Ten obliged. But before he hung up, he said, “Oh, yeah, and the first thing I ever said to you was that steroids made your pecker shrink.”
A grin lit my face as I hung up. That was exactly what he’d said to me on the first day of practice when he’d looked up at me and refused to believe I was just naturally this big.
Before I could text Zoey, Ten texted a selfie of him flipping off the camera. It’s still me!
What a goofball. I shook my head and glanced at the time, only to curse under my breath. I had less than two minutes to get to my noon class. I typed in a warning to Zoey, anyway, gathering my things as I told her to be careful around Cora, that she’d been in my phone, tried to pass herself off as Zoey, and that she knew everything.
Zoey didn’t answer my text before I started calculus, and she hadn’t responded by the time I got out. I had two more classes before I headed straight to practice, and then I had to hustle to work after that. When I’d heard nothing by the time I got off work at two Saturday morning, I began to panic. I would’ve gone to her apartment when I woke, but I had a noon game and the coach had wanted us in early. I didn’t get another moment to check my phone until we’d been excused to the locker room where we were supposed to put on our game uniforms.
Still nothing from Zoey.
Needing answers, I texted Caroline. Is Zoey going to the game with you?
Sitting on the bench in front of my opened locker, with my leggings on but no shirt, I tapped my fingers on my knees waiting for a response.
“Who’re you texting there, Hamilton?” Noel asked, coming up behind me and stealing the phone out of my hand before I could stop him. “You’ve been awfully guarded and yet a little too happy all week. You got yourself a new woman you don’t want anyone to know about?”
Just then, my phone dinged. With a grin, Noel glanced down at the screen. His smile died.
“Motherfucker.” He dropped the phone and dove at me, tackling me off the bench and onto the floor.
“Wha…?” I lifted my hands over my face to protect myself after my head cracked against the floor and he pinned me by the chest. I could’ve bucked him off, but I was too surprised to see him so mad. Plus, I didn’t want to hurt him.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Ten shouted, rushing over just as Noel wrapped his hands around my neck. “What the fuck, man?” He tried to pull Noel off me, but Noel wasn’t budging.
“Are you fooling around with my sister behind my back?” he growled.
“What!” Ten cried. He picked up my fallen phone, read the message and let out a groan. Shoving it at Noel, he muttered, “Maybe you should’ve read the actual message, dumbass. He’s fooling around with Blondie. He was just asking Caroline if she’d seen her today, which she hasn’t, by the way,” he finished with a concerned glance toward me.
I closed my eyes, more worried than ever while Noel let up pressure on my throat and rolled off me. “Sorry, man,” he said before sitting up and running a rueful hand over his hair. “You were being so secretive about it, I didn’t think it could be anyone else but Caroline.”
I waved his apology away and told him it was okay. Ten wasn’t so forgiving, though. Lifting his hands, he continued to gape at Noel. “Seriously? Not even holier than thou Hamilton is good enough for her in your eyes? Why don’t you just ship her off to a fucking convent already?” With a final sniff and shake of his head, he muttered, “Ass,” and stalked off.
Noel had the grace to appear contrite. “It’s not that I think you’re not good enough for her,” he told me, keeping his tone low. “I just didn’t like the idea of you sneaking her around behind my back. That douchebag who hurt her back home snuck her around like she was some kind of dirty little secret. I wouldn’t be able to respect anyone who couldn’t date her out in the open and be proud of being seen with her in public. She deserves at least that and more.”
I nodded, totally understanding. Glancing after Ten, who was now on the other side of the room moodily jerking on his own clothes, I wished he’d been here to hear Noel say that, too.
The coach came in, shouting for us to hurry up. We had five minutes left to get changed.
The next time I had a moment to check my phone was after the game, after we’d won thirty-four to zero. Zoey had yet to respond to me, but Cora-pretending-to-be-Zoey had written again.
Sorry, I didn’t get to see you on the field in those tight pants, lover. Cora forced me to go shopping with her. I’ll see you at the after party, okay?
I typed in a quick affirmative, playing along, and wondering what her game was. Forgoing a text, I tried to ring Zoey. When it went to voice mail, I left a message, hoping she listened to it.