Page 107 of Forever Relentless

My phone vibrated again.

B: Will you drive me to the garage after practice?

Me: Magic word?

B: Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo

I didn’t know the reference. I had to google it. Cinderella?

Me: I’m struggling to picture you as a Disney princess

B: Just take me to the damn garage, Noah!!

Me: There’s those leadership skills you keep telling me about

The dots appeared and disappeared. Then again. The third time, they vanished, didn’t return, and she didn’t reply.

I put my phone back in my pocket and decided it may be better if I wasn’t on the receiving end of her temper. I’d missed what this lecture was about now.

I’d need to rewatch it online. I slipped my phone out of my pocket again.

Me: Where are you? And can I borrow your car again?

Dust: In the same room as you, look behind you and stop looking at your phone

I turned around, and five rows behind me, to the left, were Dustin and Dante. They both raised their hand off the desk to give me a wave of acknowledgment.

Me: Must have missed you

Dust: D’ya think?

Me: Can I take the car?

Dust: What for?

Me: She needs a ride to Halston

Dust: Don’t do anything stupid

I grinned and glanced at him over my shoulder, seeing his disapproving frown, and Dante beside him, typing out notes.

I turned back and quickly fired off a text to Briar.

Me: I can take you for the car

I got a thumbs-up emoji. What was she? Thirty?

Not long after the class was over, I picked up my stuff. I was no further forward in knowing what I’d just listened to. But that was nothing new.

Dust and Dante were waiting for me, and I flinched when Dustin hit me in the abs with his notebook.

“Why?”

“What do you think of the play call?” he asked as I looked down at the page.

“Why am I on the outside?”

“We made a joke of it, but really, you could be a tight end, so, I was thinking, if we put you here,” he leaned over, pointing. “And the opposition moved their receiver back here,” he pointed at where he was thinking. “Then you could wipe them out, and still have time to take down their tight end.”