The next morning, I fall into line next to Bri as we do our team warmup.

“You ready for today?” she asks with only a hint of her too-serious captain tone.

“Ready,” I say as we high knee across the sand. I raise my legs higher and then shake my head. She might be a pain in the ass, but Bri is effective in making us work harder.

“About Nathan,” she starts, and my heart rate picks up and not because I’m lifting my legs to my chest.

“Yeah?”

Bri shakes her head. “You went to an insane level to try and be a part of the team.”

I give her a shy smile. She’s not wrong.

“I’m sorry you had to do that.”

My head snaps to look at her to make sure she’s seriously apologizing.

“As captain, I should have placed my personal feelings aside. And as a decent human being, I should have welcomed you. I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t so bad. I did get the guy after all.”

She smiles. “Well then, you’re welcome.”

Coach blows the whistle, and we hang back as the team gathers near her.

“You ready to kick some State ass today?”

“So ready.”

Before our first match, we head to the locker room to relax and to get more individual plans from Coach. Coach is talking with Bri and Sydney first, and Emily and I take a seat in front of our lockers to wait. Nerves I’d been fighting all morning bounce to the surface, and I’m a ball of anxious and caged energy.

“You got any Tylenol?” Emily asks. “I don’t do caffeine the morning before games, and I feel a withdrawal headache coming on.”

“Yeah, in my bag.” I stand and grab my backpack from the locker and hold it in my lap as I rummage through.

“Good Lord, what don’t you have in there?” Emily picks up a box of tampons in one hand and a textbook in the other.

“Shit, I forgot to give that to Nathan,” I say as I finally find the bottle of Tylenol at the bottom of my bag.

“The tampons?” She hands me those, and I stuff them in my backpack.

“No, the textbook.” I hand her the Tylenol and take the textbook. “It’s Nathan’s. Crap, I hope he didn’t need it this weekend.”

I flip it open, more out of curiosity than anything. What the hell is Microeconomics, anyway? I freeze at what I see inside and fail to close it before Emily looks over.

“Holy shit, Chloe. What is that?”

Unfortunately, her outburst catches the attention of everyone around us, including Coach.

“I…” Words fail me. I don’t understand, and there’s ringing in my ears like someone knocked me over the head with a barbell.