Then a deep voice makes me jump, almost cracking my jaw on the bar. Beck’s legs unwind from around me, and we both drop to the floor, bending over to put our hands on our knees.
“Jesus Christ, you two! This is a gym, not a breeding facility. Now I know I said boners happen, but this is not what I was talking about! Go take a cold shower and meet me in my office in five!” He steps away, and we’re both so stunned we don’t move right away. “Now!” Coach McCoy barks.
Three and a half minutes later, we’re giving each other scared, nervous looks as we speed-walk to Coach’s office. We’re bothstill wet from basically dousing ourselves in cold water before getting dressed, although I don’t think either of us needed the cold water to calm down. We were both just afraid to not do exactly what he told us.
Coach McCoy’s office door is open.
“Come in!”
Shit. We’re in trouble. I mean, I’m already in trouble, but I’m really fucked now. And worse, I’ve gotten Brody involved. So not only is he going to be punished, but he’s been outed, which isn’t what we wanted.
Coach is at his desk when we walk in, arms folded, expression like he’s smelled something foul. For a second I’m pretty sureIam the smell.
“Sit,” he says.
I drop into the chair in front of his desk. Beck sits beside me, spine straight, hands folded like he’s on trial. Which, to be fair, we kind of are.
“I’d ask if you two want to explain yourselves,” Coach starts, “but I’ve coached long enough to know there’s not a single explanation you could give me that I’d want rattling around in my head for the rest of my life.”
Heat crawls up my neck. I stare very hard at a scuff mark on the floor.
Beck clears his throat. “Sir, I?—”
“Don’t,” Coach cuts in, lifting one hand. “I am choosing, for the longevity of my career and my overall mental health, to pretendI don’t know what you were doing on my pull-up rig. We will considerthatportion of this conversation closed.”
I blink. That’s not what I expected.
He leans back, studies us for a long, heavy moment, then he pulls open a drawer, takes out a fat manila folder, and drops it onto the desk in front of me with a heavy thump.
The little metal tab rattles. I feel it in the base of my throat.
My name is written across the top in black marker.
“That’s for you,” Coach says.
My mouth is dry. “Is… is it expulsion paperwork?”
I knew this was coming. Hell, I’ve even made peace with it. I decided I’m going to enroll in a community college halfway between Huntston and home so I can finish getting a degree, even if they don’t have a sports medicine program. It’s something, and I won’t have to leave the most important parts of my life behind—my family. My mom, Davis, and Beck, who has already found several apartments that he knows I can’t afford but insists on paying for since he plans to be there every night or weekend he has off, and breaks. We have a plan, and I feel good about it.
Still, holding the evidence of my failures in my hands is hard to swallow.
“Open it.”
My hands shake a little as I flip the folder open.
There aren’t any forms. I don’t see a neatly typed letter from the dean or enrollment office, or anything on stark white paperwith the terrifying university letterhead I was bracing for. It’s something different entirely.
The first page is a printed email, the logo at the top from the Board of Directors’ office. I recognize Caty’s mom’s name, though the subject line doesn’t fully sink in before my eyes snag on what comes next.
Concerns Regarding Athlete Welfare
It’s a hand-written statement. The page beneath it is the same, another statement. The next page, another.
The stack is thick. Some are typed. Some are messy handwriting. My brain doesn’t process individual words at first, just a flood of familiar names at the top of each page.Aaron Eros, Jay Norman, Roman Bailey, Sean Cabot, Cade Washington, Jeremy Fisher, Matt Young.
I’m surprised to even see some names of people I was pretty sure hated me. Then I start over and look through the names again. Then I count them. Every single name on our roster, save an obvious one, is present.
“What is this?”
