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I leaned forward and ran my hands over my face. What the hell was happening? The room waited impatiently as he scrolled through his phone. Just minutes ago, I’d been terrified these guys would look at me differently when they found out I was dating our coach. And now this… I didn’t even have words for this.
“Ah-ha! Ah-ha! Okay…” He squinted at the screen. “Wyatt did say Theo would tell us after Rhodes was no longer our coach.”
“Fuck yes! I win!”
“But!” Max practically yelled over him, and Wyatt’s celebration died instantly. He rotated slightly, pointing dramatically to Luke. “Luke said they wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret after Thanksgiving.”
“Yes!” Luke shouted with excitement while Wyatt groaned loudly. A handful of guys started cheering for Luke while someone behind me insisted that prediction had been too vague to count.
“But! But! But!” Max waved his hands wildly to get everyone’s attention. “Luke didn’t specify how long after Thanksgiving he’d tell us, but Wyatt specifically said he’d tell us within twenty-four hours of Rhodes no longer being our coach!”
There was a beat of silence, and I saw how more than half of them performed the same mental calculation. The minute it clicked, the sound was deafening, and I quickly lost track of who said what.
“No fucking way!”
“Wyatt got it!”
“Goddamn it!”
“Twenty-four hours is crazy!”
Someone threw a couch pillow at him. Wyatt caught it against his chest, already wearing the most obnoxiously triumphant grin I’d ever seen.
“Pay up, losers!” Wyatt hollered.
“Okay, hold on! Hold on!” I jumped to my feet and waved my arms to shut them up. “Everybody shut the fuck up! All of you knew?”
“Oh, come on, McLaughlin!” Terry exclaimed with a laugh. “It’s hard to miss how you two were eye-fucking each other across the field.”
“We were not!” I protested. At least, I thought we weren’t. The groan that filled the room said otherwise.
“You absolutely were,” Sam said.
“Constantly,” Brent added.
“Aggressively,” Cody chimed in.
Heat flooded my face so fast I was pretty sure I could’ve melted the snow outside with it. I stared at them in absolute horror, mentally replaying every practice, every sidelong glance, every moment I’d been convinced we were being subtle. Apparently, we hadn’t been subtle. We’d been putting on a goddamn show for everyone around us.
“Since when?” I demanded.
“Um… different times?” Max offered with an awkward grin.
“What the hell does that mean?” I exclaimed, my voice rising a notch.
“Well, Jude and Wyatt knew first,” Terry explained. “The rest of us figured it out later.”
“And every single time one of you idiots figured it out, we told you to keep your mouths shut,” Jude reminded them.
“Nicely, of course,” Wyatt added.
“You threatened me!” Charlie reminded him.
“I threatened everyone,” Jude corrected.
“That’s also true.” Wyatt nodded.
A ripple of laughter moved through the room, but I was still stuck on the fact that this had apparently been happening behind my back for months. Every time someone put the pieces together, Jude and Wyatt had quietly stepped in, shut it down, and made sure the information traveled no farther. They hadn’t told me because they knew I wasn’t ready to know people had figured it out either. My chest tightened at the realization.
