Page 8

WOLF: Yeahhhhhh… I can’t sleep.

WOLF: I always get a little worked up the night before training camp.

How can I help?

WOLF: Stay up with me? Just for a little.

Grab your laptop. We’ll video chat.

CHAPTER 01

Theo

He fucked how many cheerleaders?” Jude whispered the question. Or, at least, I assumed he thought he was whispering. Jude possessed many talents. Volume control had never been one of them. Jude had been my best friend since before we were old enough to know what that meant. He was my opposite in many ways—short hair, bulky muscle, dark blue eyes, no sense of style. The guy wore nothing but gym shorts or jeans with a t-shirt every chance he got.

We both struggled in the no-filter department together, so that worked in our favor. Sometimes. Okay, that never worked in our favor.

“The better question is, they fucked how many cheerleaders,” I corrected in a whisper. His face twisted as he worked through that notion.

“That only makes it worse,” he replied.

“Significantly.”

We sat shoulder to shoulder on one of the benches in the locker room with the rest of the team scattered around us. All of us were caught somewhere between exhausted, confused, and way too entertained by the absolute shitshow our football program had become before eight in the morning.

Training camp was supposed to start today. Instead, we’d arrived to find the Dean’s assistant waiting for us along with several people in suits whose names and job titles I’d stopped paying attention to almost immediately. That was mostly because anything they said after your head coach and four members of the coaching staff have been terminated effective immediately hadn’t seemed nearly as important. One head coach, two defensive coaches, and two offensive coaches were just… gone.

And why was that?

Because apparently, they’d all been sleeping with members of the cheerleading squad. Not the same cheerleaders. At least, I didn’t think so. Honestly, the details had gotten increasingly more difficult to follow after they announced that four cheerleaders were pregnant and refused to answer the obvious follow-up question of who the fathers were.

Jude had asked. So did Wyatt. Dino had gone with the slightly more diplomatic, do the coaches know whose babies are whose?

Nobody appreciated that question either.

They kept telling us that we’d know more when the investigations were complete. Personally, I thought the investigation was doing a terrible job of satisfying our curiosity.

“Coach Mason is like… seventy,” Brent pointed out from a few feet away.

“Sixty-five,” Issac corrected. He was stretched out on the floor with one forearm over his face, clearly having decided that if training camp wasn’t happening, it was a good time for a nap. I was stupidly tempted to join him, but as tired as I was, my brain was wide awake. There was nothing like a sex scandal before eight in the morning to get a person going.

“He’d be in his eighties by the time his kid is graduating college.” Wyatt laughed. “Man, this is fucked up.”

“Do you idiots realize anyone who hooked up with the same cheerleaders is now dick buddies with the coaches?” Rodney asked. A collective groan and complaint ran through the locker room. Someone threw a towel at his head. I just grinned. Suddenly, being a closeted gay wasn’t the worst secret a guy on this team could be hiding.

Jude’s shoulder bumped into mine.

“You can’t tell me you haven’t hooked up with any of the cheerleaders,” he said.

“Actually, I can.” I stared him straight in the eyes. “I haven’t hooked up with any of the cheerleaders.”

“Oh, come on!” Jude exclaimed. “They were always throwing themselves at you!”

He wasn’t wrong about that one. Somehow, my saying no to one of them had turned into the challenge of who could get with me.

“Unlike you horny fucks, I have self-control.” The lie came surprisingly easily, but then again, technically, it wasn’t a lie. I had plenty of self-control.

Unless Rhodes Kennedy was involved.