STUFFED (The Slate Brothers 2)

I mash my lips together and say, calmly and fearlessly as possible. “Yeah, I don’t know who you are. So maybe instead of acting like this,” I pause to motion at his entire demeanor, “you could just answer a few questions for me and fill me in? It’s not like you’re busy.”

My voice shakes a little at the end, but I’m glad I said it. I fold my arms over my chest and try to give him a steely, Lois Lane type of look.

The guy’s eyes widen, but his look of pitying amusement doesn’t waver. He turns to his locker, grabs a t-shirt, then shuts the locker behind him. He then sits down on the bench, straddling it in a way that makes the placement of the towel around his waist very, very precarious. He motions for me to take a seat as well.

“Alright, Bowen Blaze,” he sighs. “Have a seat. Let’s talk.”

“Thanks,” I say stiffly, and hurriedly sit down, crossing my legs tightly.

I glance up at his gorgeous face and force myself to look away again. My heart is racing every time I so much as make the tiniest bit of eye contact with him.

I pull up the notes app on my phone and position my thumbs to start typing. “So, first, let me get your name.”

“Carson Slate,” he says firmly.

I swallow, trying to hide my surprise, followed by a hot flush of embarrassment. Carson Slate. The Carson Slate. You don’t have to be a sports fan to know two things about him:

1) He’s only a junior, but is already being looked at by professional scouts

2) His father is a murderer. Or at least, he’s accused of being a murderer.

I guess I didn’t recognize Carson Slate in the flesh, shirtless, wearing a towel, rather than his jersey. I take a few slow breaths and pretend to type on my phone, trying to figure out what I should say next, what I should do next, where I should look next—

“C-a-r-s-o-n,” Carson says. He knows that I’ve realized who he is, I’m sure of it.

I force a smile and look back up with a deep breath. “Got it. So, Carson— tell me about your approach for this game.”

“To win the game.”

“Can you elaborate?”

“To win the game by a lot of points,” he says, with a combination of arrogance and annoyance at the stupidity of my question.

I look back down at my phone and hold in a glower. “Great. Perfect. So, clearly you don’t want to talk about the approach to the game. What about your teammates? Do you feel like anyone played especially well today?”

“We all did. It’s always a team effort,” Carson says, sounding the tiniest bit more serious. “People always want to give the quarterback more credit than he deserves.”

“Is that why you don’t want to talk to reporters? Because you want the rest of the team to get more attention?” I ask.

“No,” Carson says. “I don’t want to talk to reporters because they like to ask about my father’s case, even when they’re supposedly sports reporters rather than crime reporters.”

“You can’t really blame them for trying, though,” I say. “I mean, it’s a big case and people are curious—“

“Actually, I can blame them. And the sports reporters have all agreed not to approach me for interviews after games since I requested my privacy be respected. Things got a lot better after that. Until now, that is.”

I freeze, mouth drying. I made the mistake of looking up again and Carson’s eyes have trapped mine; I can’t look away as I feel a deep flush rise from my neck up through my cheeks.

“I didn’t know,” I say flatly, tearing my eyes from his. “Sorry, I don’t usually cover sports, and—“

“Clearly,” he says. “Any other questions, Bowen Blaze?”

“No. Sorry. No,” I say, shaking my head. I stand up, knees wobbly. What if he calls Devin about this? It’s a huge violation— the paper could lose our passes to the locker room. The sports reporter is going to kill me, if Devin doesn’t kill me first. “It was an honest mistake, okay? I didn’t know about the prohibition on speaking to you after a game, really. I’m sorry.”

“What’s your name?” he asks, and even though I didn’t think it possible, my stomach drops even farther. He’s going to tell Devin that I spoke to him. He’s going to wreck my college journalism career. He’s going to get me thrown off the paper, which means I won’t have anything to show for internships, which means I won’t have anything for job applications…

I close my eyes. “Astrid Tyler.”

“Astrid Tyler,” he repeats, and when I dare to open my eyes, he’s nodding. He isn’t looking at my eyes, though— he’s scanning up and down my body, like he’s assessing something. “Well. Any other questions, Astrid Tyler?” he asks, leaning back a bit. I involuntarily glance down, and my eyes land on his crotch. The towel is still covering everything, but I can see the shape of his—