* * *

“What’s up with you, man?” Knox jogged beside me during our warm up. The combine was in eight days. I’d scraped enough money together to pay my way on the team bus.

“Nothing.” The clusterfuck of my solo concert with Bay had been replaying in my head in skin-peeling, excruciating detail. I’d run from her house like she’d threatened to jam bamboo shoots under my nails and returned her bike at two am, under the cover of darkness a solid four hours after her bedroom light had shut off.

She’d kept her curtains drawn. Her shadow moved back and forth in front of it in a silent taunt.

It hadn’t helped that once I’d paid for the Chicago trip I was scraping together pennies for food. School lunch wasn’t enough with all these work outs. I gulped down even more water trying to fill my stomach.

“You’re being weird as hell.”

“We’re all weird as hell.”

“True.” He nodded like my advice had been sage, not me covering for the shit storm raging in my head that had nothing to do with all the fears bearing down on me about my future.

The game I’d hung every hope on was days away. The room for error was razor thin and I wasn’t going to be the guy who screwed over the entire team and flushed their college ball chances down the drain. The thought of my old man’s sloppy, slurred joy at seeing me crash and burn pushed me forward.

But Bay…she’d looked for me during the morning hallway rush. How the tables had turned. Now I was the one ducking down hallways to take the long route to class and keeping my gaze locked onto the board in every class. What was I doing? Why had I decided to chance a tightrope walk like this when I needed to focus on getting the hell out of town by whatever means necessary?

Because I hadn’t had a choice. From the first note, she’d wound herself around a part of my soul. She’d brought me out of the haze and into the light.

What happened in less than two months when we graduated and she ripped my heart out by moving across the country? Of course she’d get the scholarship. Who wouldn’t want her at their school?

“Dare. Do you need a special invitation?” Coach shouted from the team kneeling in a circle around him.

“Sorry, Coach.” I jogged to the spot left between Knox and Bennet.

Helmets cracked against helmets and we ran the plays from this season that were etched into our brains, putting the rising seniors through their paces before we kicked their asses in a few days at the seven-on-seven. Every pass, every fake, every throw was choreographed until we could all run them in our sleep.

With practice pads covered in grass, dirt, and sweat, we left the field. I grabbed my gear and shoved it into my locker. My usual rush to shower and get home was stalled knowing Bay would be home. Or was she at play practice? With Jon?