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  “Uh…” Stacia murmured.

  “Are you just going to stand there and watch those vultures circle your man, or are you going to do something about it?”

  “He’s not my man. And, after what happened with Boomer, I’d really rather not see him at all.”

  “I get it, but you need to hold your chin up.” Maya just shrugged when no one moved. Then, she darted down to the main floor and threw her arms around her boyfriend.

  “She has a point,” Trihn said.

  “Forget her fucking point,” Bryna said. “I just want to ruin Lindsay’s night. This doesn’t have anything to do with Pace.”

  “I could be on board with that,” Stacia acknowledged.

  With a deep breath, she followed her friends downstairs. Putting on a game face, she flipped her hair off her shoulders and plastered on a fake smile. The crowd thinned as they approached the team. While everyone was eager to talk to all the players, a pocket of space appeared in front of them, created out of fear or respect. Only the people who really knew the guys weren’t breaking the ring. Lindsay was one of them. Madison, unfortunately, was another.

  Pace lounged back against the bar, beer in hand, as if he were ruling over his kingdom. Lindsay stood at his side, attempting to engage him in conversation, but he was more or less ignoring her. Boomer stood on the other side of him, and when Stacia made eye contact with him, he smiled deviously. She shrank in on herself, revolted with his very presence…the very audacity.

  Stacia missed the beginning of whatever argument Bryna was creating with Lindsay. She hadn’t known how difficult it would be to face down the man who had physically abused her. Truly, she wasn’t sure how she was standing at all. He had completely blindsided her with his bullshit, and now, he stood there, as if daring her to say something. He thought he was so clever. She hoped to prove him wrong one day.

  “Don’t fucking throw shit that you can’t back up, Bri,” Lindsay snapped at Bryna.

  Pace’s head turned toward them, as if realizing they were arguing for the first time. “You know, Lindsay,” he said in that soft tone Stacia had only heard him use with reporters and someone he thought was an idiot.

  “Yes?” she asked, fluttering her eyes.

  “Only her friends can call her Bri.”

  Lindsay’s jaw dropped, and it took her too long to recover because Pace’s attention was already lost. He met Stacia’s eyes and raised an eyebrow.

  “I don’t need you to fight my battles,” Bryna snapped at him. But, when Eric appeared at her side, she was easily mollified, and crazy drunk Bryna never surfaced.

  Lindsay shoved past Bryna, and then as she was leaving, she spat in Stacia’s face, “Good luck keeping him happy after what I did to him.”

  Stacia chuckled and flipped her hair for good measure. “I’m sorry. You act as if I care.”

  “You clearly do,” Lindsay said, assessing how Stacia would respond without Bryna there to fight for her. “That petty display at the game isn’t fooling anyone.”

  “And your desperate attempt to get with him is even worse.”

  “Desperate?” Lindsay asked with a laugh. “He was begging me for more when I was with him.”

  Stacia’s cheeks heated at that horrible mental image. She really had no idea what to say to that. She hadn’t orchestrated that kiss in any way, shape, or form, but the thought of Pace begging someone else knocked her off-balance.

  “Lindsay,” Pace said, his tone tight.

  Lindsay smirked. “Yes?”

  “Tell Stacia the truth.”

  Lindsay’s eyes widened. “Um…”

  Pace stood and moved to tower over them both. “I’ve heard the lies you’ve been spreading,” he said to Lindsay. “And the truth is, I’ve never touched you, and I never will. We did shots in my room—at your insistence—and I went along with it so that you would leave me alone. No more. No less.”

  It was Lindsay’s turn for her cheeks to heat up bright red, and then she turned without further ado and fled their group. A bunch of guys were laughing at her humiliation, but as glad as Stacia was that nothing had happened with Pace and Lindsay, she had been in her situation before. It didn’t feel great.

  Stacia smacked Pace on his massive bicep. “Why didn’t you just tell me that last week?” she demanded.

  Pace grabbed her by the arm and tugged her into a more secluded corner. It was nearly impossible to be alone in Posse now that he was the starter. Stacia had been under that scrutiny before with Marshall, but somehow, it felt more invasive with Pace.

  “Would you have believed me?” Pace asked.

  “Yes!”

  Pace gave her a look. “Come on. Unless I did it in front of Lindsay, where you could see the truth of it, you wouldn’t have listened to a damn thing I had to say.”

  “So, you just let me believe that you and Lindsay fucked?” Stacia demanded.

  “Yes, all right. Yes!” he cried. “I did it so that you would realize that this is not just some passing thing with us. That your rules are insane and make no sense for us. We have never been normal. We have never had a standard relationship. And, if you wanted that, then you would not have walked out on Marshall at the draft. But you did, and here we are, Stacia. I wanted you to get jealous, so you’d realize that you still have feelings for me.”

  Stacia glared at him. “Even if I had feelings for you, do you think this is the way I would want it to work with us?”

  “How else is it supposed to work with us? What more do I have to do to prove to you that I want you? You were jealous of Lindsay. You kissed me back on the sidelines—in front of everyone. You want this. I know you do.”

  Stacia’s heart melted at his words, yet she held her guard. History was too cruel to ignore past transgressions.

  “It’ll take more than a sideline kiss for me to believe that you won’t hurt me again.”

  “THAT WAS THE MOST ROMANTIC KISS I have ever seen in my entire life,” Whitney told Stacia on Monday in their last class together.

  “Thanks. I think.”

  “Like…was it amazing? You’re a total celebrity now. Your face was all over ESPN all weekend. It was the kind of sports reporting everyone dreams about covering,” Whitney said with a sigh.

  Stacia was coming to find out Whitney was a hopeless romantic. No matter how many times Stacia had told Whitney that she and Pace weren’t together like that, it didn’t sink in. It was the story of it all that Whitney loved. Stacia just wanted to tell her it felt less like a romance and more like a tragedy.

  Even when he was being romantic, he was always twisting things. It was never enough for him to just confess his feelings. He had to do something stupid, like make her think he had been with someone else so that she would be jealous and realize she had feelings. It was so very Pace.

  Yet she couldn’t deny that she still had feelings for him. If only that were enough…

  Stacia buried her nose in her notes during the rest of the class and ignored Whitney’s questions about Pace. The last thing she wanted to discuss was Pace. The only thing she wanted to discuss less was Boomer. Eric had taken what had happened to her to the coach, and she was still waiting to hear what was going to happen to Boomer.

  At the end of class, the teacher turned off the PowerPoint and dropped a stack of papers down on the table. “Here are your first papers. They’re in alphabetical order. Please wait twenty-four hours before contacting me about grades.”

  Whitney and Stacia both hopped out of their desks and hurried to the front of the class.

  Whitney rifled through the papers and snatched them out together. “Palmer and Parrish,” she said with a smile before handing Stacia’s paper over. “How’d you do?”

  Stacia flipped to the last page and saw the shiny C in bright red. Her heart sank. “Not so great. You?”

  “B,” she said with a shrug. “I know he gives the hardest grades up-front because everyone will then have room for improvement.”

  “My room for improve
ment is on a might-get-kicked-out-of-the-major level,” Stacia told her as they walked back to their bags and strode out of the classroom.

  “Eesh. Sorry. How about I introduce you to Simon? He could help. I could probably use his help some, in all honesty,” Whitney said with an encouraging smile.

  Stacia took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay, yeah. That would be great.”

  “Cool. He’s usually in the tutor center this time in the afternoon, but let me text him just to make sure.”

  Whitney looked thrilled to have a reason to text Simon, and Stacia left her to it. She read her paper as they casually strolled in the direction of the tutor center. The comments were all so harsh. She felt raw by the end of it. She didn’t know if the professor meant to sound like a total jackass or if she was just too close to her work to see past his anger. But she did not like it.

  Genius or not, he was a tough critic.

  Her phone buzzed in her purse just as she finished the paper, and she was surprised to see her dad’s name pop up on the screen. He was generally pretty lax about calling her during the regular season, which made her wonder if he had somehow found out about her moving in with Pace. That would be horrific. Had Derek said something? Had it gotten out?

  She took a deep breath and answered, “Hey, Dad.”

  “Stacy, honey, I don’t have a lot of time. I have to get to practice, but I just wanted to make sure everything was okay,” he said in his crisp business voice.

  “Um…yep. Everything is great here, Dad.”

  “Let’s be frank with each other. I just fielded a call from a reporter about you.”

  “You what?” she cried.

  Whitney’s eyes snapped to her in confusion.

  “I saw your kiss on TV this weekend. A bit irresponsible of you, don’t you think? Now, it seems reporters want a story about the girl behind the kiss. So, I’m getting phone calls,” he told her.

  “Dad, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that would happen—the kiss or the reporters,” she said in a small voice.

  “I’ve just tried to keep you out of this life for so long, honey. I’d really like you to just be more careful about what you do in the future, okay?”

  “Sure, Dad,” she whispered.

  “I love you. Got to go for now.”

  “Love you, too.”

  The phone went silent, and Stacia let it drop to her side.

  “Everything okay?”

  Stacia shouldered the words from her dad and just nodded. “Yeah, everything is fine.”

  “Okay…you’re sure?”

  “Yep. Did you hear from Simon?”

  “Yeah. He can fit you in.”

  “Great. That’s good news. Let’s go meet your boyfriend.”

  Whitney laughed and shook her head. “Yeah right!”

  Stacia spent a lot of time in the tutor center from then on. She had been passing by with Cs her entire life. She could not do it now when this was something she actually cared about. She needed to focus, and focus she did.

  The team won their next home match by a large margin, and it was the most she had seen of her friends or the football team since the weekend before. And she jumped right back into studying with Whitney and Simon that next week.

  Her eyes were tired, and she felt exhausted after working so hard for her upcoming test on Wednesday that she didn’t even realize what time it was when she finally made it back to the condo. But Pace was still up with a beer in hand, waiting for her.

  “Where have you been lately?” he asked.

  She tossed her backpack down on the chair and landed in a heap on the couch. “Studying,” she murmured, curling into a ball.

  “All night?” he asked, astonished. “All week?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  Pace walked around the couch and appraisingly stared down at her. “You’re going to wear yourself out.”

  “I have a test tomorrow, thank you very much. Shouldn’t you be focusing on football anyway?” she asked, peering up at him.

  “Oh, I have been. I can’t help but worry about you.”

  “Well, don’t. Just don’t kiss me on the sidelines again.”

  He tilted his head and made a disapproving noise. “Can’t promise that.”

  “Well, my dad called and said reporters are calling him to get the story on me—something my dad has specifically tried to avoid my entire life.”

  “Oh. That’s why you weren’t there at the end of the last game.”

  “Yes,” she admitted.

  “When are you going to tell your dad that you’re living here?”

  Stacia shot up in her seat. “Never.”

  Pace dropped into the seat next to her. “You think that’s smart?”

  “I don’t want to have this conversation the night before my test,” she told him.

  Pace held his hands up in defeat. “All right.”

  Stacia slouched back in her seat next to him. Their legs were just barely touching, and it felt nice to just sit there with him. No expectations. Nothing.

  After a few minutes of silence, Pace spoke up again, “There is a reason I was waiting up for you though.”

  “Why?”

  “I just found out that Boomer will be benched for the next game.”

  Stacia’s eyes widened, and she jerked her head to the side. “Really? Why?”

  “Violating team rules, apparently. You wouldn’t happen to know what rule he broke, would you?”

  Stacia’s cheeks heated, and she shrugged. “Why would I know?”

  “Because Eric was involved with the whole thing, which leads me to believe that this,” he said, brushing his hand across her once swollen cheek, “has something to do with that rule violation.”

  Stacia swallowed and tried to come up with some kind of excuse. She hadn’t anticipated this conversation.

  “He hit you, didn’t he?”

  “Look, he’s already getting his punishment. Don’t do anything dumb.”

  “I’ll destroy him,” Pace told her.

  “You will not, or I’ll go to Galloway myself and tell him that you’re going after Boomer.”

  “Press charges!”

  “Do you know what that would do to my dad?” she nearly shrieked. “He just freaked out about a kiss. Imagine what he would do if they started hounding him about this!”

  “Think about yourself for once,” Pace said in frustration. “Your dad would want to know about something this extreme anyway. He’d kick off one of his own players before letting this go down with his daughter.”

  “Don’t,” she said threateningly. “Just don’t. I am thinking about me. I’m studying my ass off and forgetting about all the bullshit that happened at the start of school.”

  “Is there nothing I can do to change your mind?” he asked.

  “No. And I need to get some sleep. Big test in the morning.”

  Pace reached out for her, brushing his fingers through her hair. “Stay in my bed tonight.”

  Stacia’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “You heard me. Stay with me.”

  “That has never ended well for us,” she reminded him.

  “We’ll just sleep. That’s it. I just want you in my bed.”

  “We’re not together, Pace. I…I can’t,” she said, unable to keep the desire out of her voice.

  “Can’t or won’t?” He leaned forward and brushed a kiss across her lips.

  “Both.”

  Her eyes closed, and her stomach fluttered at his touch. This was rocky ground she was walking on, and she waited for it to slip out from underneath her at any second before she fell into oblivion.

  “Nothing has to happen—that you don’t want.”

  “That sounds an awful like you think I want something from you,” she whispered.

  Pace’s hand slid to her outside thigh, and then he yanked her over on top of him. Her legs straddled either side of his massive quads. She was glad that she had decided on shorts; at least, there was some shield between them. Hi
s hands slid up and down her exposed thighs.

  “We both know that you do want something from me. And you want it bad. And I really want to give it to you, Pink,” he said, digging into her thighs.

  She groaned as he pushed her further down, so she could feel the length of him through his shorts. Then, he thrust upward, and her hands grasped his biceps to steady herself. It had been months since she had been with Marshall, and he didn’t even compare to Pace. The man was making it impossible to walk away from him.

  “I…I have a test tomorrow,” she nearly moaned as his hands slipped to her ass, and he started making her ride him. “Fuck.”

  “Then, won’t you be relaxed and well rested before it?”

  “I…I…” she murmured, losing coherency. Fuck, had it been long enough that riding his dick through our clothes could bring me to the brink?

  His finger slipped under her shorts and stroked along the hot and wet material of her thong. She moaned out loud as he flicked against her clit. Everything in her wanted to let loose at that moment. To forget about all the hard work she had put in for her classes and for staying away from him, but her body would not listen.

  “Let me get you off,” he begged. “It’s been killing me at night, listening to you get yourself off.”

  “Wh-what?” she gasped.

  “The sound of that vibrator buzzing at night nearly sends me barreling straight through that door to take you. Envisioning you pleasuring yourself is pure torture.”

  Stacia’s cheeks heated. She hadn’t known he could hear that. It brought her a bit of satisfaction to know that he had been aching at the thought of her.

  “Fuck, you’re so sexy when you blush like that.”

  “Pace,” she murmured again.

  One digit had slipped under her thong, and when it made contact with her clit, she buckled forward in pleasure.

  “Were you always this sensitive, or did you just miss me touching you this much?” he asked.

  She wrenched back from his touch with her entire body thrumming. Her lower half was pulsing with life. Her chest was heaving. “I can’t do this.”

  His eyes rounded in confusion. “You obviously can. This isn’t a bad thing. This is me giving you pleasure.”