Dante
Dustin shoved a hand through his hair. “Jesus, Dante...” He sat back and looked up at the ceiling. “Remember when the pressure was just who made a bad play call, and getting through finals?”
I huffed out a laugh.
Noah sat forward, forearms on his knees, eyes locked on mine. “So, what’s the play?”
I exhaled, slow and measured, like I’d been planning this all along. “For the program? The play is we do what he says. We keep our mouths shut until we figure out who’s pulling the strings. Hembry knows, but he doesn’t approve, and he’sdoing nothing about it. So... I don’t know. Do we do the same?”
Neither of them looked happy. But after a beat, Dustin gave a short nod. Noah followed, steady and sure.
“If you think about it,” Dustin said slowly, “we never knew it was happening before, and we’ve already done two years, almost three. What’s the harm in one more year?”
Noah and I exchanged a look, and I knew we were both thinking the same.Too much harm, that was the answer.
Dustin threw his chips onto the table. “Fuck. This blows so bad. I feel dirty.”
“They can take it all from us.” Noah spoke so softly that I had to strain to hear him at first. “Like that guy Sterling.” He looked up at us both. “I worked too hard to be erased overnight by a bunch of fuckers who have no scruples about playing God with my future.”
“It’s terrifying,” I said.
“It really fucking sucks,” Dustin said, slumping back in his seat.
The weight of it hung over us for a few minutes until I couldn’t keep quiet anymore.
“What about me?” I asked them both.
“You stop,” Noah said immediately. “You want your family out of that situation, you don’t risk yourself to do that. You don’t become the ammunition for that to backfire.”
“What he said,” Dustin chimed in.
“But I don’t give a fuck if he comes after me,” I told them truthfully. “But if he targets—”
“Trusther.” Noah looked at me like it was that simple. “It was over a year and a half ago. She’s been clean since, right?”
“Yeah.” I thought about last night. “A joint now and then.”
“Trust your sister,” he told me.
“Trustherandtell her,” Dustin added. “Naya tells me everything, even the shit I wished she wouldn’t. Secrets fester. Especially secrets in families.”
For the first time since this mess started, I wasn’t carrying it completely alone.
“Yeah . . . maybe.”
Noah broke the silence, eating a handful of Dustin’s chips, and I waited for the fallout, but Dust was watching me.
“What happened with Savannah?”
“Oh...” I said it like I’d forgotten. I hadn’t. “I think she found out yesterday that they cover up the grades, thought I was in on it, went batshit.”
“But you sorted that out, that’s an easy fix,” Noah said, leaning back and kicking his feet up onto the coffee table.
“No...” I avoided looking at both of them. “I told her I didn’t know, and then she told me her father sent her to spy on me.” I glanced at them, seeing the look of surprise on both their faces. “Yeah. Pretty much how I reacted.” I cleared my throat. “Might have been more verbal...”
“She must have only found out yesterday,” Noah mused. “She was trying not to cry when I saw her. I think her dad’s involvement was too much for her.”
“He sent her to spy,” I reminded him.
