The Rivalry

I hauled ass to the door and threw it open. “Sorry, I overslept.”

The trainer glared up at me, and his gaze shifted beyond to look at Kayla, clad only in her red shirt. It didn’t faze him that a girl was there, her hair messed up from hours in my bed. Some mornings he’d probably fished my teammates out of a pile of naked women.

He stared at Kayla, skeptical. “Nice shirt.” His tone was full of sarcasm. “You lose a bet?”

-27-

KAYLA

I cursed myself the whole way during the tension-filled drive back to campus. I’d meant to set the alarm on my phone once Jay’s parents left us in his room, but damn him. He was so distracting with his athletic build, bright blue eyes, and a mouth that made me legit swoon. My legs went boneless around him.

How many times could you sleep with a guy before he became your boyfriend? Was there a specific number? It didn’t really matter. I liked him too much. We were exclusive, and I’d met his parents, and the idea of being attached to him wasn’t so bad anymore.

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. How the hell had this happened?

The cheerleaders were working on basket tosses as I dashed into the fieldhouse. I’d shot a text message to Samantha telling her I was going to be late, and I kept my head down as I stripped off my jacket and hustled into the group, pretending like I’d been there all along, and fooling no one.

I took my position beside Lisa, and she studied me critically. I’d thrown my unwashed hair back into a haphazard ponytail during the drive, steering the car with my knee, and hadn’t even checked the results in the mirror. I probably had a dorsal fin of hair protruding in the center of my head.

“Wow,” Lisa said. “You’re only an hour late.”

“I’m so sorry, guys.” I didn’t offer an explanation to the group because I didn’t want to lie more.

“Since you weren’t here, I took the lead. We did cardio and weights.”

I smeared a smile on my face to mask my annoyance. The coaching staff was in charge, not me, and certainly not her. Why was she taking credit for it?

“Okay,” I said. “How long have you all been working on stunts?”

“About twenty minutes . . . more than you.” Lisa’s resting-bitch-face turned into active-bitch-face. “Where were you, Captain?”

I knew I should tell the squad, but I’d made it much worse on myself by letting so much time go by. How the hell could I tell them now? It was bad enough I was more than an hour late to practice. Admitting it was because I’d overslept in a Michigan dorm room was insult to injury. Today was not the day to come clean. I’d get back on stable ground before taking that hit and being labelled a traitor.

“I was visiting a friend out of town,” I said through clenched teeth, glaring at Lisa, “and I got on the road late.”

Victory flashed in her eyes. She was thrilled she could keep holding the secret over me.

I tried to ignore her and turned to the group. “Okay, which would you rather I do, one pushup for every minute I was late, or one sit-up?”

Lisa’s answer was immediate. “Both.”

All right. Maybe Lisa could just drop dead.

When practice was over, I grabbed my stuff and slugged toward the parking lot. Even though we’d slept in late, Jay’s floor wasn’t all that comfortable, and I’d realized at three a.m. that sleeping beside him was the equivalent of being strapped to a furnace. I’d squirmed out of his hold, only to wake up later in his powerful arms. He’d chased me across the rug, as if needing me near.

I was tired and hangry, so when I came out of the fieldhouse doors and discovered Lisa lying in wait for me, I sighed loudly. “You need something?”

“Yeah,” she said, releasing her dark hair from her ponytail and fluffing it out. “I want to be staged in the front line, and center, for the Northwestern game next week. You know, the place where all the ESPN cameras are.”

I came into the apartment, dropped my bag, and flopped down into one of the chairs. Chuck sat on the couch, his silver sousaphone disassembled in his lap. He glanced at my overnight bag, and went back to his task of cleaning his instrument, sliding a rag through one of the valves.

There was no judgement from my friend about where I’d spent the night.

“I went to the Michigan game yesterday,” I blurted out.

His movements slowed to a stop.

“How many times,” I asked, “can I sleep with a guy before he becomes, like, my common-law boyfriend?”

Chuck considered the question as if it was valid. “Four?” He set the part to the side and focused on me. “Holy shit, Kayla. He got you to go to Michigan. That’s huge.”