Page 75 of Shut Up and Score
“We’re gonna be late,” I groan, grabbing a hoodie off my desk chair and throwing it over my head. “Coach is going to end us. You know he doesn’t believe in hangovers. Just weakness.”
Luke groans again. “Ugh, I hate your sport.”
“It's yours too. Get up, drama queen.” I dig through my drawers and toss a pair of mesh shorts and a practice tee in his direction. “Here. You’re not showing up looking like you just rolled out of a frat orgy.”
Luke finally peels himself out of bed, acting as if his soul weighs fifty pounds and blinks at me through smeared eyeliner and judgment. “We’re gonna die.”
“Yeah,” I say, already pulling on clean compression shorts. “But at least we’ll look semi-coordinated doing it.”
“You mean I’ll look coordinated,” he mutters, kicking off his jeans. “You look like you got hit by a glitter truck and emotionally gaslit by vodka.”
“Still hotter than you.”
“In your dreams, Blackman.”
He grabs the shirt I threw him and gives it a sniff. “This smells like victory.”
“That’s because it’smine.”
He shrugs it on like it’s couture. “Your brand is ‘morning after but still varsity.’”
“And yours is ‘escaped from a bisexual Broadway rave.’”
“Thank you,” he says, genuinely touched.
We finish dressing lightning fast, acting like we’re being timed for a reality show, and barely make it out the door, sprinting down the sidewalk in our cleats—thank God he has the same size feet as me, or we’d be even later. I hand him a protein bar mid-run as though we’re in a gay version ofThe Hunger Games.
“You’re eating on the way,” I pant. “You need the sugar.”
“I need to die,” he wheezes, mouth full of peanut butter crunch. “Tell Coach to just put me down. Like a horse with a limp.”
We round the corner, the field coming into view.
And there he is.
Colton fucking Taylor.
Already in warmups, already perfect, already pretending he doesn’t see me, even though I canfeelhis eyes on me from halfway across the damn turf.
My stomach drops, the lead weight of a dumbbell settling inside.
Luke jogs beside me, scanning the field. “Ugh. He’s here.”
“Don’t.”
“You tackle him, and I’ll act shocked. For, like, three seconds.”
“You’re terrible at lying.”
“Not lately.”
Coach’s whistle pierces the air, cutting through my skull. I might die.
“Blackman! Clark!”
Luke winces. “Oh good. He knows our names.”
I groan. “We’re so dead.”
