Dante was cool under pressure. Jett was the complete opposite: he was explosive. If you were in danger of pissing him off due to a bad play or a penalty, he would ream you out on the sidelines. Dante would tell you it sucked and to move on. Jett Santo would move you on in a body bag if you made the same mistake again. If he didn’t, Gray would be ready to knock you down as he walked over you to get to the bench.
“You can’t deny their passion,” I murmured to Dante as we watched Gray bring one of his teammates off the bench by his face mask.
“Reckless,” Dante muttered.
“Invested,” someone else said from behind us.
Dante turned in his chair. “Are you saying I’m not invested?” he asked the second-team running back.
“No.”
Dante turned back to the screen. “Good.”
We may not yell at our teammates on the sidelines, but we kept our team tight with control and discipline.
We watched the rest of the game in silence. Coach Sutherland was eager to point out each and every one of Dante’s mistakes on the day. He’d thrown over two hundred yards, but Jett had thrown for less but run for more. One of the reasons they’d beaten us. Their QB8 had been hard to catch that day. It was before we had Noah on the defense.
I really wanted to see Noah take down a Santo again. I had nothing against them, but they were my rivals on the field for now, and it would be nice to see Jett eating dirt.
“Watch how Slater allows this interception to happen.” Coach’s voice seemed extra loud.
“You threw a crap ball,” I bitched under my breath to Dante. “Why isn’t he tearing you a new one?”
“Because that’s bullshit. I threw the perfect ball, you were just too slow to catch it.”
“I’m never too slow. My speed is impressive.”
“You say impressive, Coach says disappointing, who do we believe?” His finger was pressed above his lip to stop from smiling, but I elbowed the fucker in the ribs anyway.
“I hope your next shit’s a hedgehog. All prickly and stabby.”
Dante snorted, and Coach stopped talking. “QB10, do you have something to say?”
“Just pissed off watching my poor throw that allowed an interception,” he answered smoothly. “Lessons to be learned there.”
Coach Sutherland held Dante’s innocent stare for a moment and then turned back to the screen.
“Don’t push him,” I warned.
Dante nodded slightly. “Not pushing, reminding.”
“Reminding of what?”
“We’re still here.”
One of the assistant coaches turned to glower at us, and neither Dante nor I spoke again for the rest of the film. Neither of us needed the attention.
Hadley’s face popped into my head, and I felt my shoulders tense. Another one whose attention I didn’t need. Pity, she was hot, and that night I met her, she’d surprised me. The girl knew what she was doing and had me hard quicker than anyone I’d been with in a while, which is probably why I was still thinking about her, days later. The chemistry had been there. The need to see what else she could do with her tongue had been an itch I wanted to scratch ever since I walked away from her.
I didn’t hide my game plan on the social circuit. Girls knew I wasn’t looking for anything more than some fun, and the majority of the girls I met wanted exactly the same thing. Blow off some steam and move on.
I’d gone back to the bar looking for her. Never done that before, and with Hadley, I wouldn’t be doing it again.
The plan was to keep our heads down. Pretend nothing was wrong with the program, do nothing that would get us noticed for the wrong reasons, and get the fuck out of here.
It was a good plan. Easy to follow. I just needed to stop thinking about the way she’d looked at me when I left the bar. That look of distaste, like she’d already made her mind up about me, and I hadn’t been given the chance to defend myself.
If I could do that, that would help.