74

Ryan

THANK YOU

Five days in Louisiana as a big show to train two teams together, to help with camaraderie and morale. A football game on the last day but for the four days leading up to it, we were excused from all classes and encouraged to meet and get to know the Louisiana football team.

What a fucking waste of time.

Outside of the training center, I tried to listen to the student reporters asking me questions, holding their phones out to record the answers. It was hard to concentrate. I scanned the buildings again, looking for the dark braids and curved mouth.

Where's Kassie?

"What do you think about the new receivers for UNLP?" one of the student reporters pushed.

"I think Floyd and Molina have their work cut out for them," I replied, checking the crowd behind them again. "We met last season, I'm excited to meet them head-on. It's going to be a real challenge—challenge—"

My words stopped in my throat as I spotted the overalls, close to the brick wall.

"I've got this captain," Adam said behind me and clapped my back. He took my place up to the microphone. "Coach Lee has always had a talent for recruiting the best of the best for his offense. If there's one thing you can guarantee, it's the best of the best."

I threw him a grateful grin and passed the crowd, off towards the brick wall, and my girlfriend, fifteen minutes late to see me off. A sense of relief washed over me. I was worried I wasn't going to see her before the charter bus had to drive off.

Kassie spotted me and waved me over, in the little niche between the administrative building and the parking garage office.

"I didn't think you were going to make it," I breathed out.

She leaned against the brick wall with a big brown bag in her hand and a cupholder with two cups, a big and a small one.

"Class ran late," Kassie panted, tugging out an extra brown bag, folded inside itself, and passed it for me to open. "And the line was insane, you would've thought we were getting free money."

"Line for what?" I opened the bag, figuring that's what she wanted. "What is this?"

Kassie set down the cupholder on the ground and dug two paper-wrapped burgers from the bag. "Cheat day."

"Cheat day?"

"You get in too late to Louisiana to practice and tomorrow morning, they'll be parading you around. You won't hit a field until midafternoon," she explained, unwrapping one of the burgers for me to see. "Double-patty, jalape?o bacon, whiskey cheese, actual jalape?os, and barbecue sauce."

My mouth watered.

"Kassie…this—uh—" Don't look at the burger. "This isn't on my diet plan, I can't eat this."

"That's not all!" Kassie sang out and pulled out a thing of fries and onions rings, pouring most of them in the bag. "You get half, I get half. Well…you get a little more."

When's the last time I ate an onion ring?

My eyes flickered down to the bag. It was warm in my hands too and the smell was overpowering. And while I was being seduced by a little brown bag, Kassie reached down to the cupholder on the ground and dug her spoon into the larger one.

"Cheat day," she repeated, grinning up at me.

I gazed down at her for a long moment.

Fuck. I love this woman .

It wasn't anything major, Kassie just stood in a fast food line for me and ordered onion rings for me, but she went out of her way to do it and I knew without a doubt, I loved this woman. The love overwhelmed me for a moment while Kassie slipped the spoon between her lips.

"I knew you wouldn't want a whole milkshake," Kassie told me, leaning up against the brick wall. Her lips curved into a smile and my heart thrummed with my pulse just looking at her. "I put some of mine in an extra cup so you have to take it."

"Really?" I murmured, watching with rapt attention while she licked her lips.

"Mm-hmm. It's—"

I stopped her. "I bet I could guess the flavor."

Her eyebrows raised. "It's not my favorite. They have a sale, two dollars off."

"You don't think I can do it?"

"Nope." Her grin widened and I pushed from the wall.

"Want a bet?" I crossed the distance between us and put two fingers below her chin, tilting her head up. The smile disappeared off her face. She gazed up at me, her dark eyes soft, and I dipped down, capturing her lips with mine.

Five days without her. Goddamn.

How am I going to do this?

My fingers slipped into her hair and I kissed her harder, deepening the kiss, before I swiped my tongue to her bottom lip. Sweet and delicious. I could feel Kassie's whole body soften as she curved up to meet me and when I drew away from her, she panted, her eyes wide.

"Chocolate," I muttered, kissing her just one more time to confirm it. "Yeah. That's chocolate."

She was breathless. "Right on the money."

The buses pulled up to the side of the road, dark blue Roman colors and I grimaced for the first time ever at them.

"It's fucking stupid," I muttered. "Like we want to train together. What bullshit."

"Coach Lawson said it's a good opportunity," Kassie gently reminded me.

"So we can train together, learn our call signs, and poach each other's players. It's a joke." The irritation came out in every word. I'd been the one to agree to it during the summer when they'd asked if we wanted to work together before the game. But that'd been from a Ryan with more free time. "Five days. Goddamn."

Kassie picked up the small cup and held it out for me. "I'm going to miss you too."

"And when are we training? They'll just be—" I stopped myself and glanced back to her. "What?"

"I'm going to miss you. But you're going to have fun."

She's going to miss me?

A warm feeling spread over my chest but my teammates were starting to load in their bags. I was losing my time with her. I was unable to shake that restless feeling in my muscles. Four days without Kassie. We just started dating and I had to leave.

"Come with me." I shifted forward. "I'll buy the plane ticket right now. First class. I'll set you up in the nicest hotel you've ever been in and my schedule is slammed but I'll see you at night—do you want to bring Zariah? I can buy two rooms, you can make a week out of it—"

"Ryan, you know I can't."

Kassie was never able to make it to the away-games because of her class schedule. I could breeze through mine no problem but hers was a different thing entirely. And it fucking sucked.

What am I supposed to do without my art girl?

"I know." I sighed. "I know."

"You're going to have fun," she assured me. "Adam already texted me that he's dragging you to all the parties."

"Great."

She grinned. "Look a little more enthusiastic."

I bared my teeth and muttered under my breath when Kassie laughed. But at least I had one more laugh before I had to step on the bus.

"I don't want to go," I admitted. "I'm going to miss you too much."

"Five days."

"Five days."

Kassie reached up on her tiptoes and gently pulled me down to kiss me. I wanted more than that but I had to go. I sighed again while my girlfriend practically pushed me to the bus.

"I'll call you when we get to the hotel," I told her over my shoulder.

"Go have fun first," she urged me and stood by the rest of the crowd. Everything set her apart. The big bomber jacket on her shoulders, the paint streak on her left cheek, I couldn't take my eyes off her if I tried.

"Call you tonight.," I told her and stepped on to the bus before she could argue against it.

We rented out five charter buses and I walked through with my bag, off to the back where King and Adam sat around a table. Adam tapped a deck a cards with his fingers and held them out to me when I walked by.

"Did you leave her on the floating door?" Adam smirked.

I took the cards from him and took my seat, shuffling them in an instant.

King perked up and glanced at the bag next to me.

"She got me food." I grinned and glanced out the window, at Kassie with her arms folded over her chest while the bus started up.

"Holy shit, she got us food?" Adam asked and grabbed the bag. Before he could stick his hand in, I grabbed the burger and set the cards aside for the moment. Double-patty burger, fuck. Heaven on Earth.

I unpeeled the wrapper and took a bite, holding it up to the window. Damn, that was a good burger. Dripping with barbecue sauce too. I grinned out the window but Kassie couldn't see me from the distance. I slipped my phone out of my back pocket and passed it to King. "Help me take a photo."

"What's this?" Adam asked, pulling out a piece of paper from the bag.

"What's what?" I grabbed it from him and turned it over.

Kassie and I.

It was a new sketch, a picture of her and I that she must've drawn during class, with her on my lap, and her arms around my neck. There were little notes written in the margin about poses with emotions but I didn't know what any of that meant.

All I knew was that my mouth dried and I stood up so fast from my seat, I slammed my head against the overhead compartment.

"God fucking dammit," I swore, barely holding on to the burger.

The guys burst into laughter at my table and I rubbed the top of my head.

"Pretty good photo." King flashed the screen and Adam laughed even harder.

"Give me my damn phone." I reached over and grabbed it before settling back in my seat while the bus pulled away from Marrs University. I needed to tell her exactly how much this meant to me. She'd never drawn us together before. It was an important moment I didn't take lightly.

RYAN: THANK YOU

I narrowed my eyes as the message delivered. Not good enough.

RYAN: THANK YOU!

I shot off that one but it still wasn't enough.

RYAN: I APPRECIATE THE ART

RYAN: THANK YOU

RYAN: I LIKE IT A LOT

RYAN: THANK YOU

RYAN: AND THE FOOD

"How many times are you texting her?" Adam demanded before my phone disappeared from my hand.

"I'm texting my girlfriend, " I retorted and pushed up to take it back. "I can text her as many times as I want."

"No, that's your wife, dumbass."

I glanced over at King. "I can't text my girlfriend?"

King gave a shrug. "Why are you asking me? How would I know?"

"I'm giving you this phone back on one condition and one condition only," Adam threatened. "You actually have a good time tonight. You party. You hang out with us. And then you can hit up Kassie a million thousand times and you two can talk about how many forks you share and how you miss chewing on each other's fingernails or whatever weird shit couples do."

I shrugged, holding out my hand. "I already promised Kassie I'd hang out."

Adam gave me the phone. "It's weird how she does that."

"I like it."

He shifted back in his chair. "Don't do this, King. Don't get fucked up over some chick and abandon me."

"I'm making no promises." King threw an onion ring in my mouth. "Who knows? You could be next."

That brought out a whole speech out of Adam but I unlocked my phone and grinned down at the single message.

KASSIE: 3