“Remind me to text the athletic director to make sure we don’t share the weight room or field house time with women’s volleyball.” Coach shakes his head, “Don’t make me regret this Vale. I’m signing you for the game we play on the court not the ones you boys run off of it. You understand?”
“Perfectly. I’m good coach.”
“Good.” He nods.
Translation: stay in your lane.
I glance back toward Stella.
She’s pretending not to notice the air tightening.
But her next spike is almost reckless.
Ball flies wide.
Coach whistles again.
“Cortez! What the hell? Did you overdose on those fancy energy drinks this morning?”
Kane exhales slowly.
“Focus,” he mutters — not to her, not to me. To himself.
Coach shakes his head.
“You two planning to stand there all afternoon? Or are we building a Final Four team?” Coach rolls his eyes.
Kane breaks eye contact first.
“Let’s win something,” he says.
But when he says it?
He’s still half-watching her.
And I don’t like that.
Not one bit.
Which is probably for the best.
Coach walks me through the rest of the visit like nothing seismic just happened.
Locker room. Film room. Weight training facility that looks like a tech startup fused with a performance lab. Glass walls. Screens flashing biometric data like stock tickers.
“Upperclassmen can apply for off-campus housing,” he says as we move through a private corridor. “But we strongly discourage it.”
“Why?”
He grins. “We like our athletes close. Less trouble. More cohesion.”
The athletic dorms aren’t dorms.
They’re a vertical country club.
Private chef.
In-house dietitians.
