“I know what you meant. And I do understand the sentiment.” His gaze drifted from the guy to our team. “We’ll see what happens.”
“Just that I don’t love the idea of the Darren twins representing me at a world event like the Olympics,” the guy went on.
Channing said nothing but his expression was speculative.
With his gaze mostly on Evan, I tried not to imagine what he might be speculating about. I tightened my grip and glanced at Evan.
He was practically vibrating in his seat.
I got why. He’d been grounding me all night. Not our usual dynamic, and now he needed me to pin him down and reassurehim I was fine. Which I would be happy to do, and the sooner, the better.
“Ready?” I asked him.
Part of me wanted to hang around and see what else we might learn about the other team. Maybe see what I could learn about Channing himself. I could see that thought flash through Evan’s mind too, as if it was glowing in neon over his head.
In that moment, I didn’t want to ask again if he was ready. I wanted to lead him out of there as badly as I’d wanted to lead him out of the party way back when.
He’d followed me then, no questions asked. But what if he wasn’t as eager to follow me now?
Even as I had the thought, he popped to his feet. “Yeah,” he blurted. “Let’s go.” And it was me, following him out this time.
I heard Channing’s chuckle as we retreated.
We’d barely made it to the parking lot before someone shouted my name, and we both turned.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised to see the twins approaching out of the dark, Andre lurking in their shadows. But it had been a long day. I wasn’t prepared for a confrontation.
“Seriously?” Evan muttered under his breath, putting himself between me and them.
“Dude, what are you doing?” I stepped up beside him and took his hand.
He grinned at me, half sheepish, half cocky. “No idea.”
“Perfect.”
“You guys know you aren’t going to beat us tomorrow, right?” one of the twins said.
I shrugged but said nothing.
Evan snorted.
“I don’t even know why we’re playing this rinky-dink tournament,” the other one added.
I had some small consolation watching Andre’s face cloud at the implied insult to his tournament, but the twins had crowded too close so I had to ignore him.
“If it’s so rinky-dink why does it matter who wins?” Evan challenged.
“You really want to make your Olympic team look bad?” the first asked.
“You play a clean game, play your best game, win or lose, what’s bad about that?” Evan sounded like he genuinely wanted them to answer the question. Like he didn’t see any issue, as long as the game was fair and well played, who cared who won or lost?
“Jesus Christ,” the first twin muttered. “We come to some north of nowhere little shit town and the locals beat us, and you don’t think that makes us look bad? We’re the fucking Olympic team.”
“Actually,” I put in, sidling forward, “no one is the official Olympic team until after the Trials next November, so at best, you’re the Olympic hopefuls. And Ev’s right. You play a clean, fair game tomorrow and that’s all anyone is going to care about. It isn’t like anything that happens here matters in the standings anyway. You’re the one who pointed out it’s rinky-dink. Doesn’t change anyone’s numbers. People will see you came, you played, everybody had fun and walked away happy.”
The second twin, the one I thought was not who we had played, full-on growled at me. “It matters if you win and make us look like fools.”
“No one is making you look foolish but you.”
