9

Adam

Class Act Genius

It's an art being a class act motherfucking genius.

Standing there, in the middle of the preliminary hearing clown show, I gestured for my resident assistant to come down, back to the pits of hell. She stood like a deer in headlights. Man, that stage fright must've been rough. I honestly couldn't imagine. Birchwood Bowl aside, I was about to give the performance of my career.

"You're right, coach," I said evenly. "I need to clean up my act. I need to stop fucking around."

"I've heard this speech before," he warned me.

Coach Lawson was at his last rung of the ladder. I got it. But I also understood that this was the spring semester of my junior year. Beyond this one, I had my last year in college before I was heading to the pros. One last year of dicking around campus before the rest of my life.

All I had to do was slide through this like I slid through everything else.

"Piper?" I motioned the RA down the stairs. "Can you come back down here? I have a couple of questions."

She didn't move. I had to sweeten the deal.

"I'll go to the rules and regulations night."

No movement.

" And I'll start the popcorn reading," I promised.

With reluctant steps down the stairs, Piper came back. Alright, I had my RA ready to go.

Once she sat down, I got to work. "You asked me to come to the pie-throwing contest and what'd I do?"

Piper frowned. "You…"

"I…?"

"You…came to the pie-throwing contest."

"Wow, look at that!" I gestured towards her, but I could see my coach wasn't impressed. "Piper, you asked me to kick everybody out of the party. What'd I do?"

She pressed her lips together.

"That's right." I grinned and she avoided my gaze. "I kicked everybody's asses out of the party. You didn't want your slippers to get wet in the hall—"

Her eyes shot daggers at me. "I did not ask you to pick me up."

"But you inspire me." Leaning down, I cut the distance between us. "Piper, you inspire me to help. You inspire me to be proactive in my community!"

Piper rubbed her temples. "Let's not go too far."

"Cut to the chase, Adam," Coach Lawson snapped.

"What's better than a resident assistant?" I nodded at Piper and a furious blush overtook her features. "Reliable, dependable, they're keeping the university running. I'm fucking up. I get that. So let me prove to you that I'm not going to fuck up. That I really am going to change!"

Everybody in the room fell silent. Even Cleo stilled over her laptop. Coach's head PR intern just looked at me, no doubt trying to figure out my angle.

"Piper can tag along with me during the week. Hell, we live right across from each other. Three feet between our doors." I squared my shoulders and looked at my coach. "She follows along during the first week of spring training, I'll go to the rules and regulations crap. She gives the all-clear. I'm good to go. This is a fine, upstanding young woman here. Would she lie to you?" I turned back to Piper. "Piper, would you lie to him?"

She couldn't answer me. She was too busy staring at me, mouth agape.

"See?" I clapped my hands together. "Great idea."

"No. Absolutely not." Piper shot up from her chair and shook her head wildly. It was pretty adorable. Some of her blonde hair even slipped out of her bun. "There's an RA trip this weekend, and I'm sorry, but I'm not following you around just to make sure you don't shut down a building's water again!"

"Hey, that wasn't my fault."

Her gray eyes flashed. "It couldn't have been more your fault if you unscrewed the pipes!"

"That's hurtful, ice princess."

"You might have everybody else on this campus wrapped around your finger—" Piper stopped herself and swallowed, sitting back in the chair. Suddenly, she wasn't interested in addressing me anymore. "Coach Lawson, I think Adam can make up for this, but I never said—"

"I think it's a wonderful idea," he boomed.

Both of us jerked up to stare at him. There was no way I heard him correctly.

I grinned. "You do?"

Piper's voice dropped. "You do? "

"Yeah. I do." Coach ran a hand over his beard again, nodding to himself. "But I'm going to fix it up a bit. Russell, she's not going to be following after you. You're going to be following after her ."

"I'm doing what? "

"Ms. Fontaine, I think you're exactly what we need here. Reliable…what was the other—dependable. Yeah, dependable." Coach Lawson dropped the folder to the desk. "I'm thinking, Russell follows after you for a semester. He's got spring training but when he's not on the field, every RA event, every meeting, every one of those door—the goddamn door picture party things. I don't know what they're called. All of those. In exchange, we'll—how much do you want? We'll pay you."

"Pay me…?" Piper didn't seem to know what to say.

"Coach, that's not what I said."

"You know what, Russell? I don't give a damn. And, Ms. Fontaine, I understand the reservations. Believe me, I do. But I want you to know you'll get my personal phone number. If he steps a toe out of line, that'll be it for him. He's off the team."

Off the team.

None of my thoughts worked in order. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. You shut off one building's water supply…or accidentally set fire on the field after a prank on Ryan goes wrong…or smash a hole in the parking garage doors…or the firecracker incident…

But none of that shit was my fault. And I was getting needlessly pointed at for it.

"Coach." I tried to laugh. "You can't expect me to go to RA crap."

"You're wrong, Russell. That's exactly what I expect you to do."

He couldn't be serious. I took a look around the room, trying to find my people, the ones on my side. Up top, Ryan, my team captain, rubbed his temples with his eyes closed, not even bothering to look at me. Kassie, Zariah, even King, the defensive end on the team, were silent. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke up to say what a bullshit decision this was. Some friends.

"Um…Coach Lawson…" Piper took a deep breath. "I don't think—"

"What do you want, Ms. Fontaine?" Coach shifted to the side.

"What do I—?"

"He's buying you out, Piper." I smiled at her with the most humorless smile known to man. "Because he's waiting for a price and he'll up it so I can't counter. It's a good strategy he's got here."

Piper took a slow glance between the two of us and settled on me again. Those wide gray eyes of hers watched me. The uncomfortable lines eased away from her face. She bit her lip and turned back to my coach. "I want more money for the dorms."

Nobody said a word. You could've heard somebody sneezing from the hallway.

Piper swallowed, not backing down. "I want more money for the buildings and not just Roman Villa. I want athletes treated the same as all the other residents. It's—it's ridiculous…" She swallowed hard. "It's ridiculous that athletes get to—get to skirt around the rules."

I threw her a thumbs-up. "Good luck with that."

"Alright, Ms. Fontaine." Coach nodded. "You have a deal."

No fucking way .

"Coach." I had to stop the madness. "We won the Birchwood Bowl. You said we could have this weekend off. No practice."

Coach slipped on his baseball cap again. "I did. And now you'll be spending it on an RA retreat. Look at that. The chickens have come to roost." He faced Piper. "Practice is at six tomorrow. Last one of the week. If he's late, tell me, and this is all over."