Then came the real problem. She was walking across the quad, her head in her backpack, not looking where she was going. When she looked up, she looked at me directly.
And I panicked. I turned away fast. So fast it probably looked like I’d seen a ghost.
Noah’s sigh behind me was biblical, but he followed me back inside the stadium, the one place Hadley wasn’t allowed into.
“Dust,” he said quietly. “This is getting embarrassing.”
“I know.”
“So stop.”
“I can’t.”
He hesitated. “Can we just throw you both in a room and leave you there?”
“I will kill you if you try.”
Noah didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, with a kind of gentle exasperation, “Jesus Christ, you two are exhausting.”
Maybe. Probably. But I wasn’t done avoiding her. Not yet. Because wanting her was one thing. Losing control again? That would ruin me completely.
Noah sighed. “Do we have to hide here for long? I’m hungry.”
“Shut up.”
I saw a glimpse of dark hair and was so desperate to change the subject that I called out to her. “Hey, Briar.”
“Are you joking?” Noah hissed. “You cannot hook up with her to get over Hadley.”
She walked over to us. Slender, dark hair spilling over her shoulders and covering half of her face, paler than a ghost. “This is Briar,” I told Noah, ignoring his whispered warning. “This is my roommate—”
“Noah Matthews. Middle linebacker, third-year transfer, six four, 238, four-point-six for the forty, eighty-nine tackles last season...” She trailed off when she saw us both staring at her. She cleared her throat. “I like football.”
Noah blinked. “I don’t think they recorded my time as four-point-six for the forty-yard dash,” he said. “Think it was more like four-point-seven.”
She didn’t look away from him. “They recorded four-point-six.”
This was weird. Was this weird? They were looking at each other, and I swear cartoon love hearts were bursting between them. Ugh. Kill me now.
“A girl who likes stats,” I said with a laugh, and then it hit me like an epiphany. “Fuck! We’resostupid,” I said, slapping Noah in the stomach. “Come on, we need to go.” I looked between them. “I was going to say, Noah, this is Briar, the social media girl, but...” They were still looking at each other. “Briar, have you seen Dante?”
She looked at me, realized she’d zoned out over Matthews, and blushed. “He’s in media.”
“Yes!You’re awesome. Noah, let’s go.” I headed toward the media room, then I went back and got the six-foot-four, two-hundred-and-thirty-eight-pound man by the arm and dragged him away from her. “What the fuck, man?” I grouched as we headed back to the main offices.
“She’s fucking gorgeous.” Noah looked over his shoulder. “She knew my stats,” he added, as if he’d just realized that was the more remarkable thing.
“Don’t worry, I think she noticed you noticing.”
“You said she was weird looking,” he accused. Then he seemed to realize we were heading back to the locker room. “What’s happening?”
“I need to talk to Dante, and you... you needed me to save you. That was a serious lack of game.”
“Was it bad?” he asked tentatively.
“Bad like daytime TV bad.”
“Shit.” He sniffed. “Why do we need Dante?”