locker room, storming away from the assistant coaches. Everybody tried to stop me. We had some kind of preplanned interviews, but I couldn't care less.

The only thing that stopped me was Sullender's knowing grin in the parking lot.

And that bastard got what he deserved.

My thinking process was simple. I'd push my car's engine to its limit, passing everyone else on the highway. I knew the Marrs bus would stop at a breakfast diner, gas station, or maybe a truck stop along the way. I just had to catch them at the right time.

Cars passed, but I stayed on course, rigid in my seat. I caught sight of them before the border into Texas.

The dark blue Marrs bus chugged along at a comfortable pace. Cleo was sitting in one of those seats, probably curled up with her laptop, typing away an email.

Was all of this a mistake?

Maybe she was just relaxing on her computer, and I was imagining all the tension between us, those tight cords that kept us wound close.

No. I didn't believe that.

What could she have been thinking when she wrote that letter?

My car approached the back of the bus, and I revved the engine. It was my chance to convince her that this wasn't a short-term thing. I needed her to see that.

It was a lonely highway, no one was with us, and I easily overtook the bus and hugged the wrong side of the road, keeping up.

Someone had to notice the jackass next to them.

"There we go," I muttered when I saw the first confused face shifting to take in the car. When they turned away, I revved up the engine again. I shook my head. "Notice the jackass, come on."

Being a number one asshole to get attention is something footballers know instinctively.

More faces pressed to the glass. Faces that surrounded Coach Lawson and acted as his everyday yes men. Five people pressed their faces against the glass, until one of them ushered someone else over.

I took moments from the road, glancing up at the glass. My heart squeezed in my chest. It had to be Cleo. Let it be Cleo.

Coach Lawson.

He peered out the window, fogging up the glass, and I caught eyes with the biggest hardass in the Birchwood conference. He squinted at me. Before I could wave, he disappeared.

Easing up on the accelerator, I took my place behind the bus again, following on for half a mile. If Coach Lawson wanted me off the road, he would've made it happen. All I had to do was wait.

Chasing a girl across state lines, I could almost hear the questions. Was it really worth it?

Absolutely.

There was something about Cleo I couldn't quantify into words that anybody else could understand. I'd been lost, bumbling from one direction to another, all to find out that she was the end goal I'd been searching for. It was easy for me to float through everything because none of it mattered .

But she did.

She mattered to me.

Everything she did mattered to me.

The way she knocked me off my guard, the way she teased out parts of me I thought had eroded away. The way she marched through the world with her high heels clicking against the pavement, ready to get shit done. It just made me want to follow her, like a sick man trailing after a doctor, holding on for that medication.

The bus relaxed its speed, and my chest tightened. The final conversation approached as the Marrs bus came up to the outskirts of one of the last towns on the state line.

"Here we go," I muttered, pulling in next to them.

With a low hiss, the bus's dark blue door opened, and I stepped out of the car.

Coach Lawson was the first one to walk off the bus. "Kid, what is this?"

"Hello, sir." I nodded respectfully. "I don't mean to be an inconvenience here but—"

"You've been trailing—practically kissing the bus's ass since Lake Murray—"

Heels clicked against the steps of the bus and I leaned to catch a view of the sight beyond Coach Lawson.

Cleo stepped to the dusty ground in white heels and a smooth pencil skirt that showed her legs. Her red hair was pinned back with a twist. So put together. The complete antithesis of me in every way.

Her lips parted when her eyes locked on mine.

"Miles?"

"Do I need to run over his car?" Coach Lawson jerked a thumb at me.

"No—he—" A bright blush rocketed across her face, almost as flaming as her hair.

That was hope.

If Cleo wanted me to fuck off down the highway, she would've told me to fuck off down the highway. She brushed a few strands back and gave me another glance.

"Sir, can we have a couple of minutes?"

Coach Lawson gave me a long look and scratched his beard. "Alright."

"Thank you, sir."

"We're heading in for beers. If you need us to run over his car, just call."

"Yes, sir," Cleo reaffirmed, with absolutely no indication that she wouldn't take advantage of that if she needed it.

I couldn't help but feel a twinge of pride. My vixen knew exactly how to take care of herself - even if it ended up with her flattening my car to pieces.

She hurried across the gravel, and I reached through my window to fetch the stapled pieces of paper.

"Miles—"

"I got your note." I held up the papers.

Her eyes zeroed in on the crumpled marks from how often I'd pulled them open during the drive.

She swallowed. "I spent a lot of time on that."

"I'm sure you did." Balling them up between my hands, I crumpled the letter into a ball and tossed it back into my car. "You just left."

"It's better if we have…an understanding about this."

"Sullender talked to you," I said flatly.

"He—that had nothing to do with it."

"So, he got punched for no reason?"

"You—?" Cleo shook her head and smoothed down her pencil skirt, shifting back and forth in her heels like she was readying for a track race and not breaking my heart. She squeezed her eyes shut. "This is the most practical decision."

"Bullshit."

"Just because you don't want to hear—"

"You're the kind of person who delivers an apology to somebody's face. Instead, you hopped on the bus and stomped me to little pieces— bullshit ." I took a step closer. "And I could take it if you were done with me, I could, but you're clearly not done with me and I'm never going to be done with you. So, I'm calling it. Bullshit."

She stared, blinking. "You don't know me."

"And I want to get to know you. I want to figure you out, one puzzle piece at a time, every day, for the rest of my life."

"I—" She stopped herself. "Miles, you don't understand."

"No, I understand. I understand that if I have to drive across state lines every time I have to convince you that things are fine, problems are going to happen anyway," I told her.

"I want the head intern position," she blurted out. "And I have worked my ass off to get it and I don't want to hurt you and have people think that you slept with me to—"

"Nobody's going to think that."

"People are going to talk," she whispered.

"Who the hell cares?"

"I care ." Cleo pinched the bridge of her nose but shook her head, less exasperated, more desperate for me to understand. "I care!"

"Okay. You're bringing a highly-valued player from KYU to Marrs University."

When I tried to continue, Cleo opened her mouth to refute it, but I needed her to hear it.

"I don't care about any of this, but this is the only thing I'm really good at. I know I'm a high-value player. And me, coming to Marrs, was you. It was all you."

She stared at me. "Miles…?"

"Cleo, you can do whatever you put your mind to. I just want to be part of it."

Her face softened.

"Because I think I've been looking at this wrong," I admitted. "I've been looking for a new start. I didn't realize I was searching for my last one."

For a moment, both of us were silent, until Cleo shook her head.

"This is crazy," she muttered.

"Well, I'm the one taking a risk here."

"This is insane," Cleo threw over her shoulder and hurried up the bus's steps. I followed after her, heart hammering, but I didn't go in with her. I stayed outside the door while her voice floated down. "Fucking crazy!"

"If anything, I'm the fucking crazy one. For all I know, you could have a boyfriend or a fiancé or a—"

The words stopped in my throat when she appeared at the bus's entrance, a tidy shoulder bag under her arm.

She's driving with me?

Cleo sighed. "Somebody has to make sure you go the speed limit."

I yanked her close. My lips found hers before we could speak another word to each other. We crashed together. She tilted her head, deepening the kiss, and I ran my hand through her fine red hair, everything I'd ever wanted.

I wrapped an arm around her waist, heading into the bar. She reached up to hold my hand and my chest swelled. I couldn't keep the grin off my face.