Page 52 of Worth the Scandal
She winks.
I close my eyes and exhale.
Ted Walker: 1
Asher Kingston: Wet. Humbled. And hopelessly into the daughter of a man who just garden-hosed my sins away and is probably plotting my murder as I drip here.
I smile back at her shake my head and slide dripping wet over my leather seats. Now that’s a morning, who needs coffee when you’re greeted by a stone cold hosing and an exhilarating failed escape attempt.
Chapter Twenty One - Asher
I walk into the locker room still damp. Leaving a trail of droplets from my car all the way here, like little crumbs giving away my exact location.
I’m not like slightly dewy damp.
I mean full-body, socks-squishing kind of damp.
The “Coach hosed me down after I slept with his daughter” kind. Aggressive, not the worst outcome and actually kind of funny, but maybe the worst is yet to come?Worth it.
But yeah, morale right now?Low.
The second I step through the door, Collins spots me. It’s like I have a beacon above my head the way his neck snaps after his double take.Here we go.
His eyes go wide. He drops his protein bar like it’s been replaced by a hot iron. He’s going to enjoy this, every minute.
“Yo, did someone just baptise you? You look like you got hit with a tidal wave.”
Jace turns from his locker, does a double take, and immediately starts cackling. “Bro. What. Did you shower in your hoodie?”
“Didn’t realise you had to swim here Ash.” Peyton, the usually quiet and shy Peyton cuts in.
“Fellas,” I mutter, yanking off the soaked hoodie and wringing it out like I’m starring in a wet T-shirt contest foremotionally repressed athletes who could possibly be on their last day—which given how calm coach was this morning I could very well be buried out the back of the stadium after training. “Not today.”
“Not today?” Collins repeats. “You say that like yesterday was normal. Did you fall in a pool? Get caught in a sprinkler? Or—wait—was it Scarlett?”
“Scarlett, what the fuck were you doing with Scarlett” snappy words from the corner of the dressing sheds belonging to you guessed it, Caleb.
Jace gasps like he just witnessed a plot twist in a soap opera. “Oh my God, was it coach, tell me it was coach?! I can see it now him sipping his coffee on the front veranda and hitting you with the sprinklers on full ball.”
I hang my hoodie on a hook, sighing. “Can we not do this right now?” I nod my head in the direction of snappy Caleb.
“Wehaveto do this right now,” Collins says, already pulling out his phone. “This is locker room legend material. ‘Kingston Gets Rinsed by Coach’—I’m starting the group chat.”
“Hey, I never said this was coach or Scarlett related” I huff rubbing my hand down my face.
“Okay but you didn’t tell us why you look like you’ve walked through a car wash, and you haven’t denied it either sooo we are putting our few brain cells together and working it out, right boys?”
There’s more laughter and a few sounds I can’t make out from the guys but they’re all running on the same brain wave, and that is that it was Scarlett related, and well they aren’t wrong, are they?
Across the room, Caleb’s now sulking in silence like a villain in a YA drama. Arms crossed. Staring like he knows exactly why I’m wet and wants the whole damn locker room to know too.
The look on his face is priceless to say the least, and I can’t imagine the scenarios going through his head. I hope in every one of them I’m naked.
He doesn’t say anything, just glares at me.
But his silence is louder than Collins at a bar on karaoke night. Maybe the morning is looking back up again.
On the Field—9:15 AM
