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“What was the advice about?” Gray asks.
There are literally a dozen teammates standing there waiting for me to tell them about my fuckup. This team is ridiculous.
“Women. Girls.” I glare at the group of them. “I told him to use a cheesy pickup line and it blew up on him. Happy?”
“Huh,” Colby says. “Weird, since we were just talking about that.”
“Yeah, well, now I’ve dug myself into a twenty-foot hole with him and Tess and I have to figure out how to get out of it.”
“Poor Zee,” Beau says, remembering him from the day he was here. “Tell him to hang in there.”
Several of the guys walk away, one of them chuckling. Ford walks over to me and leans his back against a locker.
“You did a good job apologizing. Everyone fucks up sometimes.”
“I skew the numbers pretty high.”
He grins. “Yeah, you can be a clown. But that doesn’t mean you can’t change. You’ve never needed to give kids advice before and I’m sure you learned from this.”
Ford’s a good team captain. He doesn’t relish people’s misery like some of my teammates. Including me, which is something I’m going to work on. I look from side to side to make sure no one’s listening before telling him, “It was the beaver one, and he hit on his teacher with it.”
He groans. “Shit. Well, kid’s got an enormous set of balls. I’ll give him that.”
“Yeah, I’d be impressed if I wasn’t so horrified. He got suspended.”
“How’d you ask his mom out?”
I smile as I think back to the other night when I put my feelings out there to Tess and she agreed to a date with me. “I was honest. I told her how much I admire her and why.”
“There you go. Tell the kid that’s the way to ask a woman out and that consent matters and buying dinner doesn’t entitle a man to jack shit. It’s good for him to hear that from a man he looks up to.”
I nod. “I’ll do that. If he’s not too pissed at me.”
“If he is, just keep showing up. It’ll pass.”
“Thanks, man.”
“And bring Tess some flowers. Do some more groveling.”
I laugh. “Yeah, this is all new to me.”
“I’m happy for you that there’s something you’re willing to grovel for. That’s how you know it’s the real deal.”
“Have you ever groveled to Elle?”
He scoffs. “Are you kidding? All the time. And she apologizes to me when she’s wrong, too. No one should be a doormat.”
“I just keep screwing up, and I don’t want to ruin my chances with her.”
“If she’s letting you come over tonight, you haven’t ruined anything.”
I nod, grabbing a hoodie from my locker. “Okay. Here’s to successful groveling.”
“You got this.”
Chapter Fourteen
Tess
