A minute later, Danny returned with a couple of beers, handing me one on his way over to the open chair on the other side of Finn.
“Hey!You only got one friend?”Callahan whined when Danny cracked his beer open and downed a long pull.
“Cash didn’t insult my team.”
“Yet.”Callahan smirked.
Wisely, I kept my mouth shut about the pros and played 2V2 with Callahan against Finn and Bax.Though the game was close—as one would expect from a bunch of college football players—in the end, Callahan and I beat Bax and Finn.Danny slid in and took Finn’s spot, but the outcome was the same, especially with the added handicap of Danny insisting they send his beloved Broncos onto the field.
As we played, I asked, “I heard something about Coach Larkin being a real hardass in the weight room.That true?”
Callahan smirked.“Fifteen minutes early is on time.Don’t be late.Ever.”
“Good to know.”
By the time we’d finished playing the second game, it was coming up on suppertime.I’d had such a good time listening to these guys trash-talk each other—and me, as the games progressed—that I’d relaxed and was starting to feel a little less like an outsider.Then Danny got a text that put a dreamy smile on his face.Didn’t take Einstein’s IQ to figure out who’d sent it.
Almost simultaneously, Callahan received a text that had him smiling in a similar way to Danny, and I wondered if the entire team was mothered up, Bax’s T-shirt notwithstanding.
“No fucking way,” Finn said as he caught the grin tugging at the corner of Callahan’s mouth.“It’s your turn to cook, ‘Han.Don’t even think about ditching us before you feed us.”
“If you learned to cook you wouldn’t be so upset about it,” Callahan shot back.
“I can cook.”Finn pouted.“But not on the night it’s not my turn.Tell Jamaica she can come over here.”
Callahan lifted a sardonic brow in Finn’s direction.Then he thumbed a quick text and shoved his phone into his pocket as he stood and stretched.“You’re kind of a big baby—you know that, Finn?”He roughed the back of Finn’s head as he walked past him in the direction of the kitchen and laughed as he dodged Finn’s fist aimed at his thigh.
“You inviting Jamaica to dinner?”Danny asked.
“What do you think?”Callahan called from the kitchen.
“Great.Then you won’t mind if I invite Taryn over.”
“Jesus, you two are whipped.”Bax sighed.
Callahan stuck his head back in the living room.“Like you wish you were.Maybe Jamaica’s friend Piper will tag along with her.’Course, she prolly won’t be impressed with your shirt.”
His laughter rang through the living room after the pillow Bax chucked missed him and slammed into the wall beside the door.
All the camaraderie I’d been feeling while we played video football morphed into awkwardness as the guys discussed girls and dinner—a ritual they’d apparently worked out, and which I wasn’t a part of.I set my controller on the coffee table and stood.
“Thanks for the beer,” I said.
A weird expression passed over Danny’s face.“You leaving?”
I put my hands up.“Sounds like you guys have plans.”
“Yeah.Callahan is going to take his turn cooking dinner instead of sticking us with takeout tonight.”Finn leaned back and directed the next part over his shoulder toward the kitchen.“As he should.”
“There’s enough for you too, unless you have better plans?”Danny’s raised eyebrow emphasized the question.
I played it as cool as I could considering how excited I was at the prospect of not eating by myself again.“I don’t have one single fucking plan besides having dinner with my new teammates.”
Danny nodded, satisfied.
Stepping around Finn, I headed in the direction of the kitchen.“Danny invited me to dinner.Is there something I can do to help?”I asked Callahan.
“Nah.I got it.Bought everything precut, so all I have to do is dump bags of meat and veggies into these pans and stir them,” Callahan said, his expression speculative.“Out of curiosity, why did you choose Mountain State?You had to know our starting QB is a rock star.”
