AllFreeNovel
Share Us
With my roommates on board, some of the pressure in my chest eased. We could all use a break. The bus slowed as it turned into the training facility parking lot, and Riley stretched her arms above her head.
We couldalluse a break.
I could leave Riley to a night alone, knowing she’d be without her favorite pressure release and Eva would be gone… or I could invite her to the camper with the rest of us.
No contest.
I elbowed Mac. “Let Riley know too.”
* * *
I half expectedher to politely decline. If I’d asked her, there would have been subtext, but Mac was hard to deny. We piled off the bus, saying our goodbyes, and I did my best to keep my concerns separate from the team. They didn’t want a frustrated quarterback—they wanted a leader. I took that role seriously.
Mac and Noah followed me to my car where we all stored our gear for the ride home. If we went home. We’d crashed in the camper more than once. Riley thought I’d been kidding about Mac being a horrible cuddler, but the bed inside was only big enough for two of us… as long as neither of the two was Noah.
Riley peeled off to her car, then joined us. “Is this how you guys usually shake off a loss?”
Noah shrugged. “Better than drugs.”
I started down the nearly invisible path, speaking over my shoulder. “Not always. Sometimes we watch film for the next game. Sometimes we get massively drunk. Depends on the night.”
“Youdon’t get drunk.”
Her quiet words reached me over the crunching sounds of us tromping through the underbrush. She was right. I didn’t get drunk—I watched over the guys who wanted to blow off steam for a while.
We reached the camper in silence. Mac headed inside to grab drinks from the cooler, while Noah started the fire—leaving Riley and me alone at the edge of the clearing. She met my eyes, and I jerked my chin at the chairs stacked by the door.
“Grab a seat.”
We arranged the shitty patio furniture a decent distance from the rapidly growing flames. The warm evening meant we didn’t need the heat, but the light was nice. Mac returned and distributed the bottles in his hands, beer for him and Noah, water for me and Riley.
By the time we’d all settled down, the harsh memories of the game started to fade. I would have been fine sitting in silence, but Mac couldn’t handle it.
He raised his bottle. “To all the poor suckers who don’t get to play college ball.”
We all lifted our drinks, and Noah grunted. “Amen.”
Riley took a long swig, then kicked her feet out in front of her. “I know we can’t win them all, but damn… losing sucks ass.”
I set my water down in the dirt, ignoring the sharp prickle of guilt. “Belcourt is a good team this year. We knew that going in.”
Mac shrugged one shoulder. “We had a few unlucky plays that cost us the game.”
Riley snorted. “Bullshit. We lost because of us. Belcourt is a good team, but we’re better. Our mistakes cost us the game. It’s not all bad though. We can fix mistakes. Losing helps us find where we’re weak, so we know where to put our focus.”
Her gaze stayed locked on the fire, seemingly oblivious to the three of us staring at her. I couldn’t tell if she was talking about me specifically or not, but her assessment eased some of my foul mood. Her take sounded like something Coach would say, and she’d included herself in the effort to improve.
After a long second, Mac drained his beer and started pestering Noah about the grocery rotation. I ignored them to watch Riley. She picked at the label on the water bottle, her eyes far away. What was she thinking about?
Probably her efforts during the game, ways she could improve, action plans to hit her new goals. Things I should be thinking about but wasn’t. I suspected there would never come a day when Riley Jones didn’t intrigue me.
She had no fear. None. She’d built her body into a weapon—an elite machine capable of amazing feats—and she knew how to use it. Unlike some of the guys wary of injuring themselves before they reached the draft, Riley gave all of herself to every game, every practice.
I wanted to know everything about her, and I was tired of waiting.
I kicked a pebble toward her, and it bounced off the metal frame of her chair with a ping. “Where’d you learn to play football?”
The flickering shadows made it hard to read her expression as she reached down to pick up the rock. “I don’t like to talk about myself.”
