Page 10 of These Secret Years

“What about your roommate?” I ask.

“Never met him before training started.”

“He seemed really excited about that calendar.”

Knight huffs as he guides the beam from his flashlight toward the group of half a dozen guys who are breaking through a tree line and shouting with triumph. “I guess they found it.”

“What is it, though?”

He gestures for me to walk ahead. “Let’s go find out.”

A wave of pure exhilaration hits me, different from the buzz of alcohol and twice as potent. I reach for the phone in my pocket but still my hand before grabbing it. I don’t need to know what time it is. I don’t need to check my messages. Because I am free.

This is freedom.

Giving Knight a grin, I clap him on the arm as I pass him, finding the train tracks in the forest and the tunnel the other guys are racing toward.

“Whoa.”

Beams from their phones bounce from the tracks to the trees to the tunnel. Knight, behind me again, makes a noise that sounds dubious. I can smell his soap, a hint of amber that’s sharp enough to cut through the scent of the woods and strong enough that I turn to find him just behind me. Inches away.

Out here, my eyes are still adjusting to the night. There’s a half moon in a clear sky, but the flashlight beam I’ve been following has played some tricks with my vision. Still, he’s looking at me, and the attention of his dark eyes is hard to miss.

My mouth is dry, and I don’t know whether to blame the alcohol, the walk, or the look on his face. “Are you glad you came?” he asks.

“Yeah. You?”

“That tunnel’s creepy as fuck.”

“I don’t know.” I turn back to it, needing out from under his assessing gaze. “Build a fire, sing a few songs, it could be cozy.”

He laughs softly. “How much whiskey did you have?”

I step up onto the train tracks and head toward the tunnel to join everyone else. “Apparently just enough.”

“Do you like doing stuff like this?”

“Back home there’s an abandoned house in the woods out near the lake not too far from where I live. When I was younger, I used to hang out there almost every day in the summer. Someone eventually bought the property, but the house is still there. They just fenced it off.”

“Did you go by yourself?” Knight asks as he keeps pace with me.

“Yeah, I mean, not everyone is into creepy abandoned houses.”

“I am,” he says.

I turn to him with a little bit of surprise.

He quickly says, “Well, not like the kind you’re talking about, but my mom’s a realtor, and she lets me check on the empty houses. Sometimes spend the night. Which is cool. Or not. I mean, I like it. Anyway, you were saying?”

I grin at him. “Are you nervous?”

“What? I—a little.”

“Scared of the dark?”

“No, it’s not that.”

I nod. Football players. They’re just like the rest of us, I guess. “All right.”