Page 40 of Crew Girl

“Yeah, but you didn’t go about it the right way.”

“What’s the right way? Tell me,” she commanded, after another look over her shoulder at Cabrera.

“Not that way,” Cam said drily. “Barking orders.”

“I am try-ing to help!”

“They don’t know that, though, do they? They think you’re just telling them what to do.”

She opened her mouth to protest, then shook her head, defeated. He was right and she knew it. “Look, I know the things we do don’t always make sense, but teams are kind of like brotherhoods. Family,” he corrected, because, in that outfit anyway, the guys would never see Teagan Tao as a bro. “We don’t necessarily all like each other, but we look out for each other the same way you’re looking out for your mom—who I’m guessing is the reason you’re wearing this uniform even though it feels humiliating.”

She laughed. “How’d you guess?”

He shrugged. “That’s what family does. They have one another’s backs even though most of the time you want to strangle each other.” He didn’t want to strangle his parents, but thought it best to leave that part out. “Look,” he said, when it was clear Cabrera and Ethan were going to start circulating soon. “The guys will listen to you if they know you have their backs.”

Teagan nodded, like he’d just given her a complicated calculus problem. “How about we ditch them and start our own team.”

Was this… was this Teagan flirting?

“It’d be a lot less drama,” she said, fired up now. “We’d be great. I’d compromise, get in sync with your rhythm, and lead us to victory.”

No. Not flirting. Just reducing the number of people she’d have to fight for supremacy.

“Hey!” Crabcatcher yelped. “He just took my last blini!”

They all turned to see who had done it.

Oh shit.

Ethan Cabrera.

Like it was a tennis match, the team’s heads all turned to Quaid.

This was serious. Quaid could not go caveman on Ethan. Not here. Not in front of all of these people. Everyone on the team would probably get expelled, meaning no more crew, no University of Washington, no Olympic medals, no engineering degree. No future.

He was regretting not at least attempting to lure Quaid into one of the planes. He probably would’ve liked playing pretend pilot. For about two seconds.

Time froze as Quaid silently calculated his options. Then, to their collective shock, he took off in the opposite direction. Which kind of seemed worse. Scarier. Like he’d known Ethan was going to show up, and had a plan.

No one was brave enough to follow. No one, that is, apart from Teagan. As Cam watched her disappear into the crowd, he realized something. She had as much to lose as he did if they got expelled. Crew. College. Her mom would probably get fired if whatever it was Quaid was up to was as bad as he imagined it would be. “Guys”—he tipped his head in the direction Quaid and Teagan had gone—“we probably better check on them. For the team.” He set off, not bothering to look back to see if they were behind him. His gut already knew what the answer was.

TEAGAN

Quaid was built like the Incredible Hulk. A big lumbering dude with the grace of a drunk elephant. But when he wanted to escape capture? He was like a jungle cat. A gazelle. Who knew?

When she finally caught up to him, holed up in a break room near the kitchens, she bent over, hands on knees, panting to catch her breath. She’d long since kicked off her heels and was pretty sure the cute little air hostess cap her mom had pinned onto her head was about to fall off. But she’d found him. Not that she had the slightest clue what to do with him.

“Hey,” he said, shooting her a wary glance.

She held up a finger. She’d be a minute.

He shrugged. He didn’t care what she said. Wasn’t going to stop whatever plan he was putting into motion.

He pulled a bottle out of his pocket and poured a bunch of gelcaps onto the table.

He didn’t look up when she examined the bottle. He was too busy shoving them into a piece of cake.

“Laxatives? Where did you even get these?”