He frowns. “I’m sorry, Baby. We should have stopped. Let’s go find food.” He takes her hand and starts leading her throughthe crowd of people. She reaches back and grabs my hand, pulling me along as well. I’m thankful because there’s quite a few people here. Soccer games don’t draw nearly as many fans as the football games do. Still, it’s a lot of people. I know that’s because of the crowd Slater draws now. It started during his freshman year and has continued. He’s only gotten more and more popular. There are video clips of him now that have gone viral, which adds to the excitement and all the attention. It’s been good for the soccer program to get the attention it deserves. Of course, he’s not the only good player. He's got a great team too, and they just keep making a bigger splash. Everyone expects them to go all the way this year and win the college cup. They lost last year in the finals, and they’re looking for revenge this year. I’m pretty sure they’ll get it too. There are very few teams that can touch them at the level they’re playing at. I bump into somebody and force myself to pay better attention.
“What do you want?” Evie asks when we get into line at a food place.
“I’m not sure yet,” I tell her. “I’ll figure it out when we get closer.”
When we finally get to the front of the line, Zane starts ordering. My eyes widen because there’s no possible way he can put down all that food. When he finally stops, he turns to Evie, whose eyes are just as wide. “Did you order the entire menu?” she asks.
He grins. “I wanted to make sure you had what you wanted.”
Evie laughs. “I think I’m good; thanks.”
Zane turns to me. “I got enough to share Tessa, but is there anything you wanted in particular?”
“Nope. I’m pretty sure whatever it would be, you already ordered it.”
He pays, and we move to the side. “Here Zane.” I thrust a twenty towards him, but he simply shakes his head.
“I got it.”
I look to Evie, but she’s no help. She just shrugs. It takes a few minutes to get everything we ordered and figure out a way to carry it to our seats. When we finally make it to our seats, Quint laughs at the ridiculous amount of food we’re carrying. “Did you leave any for anybody else?”
“Nope,” I tell him as I slide past him to my seat. I end up between Evie and Quint. Reid sits on Quint’s other side, and of course, Zane’s on Evie’s other side.
“Hey, you gonna share?” Quint asks, leaning forward to see Zane.
“Nope. Go get your own,” he says without even looking down the row. “I got food for my girl and I.”
Quint looks at me, just as I take a bite of a large soft pretzel. “Tessa’s not your girl, and you let her have food.”
“She’s my girl’s best friend.”
I turn to Quint and grin before taking a huge bite in front of him. I laugh at the crestfallen expression on his face and tear off a large section of pretzel. “Here.”
He scarfs it down in one bite. I blink. “Wow, Quint. Did you even stop to chew?” He just laughs.
I lean forward. “Reid, you want some?”
“I’m good, Tessa. Thanks. Unlike some people, I can get my own food instead of eating all of yours.”
I laugh, and Quint doesn’t even look fazed. “Hey, if she’s going to share, who am I to turn her down?”
Chapter 8
Slater
I make my way to where the training staff is gathered. Emerett sees me coming and waves me into the back room. He closes the door behind him, and I wait as he preps my shot. All division one shifter players across all sports and colleges get a shot before a practice or game that basically makes the connection between us and our wolves muted. Because of that, we can’t pull from our wolves’ strength. In essence, it makes us human or as close to it as we can be for a few hours. It keeps the games fair and honestly, makes the sport more enjoyable. If we truly used our wolves, we would outpace the humans every time. This keeps the sport real; we have to work and train just as hard as regular humans.
“How are you, Slate?” Emerett asks as he comes towards me with the syringe. Emerett’s a good guy. He’s a fellow pack member and a few years older than me, but I’m not really sure why’s he chatting. He usually just gives me my shot, and I’m on my way.
I pull up my sleeve. “Good.”
“Everything going okay?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Yeah.”
“Anything new?”
I drop my sleeve and cross my arms over my chest. “If you want to ask, just ask, Emerett.”
