Page 55 of Unwritten Rules

“I read somewhere that froyo isactuallybetter for you than ice cream. We are clearly being healthy while these guys workout.” Kelly plopped down next to me with a spoon in her mouth.

Sure enough, all the guys ran around the track in mostly their shorts. My too-large bucket of cold dessert mixed with this sightwasdistracting me temporarily from the cold corporate reality that awaited me.

“Does it count as a cold plunge if we eat ice cream out in the cold?” I pulled my large coat over me, briefly considering this may have been not the most well thought out plan.

“Yes! Dual health!”

Everyone’s phones around us started pinging rapidly. So did mine. So did Kelly’s. We exchanged a glance while pulling out our phones.

“What the hell could that be? Must be some emergency thingy...” she trailed off, unlocking her phone first and scrolling around to find the source. Her jaw went slack. “Fal, look at this.”

I leaned over to peek at the massive group text that had been sent out.

Six of your daddies are going to jail. Let the games begin.

My eyes almost fell out of my head. I was so done for this semester. Not only was I going to learn how the wealthy operated while paying catch up, but I was going to play some fucked up version of whodunnit,

Frozen yogurt wouldn’t solve this type of problem.

“Does it say who it’s from?”

She shook her head. “Nope. This semester is going to be awildride. I remember when something similar happened when I was younger. It wasn’t like this per se, but someone was bent out of shape about something and a few families had to deal with some pretty heavy legal trouble.”

Did this happen often or something?

We looked up to glance over at the guys on the field huddled around holding their phones. They whispered amongst themselves while pointing to their screens. Would we know whose families were involved, or was this a domino effect to get people to out each other?

The bleachers shifted slightly under the weight of someone sitting down next to me, their thigh touching mine. I looked up to see Brent and his usual confident smirk still in place.

“Wild news, huh?” His voice was low and edged with a more serious tone. Didn’t think he had a serious bone in his body before today, but I was learning a lot in the span of a couple weeks.

I nodded, giving him a suspicious sideways glance. “Uh huh.”

He leaned in closer, lowering his voice to a whisper near my ear. A shiver ran through my body before I could try to suppress it. The effect he had on me was more than irritating. “Want to get out of here? Just you and me?”

With our two escapades fried into my brain permanently, I didn’t dare delve into questioning his motives. Lucky for me, I didn’t come alone, and I sure as hell wasn’t leaving without Kelly.

She was still fixated on the screen, furiously typing away and swiping around unbothered by the interaction I was having. Her brow was furrowed which meant her attention was a tunnel. I turned back to Brent and shook my head. “Nope. I’m with her and I’m sure as hell not ditching her. If it’s truly life or death, you know where I live. Don’t bother me otherwise.” I jerked my thumb in Kell’s direction to my right.

He stared at me a moment, his expression blank. Probably because he wasn’t used to hearing the word “no.” For a second, I thought he might try to pull another kidnapping stunt telling me to come with him or else, but he didn’t. Instead, he sighed and leaned back, stretching his arms across the seats behind him. He looked slightly defeated. “Alright, babe. Chicks before dicks. But,” his eyes darkened “don’t be surprised when I take you up on that offer. I’ll be seeing you later.”

Excuse me, what?I raised an eyebrow at him wondering what the hell he was on about. He sighed and stood up like it was the hardest task he had to date. He threw me a wink before disappearing into the shadows as usual.

Kelly began giggling. “Babe?”

I held up a hand to stop her right there. No way was I about to talk about Brent. “Don’t even. We’re going downthereto find Garrett and see what’s going on since it looks like practice is done because of that wild text.”

Our footsteps rang out on the metal bleachers, thrusting the sound out into the otherwise eerily quiet area. The noise settled down after the text, only allowing for hushed conversations. The air was visibly full of tension, and I could see Garrett standing off to the side with a few of his teammates. Clustered together and whispering amongst themselves like the rest of the campus I assumed,

“Bet you they’re talking aboutthis,”Kelly said, holding up her phone.

I tried to remain casual. It didn’t feel like it was working, but I tried anyway. “Only one way to find out.”

Garrett met my eye contact as we got closer to the group. He forced a smile on his face before backing up a bit from the group of guys. “Hey Fal. Kelly,” he nodded at us. His voice was also not quite right, kind of like that smile he was forcing.

Bad sign.

“Hey you,” I smiled, ignoring the weird looks and tone. “You guys look like you got some big game-winning secret going on.”

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