“I watched your tapes when I heard we made you an offer and hoped you would be a solid fit here. When you showed up and worked your ass off without complaining once, I knew that Coach had made the right choice.”

“That’s real nice of you, Masters, but that’s got shit all to do with my sister. She’s…a sweet kid. She might talk a good game, but she’s pretty soft under that outer shell.”

“I hear you. And you absolutely should kick my ass if I hurt your sister, but I have no intention of hurting her. I’m dead serious about her.”

He looks confused. “You barely know her.”

“I know enough. Sometimes it happens in an instant and sometimes it grows. Like you said, she’s an adult and can make her own decisions, but I appreciate that you have her back and that she has yours. Reminds me of the relationship I have with my brother.”

I pick up my dumbbells and start my third and final set. Campbell stands there watching me.

“You need anything else?” I ask.

He looks suspicious but shakes his head no. Matty and Hammer must have been watching us like a hawk, because they reappear almost immediately.

“It’s papaya,” Jack says before he goes back to the offensive squad. “Saw her put it in this morning.”

“I knew it,” Hammer crows. He shoves his hand toward Matty. “You owe me two beers tonight.”

Of course they bet over what fruit got put in the smoothie. I wonder what bets they’ve made over me and Ellie. Then I think it’s better I don’t know, because I’d have to kick their asses and that wouldn’t do a hell of a lot for team unity.

14 Ellie

I don’t sleep well…at all. The whole night I keep replaying the bathroom scene in my head and it often morphs into something dirtier. Like Knox gesturing with his free hand to come closer. When I do, he points to the ground, and I fall to my knees and open my mouth.

Fortunately, Jack and his team stay busy for the next couple of days, and even better, he makes time for me away from the team after I turn down every single one of his dinner invitations.

I start my work on the Agrippa grant even though classes haven’t officially started. I’m fascinated by all the accommodations the law requires schools to give anyone deemed to have a learning disability. If my parents had tested Jack when he was younger, or if they had paid attention to how he did in school rather than on the field, his circumstances today could be so different. I can’t dwell on the past, but I can learn—in case Jack has a sudden change of heart.

While I can push the Jack thing to the back of my mind due to many years of practice, Masters is a different story. It takes until Sunday to convince myself that the Thursday night bathroom porn show was an aberration. We, despite having nothing to drink, got intoxicated on shit like the moonlight and the excitement of a new year. Those are weak justifications, but a girl has to have something to hold on to. Like Masters’ dick. A girl could really hold onto—

“You should try this on,” Riley says, interrupting my dirty thoughts. Thank goodness for that, because I need to get him out of my head.

Riley holds up a red strapless dress with a skirt that looks short enough to be a belt.

“I’d worry I’d ‘Lindsey Lohan’ everyone every time I moved.”

“It’d look good on you. You’ve got great legs.”

“And you look like a delicate fairy. I think you could pull that off. I need something longer, with more coverage. Why are we buying dresses anyway? Did we join a sorority and I missed it?”

“We’re not buying anything. We’re enjoying the scenery. How about this one?”

This one happens to be a one-armed body con dress that looks as wide as a stocking. I lift the price tag. “Two hundred dollars for a dress? I think not.”

“I could make something like this for about $20.”

“Make it like how?”

She shrugs and places the dress back onto the rack. “I sew a little.”

That’s what she does in her room when the door is closed? I smother a giggle. “Is that what you’ve got going on in there? I wondered what that humming noise was.”

“What did you think it was?”

“I don’t know. A really high-powered vibrator?”

“Seriously?” Her mouth falls open.

“No, God, I don’t know. It was a passing thought.” I grin. “There’s nothing wrong with a little mechanical assist. Helps you miss guys a lot less.”

“Well, this is good roommate information. When I hear a humming noise from your bedroom, I’ll make sure to leave a cigarette outside your door.”

I crack up. “And when I hear humming from your room, I’ll come in and watch.” Because I’m good at that, apparently. Soon Riley and I have both folded in half, laughing ridiculously loud between the Lycra and chiffon in the dress section. “Come on,” I gasp. “We need to get out of here before they kick us out.”

In the food court, over a diet soda and shared pretzel, I ask Riley how she got started sewing.

“We’re not very well off. I learned to make my own clothes.”

“That’s very Pretty in Pink of you,” I say admiringly.

She makes a disgusted face. “Molly Ringwald made a really ugly dress.”

“It netted her Andrew McCarthy, though.”

“True.” Riley drowns her pretzel bite in the cheese. “Anyway, I’m here on scholarship and I’ve got a work study job at the student center. This is a splurge for me.”

“A job and a full load? I’m impressed.”

She shrugs as if it isn’t a big deal. “What about you?”

“What about me? I don’t think my intramural softball team will demand too much from me.”

An uncertain look passes over her face but then it resolves into something like determination and she leans closer. “I saw your class schedule on the counter.”

Oh crap. I need to stop leaving stuff out. I’m not used to living with anyone. At junior college, we had dorm suites, which meant I had my own room. I need to treat my apartment like that—and keep my private stuff private. “Seven classes is a huge responsibility. Did your classes from your other school not transfer?”

I stare at my torn pretzel piece. “Some of those classes looked interesting and relevant to my major, so I asked around and found out I could audit them.”

“Ellie, I’m your roommate, which means whatever goes on in the apartment stays in the apartment.”

I don’t like perceptive people, I decide. Masters is like that, too. He can read every emotion that I have. I try to make a joke of it. “So if I’m Dexter, you’re okay?”

“If you’re eliminating terrible people and cleaning up after yourself, then yes, I’m on board.”

I glance into Riley’s warm hazel eyes and see nothing but acceptance. But I’m not ready to confess to a secret I’ve kept for nearly a decade. I don’t even know if Dad knows the full extent of the work I’ve done to keep Jack eligible, even in high school. It’s something that only my mom and I communicate about. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good. How about we go to the bookstore? Wasn’t there a book you wanted to get?”

•••

There is, but I can’t find it on the shelf when we arrive at the store. Riley excuses herself to go look at the craft books while I hit the information desk.

“Do you have the latest book by M. Kannan? It’s a fantasy.”

“Sorry, that young man over there picked up the last copy.” The gray-haired lady points down the aisle toward a tall, imposing frame propped up in one of the chairs by the in-store cafe. A tall, imposing, familiar figure.

I march over before my warning system has time to power up and urge me to run for my life. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m gathering reading material. I asked this hot girl out to breakfast, but she turned me down. I think my potential topics of conversation were too limited.” Masters holds up a biography of our current president in one hand and the fantasy novel I’ve been waiting for an entire year to read. “Help me out here. If you had breakfast with a stud like me, which book would you rather discuss?”