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Cally leaned back in his seat, and I faced forward, angling my knees toward the driver’s seat. “It’s more the concept of a plan.”

“Ugh, don’t quote that shit stain to me.”

I snickered. “Sorry,” I said as the tower of our hotel came into view up ahead.

“Okay, well,” she said, turning into the driveway and pulling to a stop under the porte-cochère, the team bus idling a dozen feet away as the equipment team stowed our gear below.

We’d made it. Thank god! I would never be late again. (Mostly because Coach would probably never let me leave the hotel on roadies again.)

I launched myself out of the vehicle, as Cally stood, crouching low so he wouldn’t hit his head on the roof.

“When you do have a plan,” Mom said before we could escape. “Let me know.”

“Will do,” I said, flinging the door open.

“And Michael?”

I turned to face her, my toe tapping on the asphalt, as Cally slid the side door shut and circled the back of the van to retrieve our bags.

“Yeah, Mom?”

“I love you, and I’m proud of you.”

The tense, fight-or-flight feeling I’d had all morning drained out of me, and I felt my shoulders lowering away from my ears. “I love you too, Mom. We gotta go.”

“I know.”

I jogged around the side of the van, meeting Cally at the back.

He popped the latch and the door lifted with a hiss from the hydraulics. He hauled his bag out first, then turned back to the cargo area, yanking my heavy duffel toward him and handing it over.

“And Hunter?” came my mom’s voice from the front of the van.

Cally looked up through the open hatch in time to see my mom un-click her seatbelt and turn her upper body around to face us.

“Yes, Barb?”

“Welcome to the family.”

I wasn’t so naive as to think my mom wasn’t still worried, but I was grateful that it seemed like she wasn’t letting those concerns get in the way of accepting him. That she wasn’t treating us like two idiots in over our heads.

Though, if I was being really honest with myself, we probably were in over our heads. What kind of idiot started fucking his teammate only to go and fall in love with him? Add in last night’s whole “Let’s get married” conversation, and we could probably win an award for our stupidity.

And to think, Cally was supposed to be brilliant—what would his pals back at Harvard say if they could see him now?

At least I’d always been a dumbass. I was used to it.

I hooked my finger through his belt loop and gave it a light tug.

“Thank you,” Cally told her, knocking his hip against mine as he closed the hatch.

“Bye, Mom!” I called out as we took off in a brisk jog toward the bus, tossing our bags to the equipment crew to stow them in the luggage bay.

We scrambled up the steps to find Coach Hendricks in the very front seat, his attention focused on something on his iPad. “By the skin of your teeth,” he muttered without even looking up as the door clanged shut behind us.

“Sorry, Coach,” we said in unison, weaving down the narrow aisle until we found two empty seats next to each other across from Bogart and Mercer, who were both snoring. Behind them, Koffee was making Nielson promise to never let him drink again.

Cally scooted in to claim the window seat, while I dropped into the one on the aisle. We let out synchronized sighs of relief, and I rolled my head along the seat back to glance over at him. He looked back at me, his dark hair sticking up in all directions. After a few seconds of staring at each other’s exhausted faces, we burst into laughter.