“I’m fine,” I repeated, keeping my tone even. “Just tight.”
Dust’s brows lifted. “You’re the only guy I’ve ever met who can make ‘tight’ sound like ‘probably dislocated.’”
I grinned, but it didn’t quite reach my eyes. “You two worry too much.”
“Yeah,” Noah said, snapping his locker shut, “and maybe you don’t worry enough.”
They let it go, but their eyes lingered on me longer than I liked.
I hit the showers, letting the hot water pound into the muscle until the ache dulled to something I could ignore. By the time I dressed and headed out, the redshirt junior and his spotter were gone, but their words were still looping in my head.
Payouts. Quiet.
Two words that didn’t belong in the same sentence unless you were trying to keep a program’s reputation cleaner than it actually was.
While I’d heard whispers, I’d never paid attention. Coach Sutherland was a stickler for rules. Dean Cole? The guy was so strict that his own daughter had to hide her art project from him. Neither of them had been my problem before. The redshirt had made them my problem now.
It was primarily because of those two men that I’d always brushed off the rumors. We were a D1 school, and the NCAA’s scrutiny was intense. We couldn’t afford to let redshirt junior discuss payouts in training.
Still, the words gnawed at me as I crossed the indoor field toward the doors. Payouts didn’t happen in a vacuum. They didn’t start with a couple of benchwarmers shooting the breeze between sets.
Somebody paid. Somebody knew... and somebody made sure no one outside the program ever heard a damn thing about it.
I thought about Sav’s access.
Not to me specifically — to the program. She moved through Wrighton’s academic side in ways no player could. Tutors saw what coaches buried. The dean’s daughter, part of the Academic Administration Liaison Program, would have seen what the coaching staff never knew she'd seen.
I told myself it was relevant, that knowing what she could see was the same as knowing what could blow back on me. I wasn't sure anymore whether that was the whole truth. She was becoming difficult to think about strategically.
Every time I tried, my mind ended up somewhere else entirely.
I rolled my shoulder again, testing the joint. It wasn’t too bad — not right now — but it still caught on certain motions, like the joint was reminding me I wasn’t invincible. The trainers would tell me to rest. The coaches would tell me to push through. Both of them would be right. I’d built my career on playing through the discomfort, on never letting anyone think they had a reason to sideline me.
Which was probably why I couldn’t shake the feeling this ‘quiet’ crap was the same thing. Push through. Don’t talk. Pretend it’s fine.
By the time I stepped out into the brittle winter air, my breath coming out in steam, I’d decided to keep my ears open. Not because I gave a damn about rumors — rumors didn’t win games — but because whatever was going on could eventually land in my lap, whether I wanted it or not.
I didn’t need distractions. Not from this. Not from anything.
Except maybe the flash of Savannah Cole’s face in my head from last night, the way she’d looked at me like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to strangle me or... something else.
I shook it off. I pushed it to the back of my head and threw myself into the rest of the day.
Classes, notes, a coffee I didn’t really need but drank anyway — it was all noise in between the real work. By the time afternoon film study rolled around, I was running on that good edge of fatigue, the kind that kept my mind locked in and my body sharp.
We filed into the meeting room, the smell of turf and sweat trailing in with us. I dropped into my seat, laptop open, eyes on the screen. Coach Sutherland ran the tape back and forth, pausing to rip into a guard’s footwork or point out a receiver’s lazy release. My name came up twice, both times for plays I already knew I’d messed up.
After the breakdown, we headed toward the hall for the position meetings. I grinned when I saw Coach Hembry standing just outside, arms folded, watching us walk past. He was the Offensive Coordinator and QB Coach. He’d been away from school for a family bereavement, but seeing him back boosted my day.
He saw my grin and gave me one of his own. When I went by, he reached out and slapped my left shoulder, harder than a casual pat.
Pain shot straight through the joint before I could stop it, and my face must’ve betrayed something because his eyes flicked over me sharply.
“Still feeling it?” he asked quietly.
I rolled the joint and forced a shrug. “It’s fine, Coach.”
“Is it?” he asked, voice dropping low. “You been doing too much on the weights?” he asked critically, looking me over. “I was only gone a couple of weeks, why do you look like you drank all the protein shakes?”
