40

Piper

On The Official Page

Monday morning found me pacing my dorm, back and forth like a kid's toy with faulty batteries, practically wearing down the wooden floor. I knew what I had to do. Adam Russell and I needed to go our separate ways. It was too hard being around him.

And the dream.

The dream—the dream —that dream that forced me to wake up at four o'clock in the morning with my hand between my thighs and the lingering memory of Adam stepping closer and closer to me. He knotted his fingers through my hair, tilted my face up, and—

No .

No kissing Adam .

Not even in my dreams. That absolutely was not happening. The two of us had the uncanny ability to bring out the worst possible versions of each other. Kissing him would be self-destructive behavior.

All I wanted to do was call my parents. To unload on them and have an outside, unbiased party. Both were as far away from the football scene as anyone could possibly be. They'd give me their opinions. Unfiltered. As always.

What if that's not what you want to hear?

"Oh my god, " I muttered, still halfway between putting on my clothes and going back to bed.

It was done. I was done. Ripping off one of my sea turtle sticky notes, I scribbled a message for Adam.

Babysitter quits!

Good luck with practice!

And crossed it out. And then crossed out the next one. And the next.

Every time I finished another word, I saw Adam's face again. Mid-laugh after he saw me smash in the window. Or with the wind whipping his hair in the front seat of the Clemenza. Or how close he'd gotten to me in the shower…his cool breath over my face, his fingertips at my waist…

My phone rang.

I jerked up and stared across the room at it. Who's calling me this early in the morning?

THOMAS SULLENDER

MOBILE

Um…okay?

More confused than anything, I stared down at my phone. Thomas had sent hundreds of messages, all of them equally awful in their own special way. But no phone calls. Not even after the breakup. Why in the world…?

And then I saw the notifications at the top of the screen.

They ran together, one after another, so fast I couldn't concentrate on who they were coming in from. Phrases jumped out at me and I hurried to check on the notifications without answering the phone call. It didn't matter that the call ended, Thomas called again as I gaped at the now thousands of notifications.

After we broke up, I put all of my social media accounts on private. I still had to clean them out. There were hundreds of pictures to delete. But I honestly hadn't thought about it until thousands of people requested to follow me at once, across all my accounts. I fumbled with the screen, trying to click to see exactly what was happening.

Another phone call.

"What…?" I clicked on the only notification separate from everything else. I was tagged in a picture. On Adam Russell's official page.

Uh-oh .

My heart leaped to my throat. The picture was a good one. The two of us hung back together at the conference, in the line to check-in. It was one of those rare fairytale moments when we weren't growling at each other. I even looked…happy? Pleased?

There was an ease to me that I hadn't seen in a long, long time. And of course, Adam looked pleased with himself. In fact, he looked good. The sweatshirt and jean combination had never looked better and he was carefully leaning down to meet me, a gorgeous smile on his face.

The phone stopped ringing in the middle of an attempt to reach me, and I gazed down, expectant. A message would pop up any second now. But after four straight phone calls…

Nothing .

Silence?

My mind raced. Why would Thomas give up that easily? Was he seriously going to back off today?

I took a quick step back and scanned my room, checking for my backpack and my wallet. "Oh my god," I whispered under my breath. "I'm late. "

With my backpack halfway on, and shoving my wallet in my back pocket, I hurried to yank open the door at the same time the door across from me opened. I stumbled back and Adam snagged my backpack strap, catching me before I fell.

"Hi," I squeaked out.

The linebacker grinned down at me. "Hey."

My phone buzzed in my side pocket from all the notifications. I slipped it out to power it down. "Um, Adam. You…uh…"

"If you're up right now, does that mean what I think it means?" He walked to the elevator and pressed the button. "Because without clarification, I'm going to assume it does."

"You posted a picture of us," I blurted out. "I mean—uh—not us. You and me. The picture."

"Cleo approved them? Nice."

"Yeah. The thing is…"

"What thing?" The doors opened and Adam effortlessly strode in, leaving me to stumble behind him. Out of everything, Adam had so much more control of his body. Even with his hands shoved in his pockets, leaning against the elevator wall, and gazing down at me, he looked like he was posing for a magazine. "What about it?"

"Thomas called. Four times."

The smile wiped clear off Adam's face. His jaw tightened. "Your ex just called you?"