Beg You to Trust Me (Lindon U #2)(84)
The best kind of friend.
“Of course, you are. And he makes a great friend. A very tentative one based on the way you’re biting your lip right now. But if you wanted to become more than that to him, I highly doubt he’d say no. Guys don’t ask girls to meet their family for the sake of friendship. He’s spending an entire break with you when he could be out doing God knows what with other chicks.”
“Olive—”
She holds up her finger and then leans forward to tap the stranger in front of her on his shoulder. He turns, smirking. “Hi. Can you tell us if you’d bring a girl home to meet your family if you weren’t interested in having more than a platonic relationship with her?”
He instantly shakes his head. “My family is crazy. Wouldn’t want to subject that to any woman unless I knew she could handle it.”
That hardly proves anything. “Ignore my friend, she’s off her meds.”
The guy and his buddy laugh, turning back to face the field where people are starting to move around on the sidelines.
I glare at Olive. “He invited me because he knew I didn’t have anywhere else to be.”
“You know that’s crap. If you’d told me about your family’s plans, which you didn’t until you’d already agreed to go home with him by the way, I would have extended an invite to my place. My mom adores you. When we FaceTime, she asks if you’re around because she wants to know how you are and what Jane Austen book your discussing in class.” Her eyes roll. “But that’s beside the point. You could have come to my house. You could have gone with your sisters to Sin City. Yet, you chose to go home with DJ. Tell yourself whatever you want, but even you know there’s something way more going on between the two of you than whatever you do at night together.”
Because I don’t know what to say, how to get her to think differently—or myself for that matter—I press my lips together and stare out on the field.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
DANNY
“With a six-point lead on their home turf, the Raiders might finally break Lindon’s winning streak,” the commentator says, getting an enthusiastic response from the audience dressed in white and gold.
I huff under my breath and jog back over to the bench where the guys are hydrating. “If they think they’ve got this in the bag already, they haven’t seen shit yet.”
Caleb fist bumps me. “Hell yeah.” We both turn to Aiden, who’s eyeing the stands where his girl, her brother, and his parents are. “I think if we get the element of surprise, we can gain on them. What do you think, Griff?”
He snaps his attention back to us, bringing his water bottle to his mouth. “Yeah, pretty sure that’ll be Coach’s next play.”
“We’ve got this,” I tell him, knowing how much this victory means. He’s been on edge leading up to this game, and the second he stepped onto this campus, his tension grew. None of us really know the extent of bullshit he endured during his Wilson Reed days, just the bare basics.
If there’s one thing all the Dragons can agree on, it’s that we’re determined to win this for the guy the Raiders stupidly gave up.
Coach Pearce calls us to huddle and goes over the game play. He looks at each of us, at Griffith extra hard, before breaking. When we jog back out onto the field, I search the crowd for the brunette who I’d grinned at while doing my little sideline show at halftime. I saw her shake her head while her friend—and a handful of other women—filmed my slick moves.
The girl about to spend a handful of days with my family has her eyes plastered in my direction right now. I wish she could see the grin spread across my face, but my helmet blocks it. I notice Caleb looking in my direction and tipping his own protected head toward the men getting into formation.
We get into positions.
My eyes train on my targets.
Studying.
Cautious.
When the ball flies and my team bolts into action, I block out the noise around me and focus solely on getting Lindon to its next win.
For Aiden.
For the Dragons.
I don’t know how it goes wrong.
One second we’re flying a yard at a time to the end zone, everybody doing what Coach told us to by the playbook, and then Wallace is breaking free and running his own maneuvers to steal the ball as it passes between the Raiders.
I curse to myself when I see him swerve through the opposing team, catch the ball as it flies in the air, and try making the touchdown himself.
He’s getting close, but I can tell instantly that the two guys coming after him will tackle his ass to the ground in a matter of seconds unless someone stops them. I break from formation and try fixing the mess that the dumbass made for himself by disobeying Coach’s call, ready to take down the biggest guy who’s nipping at his heels.
That’s when it happens.
I’m jumping to take down the brute chasing after Wallace, when my body makes impact with another much larger one until I’m slammed into the ground and sliding yard by yard across the turf.
There’s a collective gasp from the crowd, mixed with the cheers from the Raiders fans over the brutal takedown as my body bounces a few feet until I finally stop moving. Pain radiates down my entire right side as I finally stop moving.