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“A shit call, then,” Riot said. “You want me to dress it up?”

Declan moved behind me. One arm came around my waist. The other crossed higher, just beneath my ribs, pulling my back flush to his front.

No one said a word. Nobody even looked surprised.

Yesterday that might have felt impossible.

Today felt different.

I covered one of his hands with mine.

Ben watched the movement. Something crossed his face.

Then Dad turned on him. “What did Wade say when he called you?”

Ben’s attention returned to him. “Not much.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I know.” Ben pushed a hand through his hair. “He asked if I still lived in Briar. Asked if I was still coaching. That was it.”

“And you didn’t call me.”

“No.”

Dad stared at him.

Ben took it. “I told myself it was about me,” he said. “I wanted it to be about me. He didn’t say Hazel’s name.”

Riot’s expression went flat. “You knew what he did to her.”

Ben’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”

“You knew Buck.” Riot glanced toward Dad, then back at him. “You knew exactly what he would’ve done with that information.”

Ben held his gaze. “Yes.”

Riot’s voice dropped. “And you stayed quiet.”

Ben looked at me then. Whatever defense he might have had never made it to his mouth.

“I did.” The answer sat there. No excuses. That helped. Not enough. But some.

I thought about Ben at the football game. Watching the gate. Watching the parking lot.

Looking everywhere except at me. The gas station.

The way he’d appeared too fast, attention aimed past me toward the road.

He had been afraid. He just hadn’t told anyone why.

I should have felt betrayed.

A part of me did.

But if it was really as he said, a bigger part of me wanted to think about it as little as possible. Coach Ben needed to stay Coach Ben, one of the adults in my life that I trusted besides my parents. I could see why he hadn’t wanted to tell me.

I didn’t want to know.