Page 98 of Forever Relentless

“You’re fucking one of the coaches.”

She gave me an icy stare.

“What? You were talking about being careful. So far, they’ve been more discreet than you have.”

“You’re defending them?”

“I’m not judging them. So far, they’ve been doing it right; they aren’t drawing attention to themselves.”

“You hate that I’m with TJ, but you said you knew it was separate.”

“How can it be?” I cried. “You let him into your bed, and from the way you’re reacting about being disposable, which he said to you, remember, you’ve let him into your heart. You came here to learn more about what happened to your family. You came here to make sure that the ones who looked the other way were looked into. You didn’t come here for dick and a relationship!”

“And how’s Matthews’ dick?”

I stared at her, stunned. “I wouldn’t know.” I took a deep breath. “And fuck you.”

“I’m going back to work. I think it’d be better if we kept our distance.”

“Yeah. Go.”

I watched her walk away, and I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or scream.

She’d always been flaky. Tiffany was younger than I was, and her cousin older, but somehow the loss of Tiffany had brought the two of us closer.

We had absolutely nothing in common, except what happened to Tiff and my brother.

We’d bonded over a Mai Tai and a bowl of pretzels in our hometown.

When I got the job here, I mentioned it to her. Since she’d also been looking to move, the opportunity appealed to her too. Despite the fact that the football program was a steaming shit pile, the athletics PT department at Wrighton U as a whole had an excellent reputation.

She’d been genuinely excited to get the job.

And unlike me, that excitement had been for different reasons. She’d agreed to keep me informed of anything unusual, but I don’t think she’d ever been actively looking.

Whereas I had been through every archive I could find.

I pulled my hair off my face. Then I checked my watch to see what time it was.

I got out of bed at six forty-five for this. To have some weird relationship drama conversation that shouldn’t have been her focus at all, and sure as hell wasn’t mine.

“Fuck.”

“Hi.”

I screamed. I’m not proud of it. I also jumped like a frightened rabbit. Again. Not my best moment.

“I didn’t mean to scare you.”

I looked at the brown-haired girl. Hadley.

“Well, you did.” I saw her eyes widen in surprise. “Sorry. I’m really not my best self in the morning.”

She held up a to-go cup and shook it. “Me neither. Need the caffeine first. I ran out at home.”

I looked around. She lived beside me, and the campus coffee shop was in the other direction.

“Why would you walk this way?”