28

Ryan

Double Texting

The next football game was an away game. Arizona. It was a good game, nobody could say it wasn't. Forty-three to twenty-seven, we clocked a forty-six-yard field goal that cinched the second quarter, and the team energy was good. Coach Lawson didn't swear at anybody in the tunnel.

But Kassie wasn't there.

With her class schedule, she couldn't make any of the away games. It was weird. Not having her around. I didn't like it.

Strapped into my seat on the plane, I stared down at my phone, trying not to let the questions gnaw away at me.

RYAN: ARE YOU STILL AWAKE

We'd been texting most of the day, but in the time it took for the team to pile into the charter plane, the clock ticked towards eleven at night, and Kassie went dark. She was asleep. The thing was, when she said good night, I didn't think it'd be for the rest of the night.

RYAN: DID YOU GO TO SLEEP

If she woke up for a glass of water and saw two messages, she'd respond then. Putting the phone down, I gazed around at the rest of the plane, at the lines of football players, snoring together.

Except for the empty seat, three rows behind me.

Adam .

Mulling it over, I released the seat belt and stood up, walking with sore muscles up the aisle.

At the front of the charter place was an area where the coaches and I had met up, in an open meeting with chairs and a table, where Adam currently sat with his back facing me, hunched over a laptop.

This should be good .

Adam didn't notice me until I took the seat next to him.

" Shit. " He jumped a couple of inches and froze, his fingers over the keyboard. An uneasy grin crossed his face. "Captain. Hey. I was just—uh—yeah, I've got nothing. I was making a new playlist for King's physio appointments."

I raised an eyebrow.

"It's a horror movie soundtrack," he said sheepishly. "Zariah got it for me."

"Got it." I paused. "Zariah?"

"Yeah."

"Kassie's roommate?"

"Yeah."

Wariness hit me. "Adam—I can't believe I need to say this— don't fuck Kassie's roommate."

"Thanks, captain." He rolled his eyes. "I'm not fucking the Contractor sister. You were in a meeting and the girls were grabbing burritos. Zariah asked King and I if we wanted to join."

"You got burritos with Kassie?"

"You wouldn't like them. They didn't taste like cardboard bullshit." He grinned. "A basketball player ducked out of line when Kassie kept bumping into him. The off-limits tag is working."

I chuckled for the first time in a long time at something Adam said.

"So…you're not yelling at me…?" Adam said slowly.

"I'm tired of you fucking around with football," I told him honestly. "The impulsive shit has to stop. I don't care if you change King's physio music. As long as the dumb shit you're doing doesn't have anything to do with football or our image, I don't care."

Adam shrugged. "And if it has nothing to do with Kassie."

I knew the linebacker expected me to put up an argument, but there wasn't an argument to put up. It was true.

"I want to talk to you about something," I said, my voice low. "Something we keep between us."

"Who am I keeping it from?"

"Everybody."

Adam's eyes widened. "Cleo?" I nodded. "Coach Lawson? " I nodded again. He blinked. " Kassie? "

With a grimace, I held up my phone. The messages with Kassie, us talking about her classes earlier, and then me asking her if she was still awake. Twice. Adam's eyebrows furrowed as he scanned them.

"Okay. You need advice? Stop double texting ladies. You're the captain of one of the best college football teams in the country." Adam chuckled. "Good to see you getting out there but come on. Why are you double texting girls?"

"I'm not texting girls," I said. "I'm texting Kassie."

For a moment, he frowned, and then the realization sank in. He made a noise at the back of his throat. "Oh…shit."

"Yeah."

"Man, you suck at this fake relationship thing."

I passed my phone to his side of the table. "Here's what I want. I want my phone to ring a bell whenever Kassie posts something on her accounts. I can't figure out how to do that."

"You want to cyberstalk her."

"I'm not stalking her." I scoffed. "That's not what I'm asking for. I would like…getting updates about Kassie when she doesn't text me back fast enough."

"That sounds like stalking."

"It's not stalking."

"Definitely stalking, bro."

"When I talk to her, I feel like I can't keep up," I admitted. "If I get the bells and whistles, maybe I have something good to mention." When Adam finally picked up my phone, I saw the look on his face. "That's—uh—not my official account."

Adam breathed out through his nose. "A private account to follow a girl without her knowing about it…yeah. Not stalking at all."

"Called it," a voice said behind us.

Both Adam and I lurched in the chairs and saw King with his arms crossed over his chest. The only other football player awake. I cursed under my breath.

"King," I straightened up. "I thought you were sleeping."

"That ninth tackle got me." He rolled his shoulders. "I can't sleep. But I called it."

Adam crumpled a piece of paper into a ball. "You didn't know shit. And if you did, the only reason you called it is because he told you to put the off-limits tag on her."

"Nope." King sidestepped the paper's trajectory when Adam tossed it at him. "I knew after the dinner."

I dropped my voice. "Were you two shut the hell up? The rest of the team's going to hear you."

King walked over to Adam and held out his hand. Both Adam and I leaned in while King started typing up Kassie's accounts, pressing the buttons and clicking things to get the alarms. Not just for our official accounts but the other ones that Kassie had been tagged in too. The art department, Roman Forest, Zariah's account—

"Cross, Russell, King."

All three of us jerked up to look at Coach Lawson, walking from the front section of the plane. I grabbed my phone out of King's hand and stuffed it in my back pocket.

"Great game today." He nodded, passing us by. "Good to see you three working hard but you should get some rest."

"That's us, coach," Adam said, reaffirming the lie that we were doing anything football-related at all.

King grunted in agreement but I couldn't lie to my coach. In the end, I just gave a firm nod. I couldn't think of anything else to do.

Our coach picked up a folder off the table. "We'll be landing in forty minutes. No practice tomorrow. You guys can lay off the game plans. You did good."

Yeah. Game plans.

The moment Coach Lawson walked back, King breathed out in relief and I finally relaxed.

Adam swiveled over to look at me. "So, captain, what are you doing about this?"

"About what?"

"The girl you're stalking."

"Already figured it out." I dropped my voice, careful not to let anybody else hear. "I'll wait until December, and then when the contract's up, and before she leaves for Florida, I'll ask if she wants to go out to dinner with me. Somewhere nice." I nodded, mostly to myself. "I think I have a lot to offer. I'll be playing professional ball."

Adam nodded too. "And Kassie is a part of the ten-girl demographic that doesn't give a shit about that."

I gave Adam a hard look.

"What? I'm just saying."

"You're a good-looking dude," King added. "That's something."

I reached back and clapped him on the shoulder. "Thanks, man. Yeah. I'm a good-looking guy. That's on the list. I make good money. Another one. I've won a lot of awards. That's three things off the bat."

"Are we talking about what they'd write in an article about you or shit that Kassie's interested in?" Adam snorted. "Captain, every guy on Kassie's roster probably looks like the scarecrow from Wizard of Oz ."

"What do you mean?"

"You know those art chicks love skinny indie band guys. Which is not you. In every way possible."

I stared at the linebacker. "You don't think I'm her type?" Adam gave me a long look, and when I turned back, King shrugged reluctantly. I couldn't believe it. "I'm not Kassie's type?"

"There's no way in hell," Adam said.

"You don't need to be someone's…exact type," King argued, just confirming I couldn't check Kassie's boxes.

Adam rolled his eyes. "No, but it's going to make it a hell of a lot harder. Ryan, you don't need to be straining over this. This doesn't need to be a problem. Go find a bleacher bunny. Get a blowjob. Come on her face. Done."

I nodded. "I hear what you're saying."

"Good. Finally."

"I'm going to ask Kassie out in December."

"Goddammit." Adam leaned back in his chair as far as he could and folded his arms behind his head. "Nobody listens to me."

"I don't think December's a good idea either, captain," King admitted.

"Why not?"

Adam breathed out through his nose. "King's trying to nicely say that we're enrolled in a university with forty thousand students. Statistically speaking, twenty thousand of those don't think with anything more than their dick. That's it."

King hesitated. "Kassie's a good-looking college girl, captain."

" And? " I demanded. "I put an off-limits tag on her. She's mine ."

I couldn't resist the twinge of jealousy. It wasn't like Kassie wasn't gorgeous but nobody else got to have her. The off-limits tag proved that. Even hearing other guys comment on her appearance made me tense. Both of my teammates knew it. I already had to have a sit-down with some basketball players who wouldn't stop commenting on her account. And now they weren't allowed in the main gyms at the training center.

Fuck around and find out, assholes.

"You need to lock it down," King told me plainly.

"Or not ." Adam gave both of us a look of disbelief. "Why am I even talking right now—we're football players. Are you serious? I mean, captain—no offense—but, yeah, you're cyberstalking this girl. How long has it been since you had any pussy?"

For a long moment, I nodded, and then I pushed back to give King my full focus. "How do I lock it down?"

Adam groaned.

"You have to do something to show you're invested," King said. "You can't let her think you only see her as a friend."

"Because friends fuck other people," Adam sang out, his voice low.

I shot him another dark look and he held up his hands.

"What does Kassie like?" King pressed.

"Uh…" I thought long and hard about it. "Cartoons."

"Awesome. You figured it out." Adam threw finger guns at me. "Once you turn into a cartoon character, you're in. Jesus, dude. This is painful ."

"Take some kind of next step," King suggested, and both of us swiveled in our chairs to ignore the linebacker. "You're still under the contract but that doesn't mean you can't show her you won't be down for December. Show her you're invested in the future."