Page 148 of Bitter When He Begs

I stand too fast, nearly tripping over my own duffel bag, and someone—probably Eli—claps a hand on my back as I move toward the door. My pulse is pounding loud enough that I don’t hear the murmured “good lucks” or the encouraging thumps on my shoulder. It all blurs as I walk into the office and shut the door behind me.

Coach is sitting behind his desk, arms folded. His face is unreadable, but his eyes track me as I move to stand in front of him. I don’t sit.

“Take a breath,” he says first, and that throws me.

“What?”

“Take a breath, Luca.”

I do. In through my nose, out through my mouth. It’s shaky as hell, but it happens. And then he nods once.

“The test came back clean.”

I blink. “What?”

He leans back, watching my reaction closely. “I said it came back clean. Completely. No trace of anything. You passed, Devereaux.”

My knees almost give out. I press both hands to the back of the chair in front of me, gripping hard enough to turn my knuckles white, because the relief hits like a goddamn freight train. The air floods back into my lungs in one massive rush.

“Holy shit,” I whisper. “Oh, my God.”

“We looked into the first result,” Coach continues, tone serious again. “Pulled footage from the testing facility, had the lab reviewed. Turns out your sample was tampered with. Swapped, to be exact.”

My head jerks up. “Swapped? By who?”

Coach leans back in his chair, his sharp eyes watching me closely. “A lab intern named Lee Bennett.”

The name rings a bell, but my brain is too fried to place it. “Who the fuck is Lee Bennett?”

Coach’s brows lift. “You don’t know him?”

I shake my head slowly, trying to dig through my memory, trying to piece together why that name feels familiar.

Coach keeps going. “Well, he’s banned from Blackthorne property. Permanently. Facility flagged him, and we’re filing a report for tampering. You’re in the clear.”

I rack my brain, trying to place the name, trying to figure out why it sounds like something I should know.

My stomach drops.

Oh, fuck.

Sage.

Lee Bennett.

That guy.

The one Sage was talking to at that party months ago, the one I chased off just to get Sage alone.

Coach clears his throat, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Whatever you’ve been doing, keep it up. You did good, youaredoing good.”

“Thank you,” I say, and my voice comes out rougher than I expect.

He studies me for a second longer, then softens—just slightly. “You’ve come a long way, Luca. Eight months ago, I wouldn’t have thought this was possible. But the guy sittin’ in front of me right now? I’m proud of him. Keep doing what you’re doin’.”

I look at him, my chest still fucking tight. Coach doesn’t hand out praise like candy. Not in the years I’ve played under him, not through the seasons of dealing with my shit, not even when I was a freshman busting my ass to prove I was more than just some overrated recruit. Hell, I’ve gone years without hearing so much as a “good job” from any coach.

So this?

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