“What’s mine is theirs, and vice versa.”
“You’re all so . . .weird.”
Gray looked at me with a wide grin. It was the first time Gray Santo had genuinely smiled at me. Should I have felt even more uncomfortable that he did? Probably not, but I did. Hastily, I stood and joined Ash at the counter. What was it Ava had said before, when she had finally let Jett in . . . better the Devil you know?
Right now, I understood her philosophy completely.
Chapter 9: Ash
Coach worked us hard all week. The team was really missing Gray on offense, and our backup RB wasn’t anywhere close to Gray’s talent. Jett was working the wide receivers hard, his focus more on the running game than the passing game, and I was hanging back more, trying to be an extra defense for him in the pocket rather than moving up the field to catch a pass.
Tension in the ranks was high; we were all focusing on the game on Saturday, and tempers were short and getting shorter. We were leaving Friday afternoon for the game, so Thursday night, I was trying to remember if I had everything packed, which was hard when half my stuff was at my house and half here in this apartment.
Thankfully, we’d been allowed to use the new shower room in the apartment from mid-Wednesday afternoon, something about leaving it to set for twenty-four hours. Red was still pissy about her apartment furniture being changed, but I noted she spent longer than normal in the shower on Wednesday night. Being the decent guy I am, I kept my mouth shut.
What I couldn’t keep my mouth shut about was the fact that I couldn’t find my spare cleats. I knew I’d brought them here, and now I had no idea where they were.
I could hear her practicing, and I had to admit the girl had a set of pipes on her, so I didn’t mind hearing her singing. Very quickly in my four-day stay here, I’d learned that she did not like to be interrupted when she was practicing. Glancing at my watch for the tenth time in about ten minutes, I couldn’t wait anymore. Knocking on her door, I waited. She continued to sing, and I knocked harder. “Yo, Red.”
I heard her voice get higher, and I reacted to what I thought was her being petty by opening her door. My mouth dropped open when I saw her standing in the middle of her room, in lacyred lingerie, her eyes closed, a white wire hanging between her breasts, and her phone in her hand. I took my time to admire her curves, but I knew I was in shit if she caught me, so I backed out of the room only for her eyes to fly open, and a scream pierced my eardrums, causing me to wince.
“What the hell?”
“Sorry, I thought you said come in,” I lied hastily as she scrambled for a shirt to hold up in front of her.
“Why would I say come in?” she demanded as she glared at me, disconnecting the headphones from the phone in temper. “I’m in my underwear!”
“How was I supposed to know that?” I defended myself.
“Why are you still in here?” she asked me as she ripped the headphones out and hastily pulled the T-shirt over her head, covering her body. I don’t know why she thought it was hiding her; it barely covered her ass, and her legs were very much on display.
“You keep talking to me!” I replied incredulously.
“Goaway!”
“Fine!” I went to slam the door when I stopped myself and stuck my head back in her room. “Have you seen my cleats?”
The death glare she gave me made Quinn look friendly. “What?”
“My, eh, you know . . . cleats?”
“Your sneakers?”
“Football boots, you know . . . cleats.”
“Why would your boots be in my bedroom?”
“I didn’t think they were, I just wanted to know if you’d seen them?” Her glare ratcheted up several degrees from pissed offtoseverelypissed off. “Jesus, I didn’t say you killed someone. Calm down.”
“You came into my room when I was undressed, without permission!”
“It was an accident!” Running my hand over my hair, I looked at her in exasperation. “And how many times do I need to say this? I’ve seen you naked already!”
“Just, get out. Go. Now!”
“I’m going,” I told her as I turned away. Taking the two steps into my room, I paced for thirty seconds before I settled down. She really was so fucking infuriating. Rolling my head on my shoulders, I tried to loosen up the tension.
With no warning, my door was flung open as one cleat, then the other, came flying into the bedroom, the second one narrowly missing my head. Red stood in the same T-shirt, but because her hands were on her hips, the shirt was showing her panties, but it was obvious she didn’t know that, because she was . . . yup, she was furious.
