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I shot her a frown, my eyebrows raised.
She mouthed back, “I don’t know.”
Ryan scoffed into the phone, “You’re doing what?”
She quickly added, “Yeah. Um—you guys have practice, so you guys go and do that. Practice. And afterwards, we’ll—afterwards, we’ll reconvene.”
I mouthed at the same time, the same word with the start of a laugh in my throat as Ryan said sharply, “Reconvene?” He added right after, “What the fuck are you guys doing? Mac?” He growled my name.
I was back to flinching because I was going to fold. I’d have to fold, tell him everything, but seeing that, Maren almost shouted into the phone, “Uh—uh—we gotta go. I’m claiming my roommate for the night. You guys do your thing and we’ll talk later. Okay? Bye.” She ended the call, heaving out a breath. “No offense, but your boyfriend can seriously be intimidat—” She squealed because the phone began ringing again, his name on my screen. She paled, denying the call, and practically threw my phone back at me. “You need to turn that phone off, and I need to correct myself. Ryan Jensen can be seriously scary. I do not ever want to go against him. I’m just stating that, just because.”
I shot her a grin. “Like your boyfriend’s any less scary? Cris can hold his own. There’s a reason those two get along so well.”
“That and because they were roommates last year.”
We shared a grin, though it was a little shaky for both of us because as I turned my phone off, Maren’s phone started ringing. She looked at it and sighed, showing me the screen.
Hook-up, not a boyfriend calling.
I barked out a laugh. “You know that’s not true, right?”
She shut her phone off too. “What?”
“That he’s not your boyfriend. He very much is, you just weren’t aware of it. He loves you.”
She stilled, hearing my words, before she shook herself out of some sort of reverie. “No. No. He likes hooking up, and he cares. That’s it.”
I glanced her way.
She turned to look out the window, but she tucked her hand under her arm, both were shaking.
I wasn’t sure what to do—if I should push this or let it go?
Let it go, sister, Willow spoke up. They’ll deal with that later, but for now, you got one mission.
She was right.
I thought it at the same time my sister said it to me, Destroy the bitch.
11
RYAN
Cris and I were late to practice, but everyone was still in the locker room.
We shared a look because that made no sense since we were almost an hour late. Cahill glared at me as we walked past, and I got two more steps before Coach’s door opened. “Jensen, get in here.” He shut it, going back to his desk.
Chavez glanced my way, taking my bag with him.
I sent Cahill another look, to see if he knew what I’d be walking into or not. When the other guys came to Cris’ room, we gave them a brief rundown that some stuff was happening, but we hadn’t given too much detail. Enough where Coach wouldn’t filet our asses for being late, but since it looked like the practice hadn’t even started—I had no idea what to think.
I knocked on the door, opening it. “Coach?”
He didn’t look up from his desk, reading a piece of paper, and gestured to one of the chairs across from his desk. “Have a seat.”
I did.
He kept reading, making me wait a few minutes before he made a disgruntled sound, pushing the paper away. Looking at me, he leaned back in his chair. “What the fuck is going on? I was told about some press outside my goddamn practice yesterday, and now I’m getting a report that a reporter is going to publish an article, saying your girlfriend threatened her today. I was asked if I had a comment on it. Since you’re the common denominator, what the fuck is going on? Did you suddenly turn press-hungry over the summer? And more importantly, how much is this going to fuck up my day?”
