7

Piper

Sixteen Thousand Dollars In Plumbing Damages

It wasn't even week two of being a Marrs University resident assistant, and I was already pulled into a preliminary behavioral hearing. Already asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Because of him .

None of this was working out how I thought it would. In a professional blouse and slacks, I hunkered down in my chair. Maybe if I was the size of a mouse, nobody else could see me.

"You don't have to worry," Zariah murmured. "You're not in trouble."

Yeah, but if I'd been quicker to act, trouble wouldn't have happened.

The behavioral hearing was set in a circular auditorium, structured like one of those old-timey courtrooms. There were three separate layers with people sitting in chairs, from closest to Adam, to the ones by the doors, which was where I took my seat, nearest to the exit as possible.

It was safe to say, none of this was going according to plan.

"If I start hyperventilating, what happens?" I whispered, nervously tapping away at the seat's arm.

Zariah shook her head. "You're not going to hyperventilate. You're going to answer the questions they give you, and then, girl, we can get out of here."

Someone else slid into the seat next to Zariah with low greetings. It took me two glances to figure out who it was. Kassandra Ragar. Kassie? Ryan Cross's girlfriend? I struggled not to gawk.

Back when I'd been at Kennedy Young, I'd done everything to be the perfect athlete's girlfriend. Everything. I'd gone to every football game, and every practice, bought coffee for everyone, organized all the t-shirt drives, and wore my colors proudly. But…being a football player's girlfriend isn't like the movies. I loved Thomas but it was constant, backbreaking work.

And then Kassie and Ryan's stuff started popping up on my feed.

It was so…perfect. It was the kind of relationship I'd always wanted. Taking pictures together at Gianna's, the mini golf tournament that Kassie said took two hours because Ryan had to be a perfectionist about it. She even uploaded some photos a few days ago of Ryan holding up pounds of clay like a bodybuilder, working on some stop-motion thing for an art project.

The way they fit together like puzzle pieces…it was everything I ever wanted.

"Illustrator-in-chief!" Adam boomed at the back of the auditorium. He was clearly talking to Kassie but she just rubbed her temples.

"How bad is it?" she finally asked.

"Bad for Adam and that's saying something." Zariah grimaced. "Just waiting for Coach Lawson now."

Kassie's eyes flickered over to me, and she leaned for a wave. "Hey, I'm Kassie. You're Adam's RA?"

"Hi." I tried to keep the squeak out of my voice. "We know each other. We follow each other."

Her eyebrows crinkled. "Um…like my art account?"

"No, the—the couples one—um—we've messaged each other…"

"Oh." Kassie took a moment to glance back and forth between where Adam was situated down below, and me, beet red in the face. Slowly, she nodded. "Got it. That's…great. Cool. I don't run that page—sorry—but thank you."

The revelation was another one I wasn't expecting.

Kassie doesn't run the page.

Suddenly, I remembered Adam's laugh yesterday. Oh my god. All this time I'd been sending messages off to Kassie, to swap the jokes about being athletes' girlfriends, chat about the parking situation… Were those not even from her? Blushing worse than ever, I tried to hide as much as I could in my chair. This day—this week—could not possibly get any worse.

"What the goddamn hell is this?! " a voice roared from the door.

I would've recognized Coach Lawson anywhere. He'd been brought to Marrs University to fix an almost-winning streak into an actual winning streak, and their team—our team—had won the Birchwood Bowl because of him.

While everyone else craned their necks to look back, I took the moment to check out Adam, to see his reaction. There was none. He sat comfortably in his chair, his long legs spread out, his arms folded over his chest. He barely fit in his seat, but that didn't seem to bother him. Why was he looking so calm? What earthly reason would he have to do that?

Coach Lawson took long steps down the narrow stairs, followed by a dozen or so people trailing after him like ducklings. At the lowest part of the room, he took off his baseball cap and thumped it against a desk. "What did you do now?"

"Wasn't my fault, coach." Adam shrugged.

The coach scoffed. "It never is."

Adam seemed unperturbed by the exchange. "This time, it actually wasn't."

"Thousands of dollars in maintenance damages. Sixteen thousand dollars ." Coach held a hand back and a pretty redhead in a skirt passed him over a thick packet of papers. Besides Adam, she seemed the most indifferent to the coach's anger. She took a seat at the desk next to him.

"Coach, I need to straighten up."

"Oh, here we go. Spare me the theatrics, Russell." Coach Lawson scanned over the paper, reading out loud. "Sixteen thousand dollars in plumbing damages after a party. How? How do you cause sixteen thousand dollars in plumbing damage?!" He scoffed. "And found handcuffed to your resident assistant…they had to call campus security to separate you two…goddammit, Russell."

"We weren't handcuffed like that, coach. Also not my fault."

"Nothing ever is." Coach Lawson scratched his beard for a moment, shaking his head. "I'm trying to build a team here. We're building an image. When I first arrived, they gave me a dumpster fire. Everyone hated you guys." He sucked in a breath. "Do you remember that?" He ran a hand over his bald head. "And now Roman Villa's water is shut off for five days while they clean up your mess. How does that look?! I just got the student paper today, people are fucking furious. And they're right to be!"

Adam raised his eyebrows. "Coach, we won the Birchwood Bowl."

"Because you stopped fucking around for three weeks!"

"Listen—"

Coach Lawson held up a hand. "I don't want to talk to you. Move over to another chair. Stop talking. I want to find out what happened from a reliable source." He craned his neck, glancing back at the audience. "Where's his RA?"