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“About?”
“Marcus Hendricks.”
Dad sobered. “Both of you better not be getting mixed up with these football players. Hendricks seems like a good kid, better than Brawley, but athletes have wild lives.”
“I’m not getting involved with Marcus, Mr. Monroe,” Jasmine said at the same time as I muttered, “Athletes don’t have the exciting lives everyone thinks they do during the season.”
He gave both of us unimpressed stares before I pulled Jasmine into my room. She flopped onto my bed, flannel shirt lifting to expose the shredded jean shorts she wore with tights, and covered her face with her hands before I could ask why she was here waiting for me.
“What do I do about Marcus?”
“I thought you weren’t seriously considering going out with him?”
“I wasn’t,” she said miserably. “But that was before he started sending me cute gifs and pictures of puppies on Snapchat. The boy has game.”
I sat on the opposite end of the bed and kicked off my sneakers. She looked so flustered and irritated that I couldn’t help but laugh. For as long as I’d known Jasmine, she’d been picky about who she spent her time with and unflappable when it came to sticky situations.
“Where did he invite you?”
“Just out to dinner sometime when he’s not traveling for a game.”
Jasmine pushed herself up, palms planted against the mattress. She looked disheveled and confused with her hair everywhere and her shirt twisted around her torso.
“Do you not like him?”
“He’s unfairly likeable,” she grumbled. “He asked how my day was and actually showed interest when all I did was rant about work. Most jackasses just wait for me to reverse the question so they can talk about themselves.”
“Maybe he would, if he had something to talk about other than crushing the scout team during practice,” I said. “Or maybe I’m just being cynical.”
“Nah, that sounded pretty realistic. He literally has nothing of interest to say,” she concluded. “I like this. We’ve found a flaw.”
Sighing, I fell backwards on the bed. “Seriously, don’t listen to me, girl. I’m just being an asshole hater.”
“Because your football player isn’t sending you cute pictures?”
“Gavin isn’t my anything. Well, he’s my boss.”
There was a silence, so I looked up to see her cocking one arched brow at me with her full lips twisted to the side.
“You think I can’t tell you like that man?”
“I think the entire planet can tell I like that man.” I groaned louder and covered my face with my hands. “Why does this always happen to me, Jasmine? What’s wrong with me?”
“You’re a sucker for a pretty face and a good heart?” She threw herself backwards and turned her face so we were nose-to-nose. “Or an allegedly good heart. You realize Gavin could just be pretending to care about donating football shit to poor schools just to get in your pants, right? He knows you really do care about things like that.”
“Now you sound just as cynical as m—” Her words fully processed in my brain, and I nearly swallowed my tongue. “Wait, what? Why would you think Gavin is trying to get in my pants?”
She gave another extravagant eye roll. If there was an Olympic sport in eyeball movement, she’d win gold every four years.
“I’ve spent enough time with you to identify when some guy is breaking his neck trying to check you out, and when we came over that day? The guy was all up in your shit. If he plays that well while sweating cute, overdressed nerd boys across the field, it’s no wonder he’s a beast during a real game.”
A denial swelled in my throat, but she knew. There were zero doubts in those big dark eyes of hers.
“Fuck. Please don’t even hint to anyone else.”
“I’m not stupid, Noah.”
“I know you’re not, but I signed a confidentiality agreement that could get my ass in major trouble if anything leaked.” I propped myself up on my elbows. “And it could ruin him.”
Jasmine pursed her lips, brows furrowing in thought. “You really think so? He’s already big-time. It’s not like they can cut him before he gets a real payday like the Rams and the Cowboys did to Michael Sam.”
“But what if his team turns on him and they cut him after his contract ends?”
“Then he’s off, out of a homophobic fucking league with all his brain cells and a billion dollars,” she replied.
I couldn’t fight a smile. She wasn’t wrong but, at the same time, I didn’t know what Gavin would do without football. In the past several weeks, I’d watched him go from hostile and defiant to hostile and withdrawn as the Barons got deeper into the season. It was like part of him was being withheld, and he didn’t know what to do with himself besides punishing his body every day in the gym.
“Football is all he’s had for his entire life. I don’t think he’d know what to do without it.”
