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Now she does, and I know her name.

Calliope Quinn, Coach Quinn’s daughter.

The ring shifts against my chest when I turn toward the quarterback room, and I don’t stop my hand from closing around it through my shirt.

Houston isn’t behind me anymore because it’s currently standing in Coach Quinn’s office.

Chapter Eleven

Calliope

The door closes behind Jubal, and for one terrible second, I forget my father is still sitting three feet away from me. My attention stays fixed on the empty doorway until I can’t hear Jubal’s footsteps over the ordinary noise of the offices outside. Dad’s call continues behind me, his voice slipping into the patient tone he uses whenever someone is explaining a problem he intends to solve before lunch, but I can’t make myself follow any of it.

Jubal. I finally have the answer to the question I deliberately left behind in Houston, and somehow it comes with a hundred others I never wanted. I know he steals fries after I told him I wasn’t sharing and gets quiet when a question lands somewhere he doesn’t want another person looking. I know how carefully his hands move over my body and how different his face looks when he finally stops bracing for whatever might hurt next. Now I know exactly where I can find him tomorrow.

My stomach twists hard enough that I press my palm against the edge of Dad’s desk, grateful his chair is turned toward the window. I force myself to look at the phone still trapped in my other hand, where the text conversation I came down here about is waiting on the screen. I’d walked into Dad’s office irritated that he’d ignored the appointment confirmation I sent him this morning after Denise told me he hadn’t been checking his phone. I was fully prepared to give him shit until he told me whether Thursday worked. Instead, I opened the door and found the man I left sleeping in Houston sitting across from my father.

Then Dad asked if we knew each other, and there hadn’t been time to think before I said no. I grabbed the first answer that might keep him from asking questions I had no idea how to answer, except Jubal heard me say it, and I saw his expression change before I looked away.

We’ve met.

That was all I needed to say. It would’ve been awkward, but it would’ve been true, and I could’ve figured out the rest if Dad asked. Instead, I panicked and forced Jubal to sit there while I pretended the night we spent together never happened.

Heat crawls up my neck when I remember how much rougher his voice sounded when he told me it was nice to meet me. One sentence from him would’ve exposed the lie and left me explaining why I went home with Dad’s new quarterback without bothering to learn his name, but he let me have the out anyway.

Dad ends his call with a promise to check something before the end of the day, then drops his phone onto his desk with a sigh. “Sorry about that.”

I straighten before he turns toward me. “Everything okay?”

“Fine. They moved the staff meeting tomorrow, which apparently required six people and three separate phone calls to accomplish.” He settles his glasses back onto his nose. “What did you need?”

For half a heartbeat, I consider telling him that Jubal and I had met before. Not everything, obviously, but enough that Jubal isn’t stuck maintaining a lie he never agreed to. But I banish the idea the second I try to imagine where that conversation goes after we met in Houston.

“Bug?”

“Sorry.” I unlock my phone and hold it toward him. “I need to know if Thursday works, and since apparently, checking your texts has become an unreasonable burden⁠—”

“I was in meetings.”

“You ignored me.”

“I didn’t ignore you. I neglected to respond in a timely fashion.”

A laugh nearly escapes, the familiar argument giving me something solid enough to hold on to. “That’s just ignoring someone with more syllables.”

Dad takes the phone from me, shaking his head as he reads the message. For a few seconds, I can almost pretend this is the only reason I came down here.

Footsteps pass outside the open door, and my attention follows them into the hallway before I realize I’m listening for Jubal. A man I don’t recognize walks past without looking inside, and when I turn back, Dad is holding my phone toward me.

“Thursday’s fine.”

“Okay.” I take it from him, irritated with myself for looking toward the hallway at all.

“You sure?”

My fingers stop over the screen as he studies me with the same expression that made lying to him nearly impossible when I was sixteen. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’m fine.”