She levels us both with a look.
“No more stunts. No more revenge. If I hear aboutanythingelse between you two—so help me—I will bench youandmake you volunteer together every damn weekend until the final whistle of the playoffs.”
Honestly?
That sounds amazing.
So naturally, I open my mouth and ruin my own life.
“Hypothetically,” I say, as innocently as a man covered in metaphorical glitter can manage, “if Blake’s lockerwereto somehow smell strongly of tinned tuna for the next seventy-two hours… would that count as a stunt or more of a team bonding experience?”
Blake spins toward me so fast that her ponytail nearly slaps me in the chest. Doc doesn’t blink.
“Out.”
“Doc—”
“Out, Keller.”
Carmichael mutters something that sounds suspiciously like a prayer.
“You want weekend service? You got it. You’ll be spending every Saturday between now and finals helping the field crew clean the visitor bleachers. Together.”
Blake groans like she’s being sentenced to death. I wink at her.
Totally worth it.
Doc won’t bench either of us unless it’s for something truly heinous, and everyone in this room knows that.
“And maybe,” I say, grinning wider and turning to Blake, “if we finish early, we can hose off together. You know…really lean into the whole grimy, sweaty, writhing-in-dirt dynamic. Bet you'dlovethat kind of team bonding.”
She chokes on air.
Doc's eye twitches.
“Not that it’s afantasyor anything,” I add casually, even though I am absolutely implying it is. “It just seems efficient. Environmentally conscious. Intimate.”
Blake doesn’t just lunge—she grabs a fistful of my hoodie and slams me back against the wall with a force that definitely wasn’t in the student-athlete code of conduct. Coach Carmichael flinches so hard he nearly drops his clipboard.
And it’s not just the hit that stuns me—it’s the way she does it without hesitation, like her body’s hardwired for confrontation. She’s half my size, but she doesn’t move like it. No hesitation, no wasted effort. Just raw power compressed into a hundred and something pounds of pissed-off striker. Her grip doesn’t falter, either; knuckles white, wrist locked, eyes blazing like she’s ready to plant me six feet under right outside this office window, beneath the sad little row of azaleas the grounds crew keeps forgetting to water.
It’s the kind of strength you only get from grinding through years of being underestimated—picking fights with weight rooms, outrunning every drill, and refusing to back down from anyone who thought she was too small to take seriously. And in this moment, she isn’t small at all. She’s immovable.
“Calm down, Blue.” She hates when I call her that, and I love that she hates it. I grin down at her, breath knocked out of me in the best way. “My pretty, violent little thing.”
I tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, and the fact that she doesn’t bite my fingers clean off feels like a win.
Doc makes a noise in her throat—half scoff, half warning—and we both freeze.
“You know what?” she says, voice deceptively calm. “I’m done. You two want to act like feral middle schoolers hopped up on pre-workout and spite?Fine.”
She opens a drawer and slams down two keycards.
“Congratulations. You’re being kicked out of your dorms. Starting tonight, you’ll be sharing the Birch Unit.”
Blake’s jaw drops. “Wait, the Birch? That’s the freaking time out tower! I thought it was just a rumor that you stuck players up there. I’ve been here for three years and no one has actually ever?—”
“Yeah. They have. It’s just been over three years since anyone was so blatantly committed to acting like jackasses,” Doc snaps. “It’s a last ditch effort, sure. But I’m not sure anything else is going to get through those thick skulls of yours. And if I hearone more wordfrom either of you, I’ll duct tape you into a novelty ‘This Is Our Get Along Shirt’ and make you run suicides across the parking lot until you vomit.”
