Offside with My Brother's Best Friend

The first rule of being the only girl in the huddle is never let them see you bleed. So when Marcus Deal's helmet drove into my ribs at the end of Tuesday's scrimmage, I got up smiling.

"Nice hit," I said, spitting a mouthful of grass.

He blinked down at me like I'd grown a second head. "You're welcome, Mercer."

My ribs screamed but I didn't let it reach my face. I jogged back to the line of scrimmage, clapped my hands, and called the next play in with a voice so steady it could've been carved out of granite.

That was the job. Not just throwing the ball. Anybody with a decent arm could throw the ball, the job was walking into a room of two hundred and fifty-pound men and making every one of them believe I belonged there before I said a word.

I had been doing it for three years. I was good at it, though it was exhausting.

"Mercer!"

Coach Briggs's voice cracked across the practice field like a whip. I turned immediately. He was standing at the sideline with his arms crossed, his ancient Ridgemont ball cap pulled low, and a face that gave away absolutely nothing.

"My office. Now."

A low ooooh rolled through the offense. Somebody whistled.

I ignored all of it, unclipped my helmet, and walked off the field with my shoulders squared and my ribs on fire.

Coach's office smelled like old coffee and older leather. Trophies lined every shelf and a framed photo of the 2009 championship team hung behind his desk, forty men in crimson, not one of them a woman. I had stared at that picture so many times I could have drawn it from memory.

"Sit," he pointed to the chair opposite him.

"I'll stand."

"Sit, Quinn."

I reluctantly sat.

He didn't say anything for a long moment. He just rubbed the back of his neck, and I realized, with a cold prickle, that I had never once seen Raymond Briggs look tired.

"Somebody copied your dorm key," he sounded pissed off.

My stomach dropped. "What?"

"Campus security flagged it this morning. Three days ago, somebody went into your room while you were at film study, but nothing was taken." His eyes met mine. "But your jersey from the Alabama game was left on your pillow. Cut to ribbons."

I didn't breathe.

"And the note in your locker last week," he continued quietly. "The one you told Priya not to tell me about."

I was going to kill Priya.

"It's nothing," I forced out a smile. "It's just somebody who doesn't like that I'm starting. That's the whole season in one sentence."

"It's escalating." He leaned forward. "I'm moving you out of the dorm. Effective tonight."

"Moving me where?"

"The house on Alder Street, the program owns it. It has good locks, cameras on the porch, and is located along a quiet street. Two bedrooms."

"Two bedrooms," I repeated slowly. "And who's in the other one?"

The door behind me swung open without a knock.

"Hey, Tadpole."

I knew that voice. I had  known it since I was twelve years old and he was fourteen. He would sprawl across my parents' couch eating all the cereal. He was entirely too pleased with himself.

I closed my eyes. "No."

"Nice to see you too."

"Coach." I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. "Anyone. Literally anyone else."

"Holloway's the only player on this team I can trust with your life," Coach said flatly. "And he's the only one who volunteered."

Volunteered.

I turned around.

Dax Holloway leaned against the doorframe like he owned it. Six-foot-one, shoulders that took up most of the door. He was wearing his practice jersey which stuck to his chest with sweat, and that crooked, infuriating grin I always wanted to wipe off his face since middle school. His hair was a mess and his golden brown eyes were fixed on me with an expression I couldn't read.

He was the best cornerback in the country. My brother's best friend. The reason I had to learn how to throw a spiral faster than a boy could cover it.

"You volunteered," I said suspiciously.

"Somebody had to." He shrugged slowly. "So I'm looking out."

"Nobody asked you to."

"I volunteered, and nobody argued." Dax pushed off the doorframe and crossed his arms. "It’s just thirty days, Mercer. Until security figures out who's doing this. Then you can go back to hating me from a safe distance."

I looked at Coach for help. But he was studying his desk like the grain of the wood had personally offended him.

"Thirty days," I said through my teeth.

"Thirty days," Coach agreed.

———————

The house on Alder Street was small, white, and annoyingly charming. A porch light glowed yellow over a crooked swing. Inside, the floors creaked and the kitchen smelled like burnt toast, and a flat-screen the size of a billboard took up one entire wall of the living room.

"Home sweet home," Dax said, dropping my duffel bag by the stairs.

"It's a prison."

"It's got a Keurig." He wandered toward the kitchen. "Your room's the one on the left. Mine's right. We share the bathroom, so knock. Always knock."

"Why would I need to knock?"

He glanced back at me with a look that made my cheeks go hot for no reason I could name. "Trust me. Always knock."

I carried my duffel upstairs with as much dignity as a girl can muster when her ribs are screaming at her.

The room on the left was clean, plain, and smelled of fresh laundry. Somebody had put a new comforter on the bed. A little lamp glowed on the nightstand.

I sat on the bed and let myself breathe. For the first time all day, the mask slipped. My hands shook.

My ribs throbbed in pain.

I was twenty-one years old and the first woman in the history of Ridgemont football, and somebody wanted me gone badly enough to break into my room.

I wasn't scared. I was furious.

I showered, changed into a faded Ridgemont T-shirt and soft shorts.

At midnight, I couldn't sleep.

The house settled around me, every board and pipe groaning in the dark. I lay staring at the ceiling and replaying the day. Marcus's helmet, coach's face, the jersey on my pillow.

Water. I needed water.

I padded down the hallway barefoot, careful not to wake him, and rounded the corner toward the stairs. But then I walked directly into a wall of bare chest.

I jerked back. "Oh my God."

"Chill. It's just me." Dax stood in the hallway in nothing but gray sweatpants, a towel slung around his neck, his hair damp from the shower. The little night-light by the bathroom cast long golden shadows across his shoulders, down the hard lines of his stomach, across a scar on his ribs I had never seen before.

I looked at the scar for a while before turning my face away quickly.

"I told you to knock," he said, and I could feel the smirk in his voice before I saw it.

"I wasn't in the bathroom."

"Doesn't matter. Rule's the rule." He tilted his head, studying me. "You're up late, Tadpole."

"Stop calling me that."

"Why?" His voice dropped, low and rough around the edges. "It's not like you're twelve anymore."

The air between us went strange. It felt charged. Like the second before a snap, when everyone on the field is holding their breath.

"No," I said, and was horrified to hear how quiet it came out. "I'm not."

His smirk faltered, just a flicker. For a second, he looked at me the way I had never seen him look at me before, like I had said something that hurt.

Then the grin snapped back into place. "Get some sleep, Mercer. Big day tomorrow."

He brushed past me, so close I could feel the heat coming off his skin, and disappeared into his room.

Then the  door clicked shut.

I stood in the dark hallway with my heart going like a drum line.

Thirty days, I thought. You can survive thirty days.

I got my water and  went back to my room. For the first time in weeks, I slept.

At 6:02 a.m., my phone exploded.

Forty-one notifications. Then fifty, it kept increasing that the screen froze and I had to restart it twice. The last message on the lock screen was from Priya.

Quinn. Look at this. NOW.