Dante glared at his back. “Why am I being sent back?” he challenged him.
Sutherland spun around and glared at him. He jabbed a finger in my direction. “Because I may be old, boy, but I sure as fuck ain’t stupid. He reeks of pussy, and you two—” he pointed at Dante and Noah — “stink of shit. Get the fuck out of my locker room. I’ll see you all tomorrow at six.”
The door slammed behind him. I groaned and sat on the bench. “You should have let me fuck up on my own.” I looked up at them.
Noah yanked his shirt off. “Fuck, even when I’m minding my own business, I get pulled into his shit.” He headed for the shower. “I’m so fucking sick of this.”
I watched him thinking about our talk the other night.
Dante looked down at me. “Think we might lose Matthews,” he said, and I heard the sadness in his voice.
“Yeah.” I got to my feet. “This sucks. I don’t remember switching the alarm off.”
Dante shrugged. “Could happen to any one of us. Come on. Let’s go home, you look fucked.” He grinned. “I mean tired.”
I waited until he and Noah showered, they dropped their practice clothes off in the laundry, and then the three of us walked home in silence. “I didn’t mean to mess up your day,” I told Noah.
He shook his head. “It’s fine. I’m just pissed off with him in general.”
“It’s not fine,” Dante murmured. “He’s been a nightmare since I screwed this up for all of us.” He glanced over his shoulder, making sure no one was around. “He’s going to bench me, I can feel it.”
Noah grunted. “At this rate, he’s benching all of us.”
I winced. “It’s so fucked up.”
Dante nudged me with his shoulder. “It was coming whether you did it or one of us did. He’s waiting for us to fuck up.”
“And we keep fucking up,” Noah grumbled. “Has anyone ever transferred from a D1 back to a D2?”
“He’s not benching us,” I told them firmly. “We just need to show our fans, of which we have many, that we’re the three best players on the team.”
“I think you broke his brain when he realized you were dating Hadley,” Noah said. “I was there when he was told, and he went pure fucking white. I genuinely thought he was going to have a heart attack and die.”
“When was that?” Dante asked curiously.
“Friday, I was in PT. I heard Coach Holt tell him, he lost his shit.”
I looked at Dante and then back at the ground. “I’m going to get benched for dating Hadley.”
“Fake dating,” Dante reminded me.
I sighed. “Yeah, that.”
Noah grinned, and Dante smirked. “When do you think you’ll catch up to what everyone else already saw coming?”
Noah swiped his pass, and we trudged up the stairs to our dorm, my mind going one hundred miles a minute. “We’re faking it.”
It sounded like a lie.
Noah made a face. “Sure.”
I looked between them and then decided I needed to sleep. “I’m going to bed, sorry again.” I went into my room and came back out. Noah and Dante hadn’t moved.
“You don’t think it’s fake?”
Dante groaned and headed into his room. Noah glanced at me and walked past, shaking his head.
What did that mean? Was that the answer? What was my answer?