I still know most of the players, but they’re all too engrossed in the game to notice me. Except Parker, who’s been best friends with Clayton for at least a decade, and became Dallas’ protégé when he joined the Wynchester football team, making him my double bonus big brother. He winks at me and makes an ‘S’ with his hands from their huddle, and though I shake my head at him, my face surely crimson, I can’t help the smile that takes over.
There are a couple of girls watching our interaction, so I get some glares and assessing looks, but they must decide I’m not a threat, because they stick up their noses and turn back to the boys, while I pull my coat and scarf tighter.
A football team would solve a lot of my plotting issues. It would be fun to add classes, interactions on campus, the electricity of game night…but every time I picture my love interest, I now see Dallas, and that will not do.
I cross out that page.
Maybe firefighters?
“Oh my God!”
The voice is way too close for her not to be talking to me, as I’m the only one in this section of the stands, so I close my book and look up.
She has dark hair and fake nails that look like Wolverine’s claws, but her face tells me absolutely nothing. I am about to tell her she has the wrong girl, but she speaks before I can.
“You’re Baby James,” she tells me, garnering us the attention of anyone close enough to hear her exclamations. I wince when she adds, “Dallas and I were super tight when he went here, if you know what I mean.” She winks, so I figure it out easily, as does everyone else around us, while I try to sink lower into my seat. “Natasha Rummoli.”
She smiles as if she expects me to know who she is.
“Nice to meet you.” I put on my polite smile, resisting the urge to scratch the back of my neck, but my scarf feels like it’s suffocating me.
“The thing is, he gave me his new number, but I lost the paper before I could put it in my phone. If you could just give it to me now, I’m sure he’d appreciate it.”
She says it with such a straight face I almost believe her, but my brother hasn’t changed his cell number since he got it at fifteen.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll call you when he has a minute. There’s been a lot of training and travel now the season is going.”
I don’t want to be the one to tell her he most definitely blocked her number, unless she never actually had his to begin with, but I can see her brain working.
“Of course. That makes total sense. Only I lost my phone a while back, and decided to get a new number. Stalker ex,” she adds to justify the switch.
“I’m so sorry. If you want, you can give me your number and I’ll pass it along next time he calls,” I offer. And I will. I just don’t think he’ll take it.
“You could just call him.” She tries to hand me her phone, as if I would be dumb enough to type his number into it for her.
“He’s on a plane right now, but like I said—” I get up and try to leave, but another girl joins us.
“Did you say your brother is Dallas James?”
“That last game against Baltimore, he was amazing.”
“He was great,” I agree, tugging off my scarf, but it doesn’t help with the sweating. I don’t have an issue with crowds, and to be honest, I had no problem giving speeches to hundreds of kids at summer camp. But this kind of attention makes me queasy. “I’m so sorry, but I have a meeting with my advisor, so I’m just going to?—”
“Do you ever get to see him play?”
“Will he be back here soon?”
“Is he seeing anyone?”
“Hey ladies,” Parker’s flirtiest voice cuts through their interrogation. “How ‘bout cheering for us on the next one?”
Parker never gives jersey chasers the time of day, so they all focus on him, and the other Wolves, allowing me to slip past the girls, where I feel like I can finally take a breath.
I mouth, “Thank you,” and make a beeline for the exit.
* * *
I’m not ready to go back to my dorm, whether Anna is awake or not, but I don’t want to go back to the library either. I’m halfway to Words and Lattes, my favorite café on Ivy, when I put my hands in my pocket and find the key fob Dallas asked me to return.
