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“No, I’m not,” he tells her, taking the plate she offers. “Could we get some ranch dressing, please?”
“S-sure.” She looks at me, her eyes going wide. “You need anything else?”
“I’m great. This is perfect. Thank you.” I smile sweetly at her and she scurries away from us, glancing over her shoulder a couple of times, in awe of Cam.
“Is this how it always is with you since your face got slapped on every banner around campus?” I ask, my tone just as sweet as it was to the poor starstruck server.
“I’m not on every banner,” he points out, reaching around me to grab himself a slice of pizza.
He sets it on my empty plate instead.
“Thank you,” I murmur, reminding myself politeness shouldn’t be impressive. This is the very least he can do. “And you’re essentially on every banner.”
“No, I’m not.” He grabs his own slice, taking a bite and breathing around it because it’s so hot. Once he’s swallowed, he says, “Right Knox?”
Knox tears his mouth away from Joanna’s. “Right, what?”
“I’m not on every banner on campus.”
Knox snorts. “You’re on most of them.”
“You’re on a few,” Joanna says, nudging into his side.
He wraps his arm around her shoulders, ignoring the pizza and nuzzling her face. “Thanks for noticing, babe.”
Cam and I share another look, and I realize I’m enjoying this moment far too much with him. “They really are disgusting.”
“Right?” He lifts his brows, taking an enormous bite of his pizza.
“Watch it. You’re going to burn yourself.”
“You still care?” His voice is low, his expression…ugh…sexy.
“Always,” I admit, hating that I just said that. “Though it has more to do with me possibly encouraging you to go ahead and do it anyway since you never listen to me in the first place. So go ahead, keep eating that extra hot pizza and burn the roof of your mouth. I’m not your mama.”
“No.” He grins. “You’re definitely not.”
THIRTY-FOUR
CAM
It’s sogood to have her sitting close to me. Smelling her familiar heady scent. Staring at her beautiful face. She looks great. Bright-eyed and smiling. Not being too hard on me, when we both know I deserve it.
I’m walking on fragile ground here and I don’t want to piss her off. She doesn’t know what I’ve been up to the past month. How hard I’ve worked. On school, on myself. Both physically and mentally. I wish I could tell her. I want to.
Will she listen to me? Or did my time finally run out?
It’s been a month. Pretty sure time’s up.
The four of us keep up easy conversation as we polish off the pizza, Knox doing most of the demolishing while I hold my own. I’ve been eating better these last four weeks after connecting with a nutritionist our offensive line coach hooked me up with. I’ve been working out more too. Joanna made some crack about me never being around before Blair showed up, and I know they’re thinking I’m going out all the time. Getting drunk and getting laid.
Not even close. I’ve been going to the gym. Going to the library to get my homework done or some extra studying in. After this semester, I only have one left to go and then I graduate. I want to leave school on top in all the ways I can.
Including academically.
After spiraling into a dark pit of despair after that blowup with Blair in her car, I realized I had to do some real soul searching. My mood was affecting everyone on the team, and Coach eventually pulled me aside after one particular brutal practice, telling me I needed to get my shit together.
I broke down. Hell, I cried. It was bad. But my coach gave me zero shit for it. He was his usual stern self, but I saw compassion in his gaze as he told me that maybe I should look into working on my mental health.
