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I look up at Coach Riley and smile a little. “An example of my hard work? If I recall, the last one was a 27.”
Coach’s eyes narrow further at my response, and my smile falls. Appealing to his sense of humor was the wrong move, I see. We lock eyes for a moment before my head lowers in shame, and I let out a sigh.
This is such bullshit.
“Have we not talked about your grades, Greene? I swear, this conversation feels like déjà vu every goddamn time. It doesn’t matter how good you are if I have to bench your ass!”
I grimace but keep my head down. I can’t even remember how many times I’ve been in this stupid office, staring down at a stupid piece of paper with a stupid big red number on it. At this point, I just take the scolding, use practice to get all the stress out of my body, then head home and have a beer.
Right now, I just have to wait for whatever the punishment workout is gonna be this time and go on my way.
“You’re on laps and up downs for the first hour of practice.”
I nod. “Okay.”
“Then you’re going home.”
My head shoots up, and my eyes meet Coach Riley’s to see if he’s fucking with me.
He has to be. I’m the starting left tackle. He can't just kick me out of practice. This must be a joke. He’s obviously trying to scare me. I’m not even technically failing out yet, so there’s no way he’s really making me go home.
He really made me go home.
I’m sitting in my car, sweating like a pig over a fire pit and glaring at my steering wheel because I can’t bring myself to drive home. I probably ran a few miles before Coach told me to grab my stuff and head out.
Everyone looked at him like he was crazy, including me, but he didn’t budge. And even better, Carson Lyle, our captain, looked pissed—at me and at Coach. But, of course, he didn’t say anything in my defense. He just nodded toward the locker room and told Erickson he was on red team today.
Fucking Erikson. He’s not bad at all, but he’s not the starter. I’m the starter. Have been since the beginning of last season.
“This is such bullshit!” I yell at nothing and no one in particular before slamming my hands down on my steering wheel. After a few more deep breaths, I finally calm myself down enough to start driving.
I need a drink, and after how much I ran today, I deserve to have more than one. And I am not gonna let my bossy-ass roommate-slash-best friend stop me. Hunter is always such a hardass about that shit, and usually, I’m used to it. But tonight, I’m so not in the mood.
Slamming my car door shut, I take a deep breath then make my way up to the front door and let myself in. Hunter is always willing to listen to my complaints when it comes to Coach Riley being on my ass, so I hope he’s ready to get an earful.
I carefully close the door behind me because Hunter always gets on me about slamming it, like the door has feelings or something. Then, I toss my things onto the floor by the table we have and pull my stupid sweat-soaked shirt over my head.
Tossing that off onto the floor, I walk into the room Hunter and I share and let out a loud groan. “You’ll never fucking believe—” Holding open the door, I just stand there for a moment, trying to figure out what I’m looking at.
One second, Hunter is leaning over a freaking coffee cup, and the next, he’s tossing it off to the side, spilling whatever was in it onto the floor.
I have no idea where to look.
My roomie hurriedly pulls a sweatshirt over his head, though I’m not sure why. It’s not like we’re shy around here. I hardly ever wear a shirt when I’m home. But he looks about as spooked as I feel. I guess he probably wasn’t expecting me to be home so early, so I startled him a little. Fuck. Maybe I should’ve knocked first or something.
“Shit! I…I’m sorry.” I quickly move into the bathroom to grab a bunch of towels so I can help clean up. Hopefully, whatever spilled isn’t sticky because that would fucking suck, especially since Hunter was pissed at me that one time I spilled my beer everywhere.
We both grab towels and start wiping the mess off the floor. It’s warm and looks like… milk. After staring at the liquid a little longer, I’m ninety percent sure that it is milk.
When we’re done, I toss the towel off into the corner and stare at it for a bit. “Hunt, what were you doing in here?” I’m just trying to make sense of everything that just happened. Hunter was shirtless, leaning over a cup full of warm milk… Yeah, there’s no sense to be made of that.
I’ve never known Hunter to be a cup-full-of-warm-milk-before-bed kinda guy. And even if he was, I’m positive that he doesn’t drink through his chest.
When he doesn’t answer, I raise my eyebrow at him.
He looks like he’s just been caught robbing a bank or something. He runs one of his hands through his hair, and my eyes follow the motion. His hair is a mess, but I like it that way. Whenever he tries to do it all neat, I always have the urge to just ruffle it up a little.
But that’s hardly what I need to be thinking about right now. If anything, I kinda like this change of scenario. Usually, it’s Hunter who catches me doing some stupid shit, but now, I’ve caught him.
