Parker takes another notebook one of them holds out and passes it to me to sign. “We happen to love cookies. Can we go see your spread?”

“Parker.” Candice’s voice is laced with a bite of tension.

“I’m always down for cookies,” I chime in.

Parker addresses Candice’s aide, who was talking to me earlier. “Fitz and I will hang here until the lunch period is done. Enjoy that walk.”

My eyes ping between Candice, the aides, and the few journalists who all look confused. The tension is so obvious. But what’s more obvious—what I know kills Candice—is how Parker doesn’t care. Not one bit.

“Which way is the cafeteria?” Parker asks.

Before I know it, we’re all following. Only, the formation now is different. These kids lead Parker, Governor Stetson, and me with the media trailing us. Bringing up the rear? Candice and her workhorses.

I’ve never imagined a school cafeteria could go silent. But it does when we walk in.

“This way.” One of the kids directs us outside, where tables line the side of the building. He calls out to one of his teammates for comped cookies, but Parker rejects the offer.

“We want to support your team,” she tells them, and before I know it, she slips her hand into my back pocket for my wallet.

I bite down on my lip before Parker’s hand slips from my ass.

“There’s more money deep in my front pocket.”

“Stop it. There are kids around,” she mumbles. But do you know what I see clearly? Her cheeks pinkening as she empties my wallet and drops the cash into one of the jars.

“Ma’am—”

We both turn, finding an agent with a tight smile. Just behind him is Candice, who mouths, Enough.

Apparently, that’s Parker’s trigger word. She opens her mouth to speak, but I take one for the team. I mean, what can they do? Fire me?

I roll up my sleeves. “You guys got a ball lying around?”

For the next twenty minutes, I run plays with my offense of second-string high school football players. I’m used to playing in front of tens of thousands of people. I’ve never been heckled harder than by these kids. Their laughs are great, sure, but there’s one person’s presence who makes this all worth it. It certainly isn’t Governor Stetson, who surprises me by catching a pass off his fingertips. It definitely isn’t Candice, who seems to be gritting her jaw so tightly she’s already secured tomorrow’s headache.

It’s Parker. Somehow it feels fitting that the first time she cheers me on during my professional career is in a high school on some soggy grass.

We’re forced out not by Secret Service but by the school bell shrilling, telling students it’s time to get to class.