42

Piper

They Know

Practice at Marrs was a lot different than Kennedy Young. For one, back at KYU, the top dogs on the football team ran parts of the practice themselves and it ended up being more of separate groups trying to outdo each other instead of the unit at Marrs. The assistant coaches kept everyone in check. And there weren't as many bystanders milling around the field down below. I'd been told that I was supposed to stay on the bleachers with the football girlfriends and that was our designated zone.

I didn't know many of the girls, and Kassie had to grab something from Cleo's office, so I was all by myself on the seats.

I missed June.

She was nowhere to be seen. Gone. Biting my lip, I slipped out my phone.

Piper Fontaine: Are you okay?

I'd have to drop cookies off for her later or something. She missed our RA recap meeting for the conference when we arrived back on campus and now this.

Kassie hurried down from the door and took the seat next to me. "Welcome to the club, Piper."

I couldn't help but smile back. Her social media accounts really had nothing on her, Kassie was everything I wanted to be, bursting with confidence but none of the cockiness that Adam had. She stretched out over the empty seat, propping up her legs on the bar.

I snuck a look back to the field and there Adam was, sprinting across the field with his gear on. Number forty-five. I would've recognized that body anywhere.

Kassie took out her sketchbook. "We were all real impressed by how you roped him for the conference."

"Um…" I hesitated. "I don't know. He kind of roped himself in at the end."

"I adore him but you might be giving him an awful lot of credit there."

Slowly, I shook my head. "The last day, he actually helped me out with…a lot of things." I thought about the Clemenza, totaled. "Adam didn't need to but he was still ready when the time came."

"For real?"

Why am I defending him?

If anything, did the good outweigh the bad? I could list a handful of things that Adam did that ticked me off during the weekend and each of those things could legitimately get us in trouble. But I couldn't help how my thoughts wandered back to demolishing the car together. And him, waking up super early to outshine Xavier with the rental car. Or the two of us…in the shower…

"I think he gets…excited," I said carefully, "but I think he just needs to be told when he goes too far."

She flipped to another page in her sketchbook. "Can I draw you?"

"What?"

"Draw you? Sketch you?" She held up her notebook. "I use this time for practice."

"Um…yeah, no problem."

With that, Kassie leaned back in her seat and started getting to work. Her eyes flickered back up and back down to the paper as she sketched out things on her paper. I wasn't the artistic type. Numbers were my best friends since I'd started taking the coding classes in middle school and I watched her pencil fly across the paper in fascination.

"Are you ready for the rodeo?" she asked, distracted.

"I don't know what to expect," I admitted and glanced back at Adam, jogging across the field with a football in his hands. Was Adam going to the rodeo?

"The guys have to go, it's a requirement," she explained like she'd read my mind. "But Zariah told me it's a big volunteer thing for the RAs. You have to do like…six hours or something?"

I nodded. "I'll get Adam in on it."

"On what?"

"The volunteering."

A laugh slipped out of Kassie. It wasn't malicious, it was just a surprised laugh, and she stopped herself when she realized I wasn't laughing too. "Hold up…are you serious?"

"Yes?"

"Okay. Handcuff him to it." Kassie grinned. "Ryan's constantly trying to get him to sign up for more stuff."

"It'll be good for him," I said.

"You know what?" Kassie turned over the paper to reveal three sketches of me, sitting with an upright posture. The details were amazing. My mouth fell open and Kassie shrugged. "I think you're just what Adam needs. There's nothing better than a—"

Off the field, a trumpet sounded off.

The words stopped from Kassie, and both of us leaned up in our seats, looking out over a field of confused football players. She started to ask me if I'd heard that but I was already asking her. In the distance, another instrument joined in, and then…singing?

From the doors, a group of singers in bright blue outfits streamed out, belting in Spanish.

Kassie's mouth fell open. "Is that a fucking Mariachi band?"

It wasn't just one. Everyone craned their necks in their seats to see another band bursting out of the doors in dark red jackets, their guitars strumming along to beautiful verses. But what were they doing here? I caught sight of Adam, striding over to the side of the field, while the other football players were laughing behind him.

And then another band came through.

The assistant coaches stared, baffled.

When the fourth band hit the field, I couldn't keep the laughter in. Kassie was laughing too, at two of the bands, arguing loudly with each other over who could play, two of them ignoring the assistant coaches trying to ask questions, or the fifth band, cramming themselves on the field too.

I know exactly who did this .

I searched for Adam in the crowd but I didn't have to. Adam was in the midst of talking to the band leaders, gesturing to the exit. "My fault!" he shouted. "Sorry, forgot I booked them!"

All of the dumbfounded looks from the other football players just made me laugh harder.

"Oh my god," Kassie wheezed and held on to the guard rail. " Why? Only Adam. Fuck. Only Adam!"

Adam had the bands taking their exits when his eyes caught mine. He waved. He had the audacity to wave . Part of me didn't want to laugh - that was encouraging bad behavior. But the whole scene was so funny, it hurt my ribs just to look at it.

"Getting Adam to the events is the easy part," Kassie snickered. "It's getting him to behave that's the hard one. Thank god Ryan isn't here." With a sigh, she leaned back in her seat. "I just wish someone would get Adam good . He can smell a prank a mile away. One day someone's going to get him though. And it's going to be crazy to see."

"Piper?"

At the sound of my name, I glanced back at the entrance to the bleachers. Coach Lawson's PR intern, Cleo, stood there with a clipboard in one hand and a coffee in the other. Did she call me?

She must have.

With a nod back, she gestured for me to follow her.

What did the PR intern want from me?

"Coach Lawson wishes to see you," she informed me.

My stomach dropped.

Oh no .

I jerked back in my seat to search Adam out in the crowd and spotted him at once, clapping someone on the back. Did Coach Lawson want to talk about the weekend? No. I didn't believe that.

Adam's eyes met mine again but when he spotted Cleo behind me, the smile fell off his face.

Somehow— somehow —I knew they found out about the Clemenza.