“Fine. You’re right.Thistime. Not knowing her name complicatedthis,” I conceded. “Point taken. She knows nothing about me. Or you.”
“But she knows a lot about the program.” Noah was all about being talkative and helpful this evening.
“Say morehelpfulthings,” I muttered resentfully.
“Does this need to be an argument?” Noah looked between us both. “Everything in the open, no more hiding things, we learn, and we grow.”
Even Dante turned to look at him. “What the hell?”
Noah flashed us both a smile. “Heard it on a podcast. Not the right time?” When he didn’t get a reply, he sighed. “Okay, how about you both sleep it off, and if you still feel pissed tomorrow, I’ll make you both my targets in practice.”
“How is you hitting us going to help?” I asked him.
“Because then you’ll both be pissed at me.”
And he said his brother was the clever one.
Dante smirked at Noah as I looked between them.
The Dante-Noah thing was real. I’d watched it develop over the last few weeks — the shorthand, the mutual reading of rooms, the way they moved in the same direction without consulting each other. I knew what that was. I’d built it myself with Dante, over two years, one rep at a time. Noah had done it in weeks.
I wasn’t sure I liked it.
I’d been with Dante since day one at this college. Thisbromanceneeded to chill the fuck out.
Fuck, I sounded like my little sister, Naya, when she was in middle school and her playground drama ended up being my after-school hell.
“I need a beer.”
They both looked at me with identical expressions of ‘do you think this is wise?’
“I’ll go to a different bar.” I was already getting my jacket. They could come or not. I saw Noah start to speak. “No,” I cut him off. “I don’t need company. I just need a beer.”
“We’ll all go,” Dante said smoothly. “I haven’t been back since we were fighting. I need to see if they’ll still serve me.”
“You’re the starting quarterback, QB10. The infamous Dante Spence,” I told him sourly. “They’ll have no customers left if they refuse you.”
They weren’t to be deterred, so five minutes later, the three of us were walking across campus to the bar for a beer.
Our heights were all different, with Noah being the tallest, and then Dante, and then me, with my six-foot height, somehow the ‘small’ guy in the group. Just three teammates heading to the bar for a beer.
Not two roommates supervising me because they didn’t trust me.
The bar wasn’t as busy as it had been, and we got a booth more easily than I thought. I slid into the booth and then clocked how I’d ended up against the wall, Dante beside me. I could’ve moved. I didn’t.
“Are you pouting?” Dante murmured as Noah went over to the bar to order and then to talk to some of the defense who were playing darts.
“Fuck you.”
Dante smiled at my response.
“It’s not about not trusting you, Dust, you know that.” He looked out over the bar, his outward persona relaxed and casual. “You think with the shit I pulled on you two over the last few weeks, I can cast judgment on anyone? You already called me out on it tonight.”
I felt my shoulders relax slightly. “Well . . .”
He huffed out a laugh. “Exactly.”
“So . . . why are you here?”