Page 102 of Campus Muscle

I looked at my hand, still trembling in Dakota’s. The room felt like it was shrinking.

“What does that mean?” I asked, the words feeling like dirt in my mouth. “For my game? For next season?”

Tara looked from me to Dakota, then back again, her expression grim.

37

Dakota

The hum of the tires against the pavement was the only sound in the car, a steady, monotonous tempo that did nothing to soothe the churning knot in my stomach. Trace was quiet. Too quiet.

I glanced over for the umpteenth time and found him just as I’d left him the last time I’d looked. He gripped the steering wheel, eyes fixed on the road ahead with a hollow intensity.

“You’re a thousand miles away.”

All I got in response was this patronizing half-smile to show that he acknowledged me. And the road kept coming.

Another failed attempt to draw him out. I sank into my seat and looked back out the window.

Since he’d asked me to come home with him, he had been different. Strained. It was usually the girl who was supposed to be losing her mind over meeting the parents, but Trace looked like he was driving toward a firing squad.

The silence in the cabin was so absolute I could hear the ticking of a fly battering itself against the rear window, desperate to escape. Every time the road curved, the leather of the steering wheel creaked under the white-knuckled pressure of Trace’s grip.

Finally, I couldn’t take the vacuum anymore. My phone was already tethered to the dash, so I punched the radio on and pulled up my favorite road trip playlist. The sudden burst of Weezer’s light and breezy guitar worship to summer sun was a physical relief, shattering the stillness.

I grooved in my seat to the upbeat tempo, realizing it felt almost sacrilegious given the gloom coming at me from the driver’s seat. But that only made me more determined to dance it out. I kept Trace in the corner of my eye, humming along to the background vocals. He didn’t crack even a hint of a smile as I swayed and sang the first few lines at him.

Hell, he didn’t even blink. He just reached out and twisted the volume knob down until the song was nothing but a faint, pathetic buzz.

Irritation bubbled up in my chest. “Hey, I love this song.”

Defying the built-in hierarchy that came with this being his car and all, I cranked it back up and let the guitar riff reclaim the space. He could swirl around in his head all he wanted, but he wasn’t going to drag me down with him.

“Dakota, please.”

Trace snapped the radio off with a frustrated grunt, killing the vibe before the chorus hit. Silence returned twice as infuriating as before, broken only by that fucking fly in back.

“I’m trying to focus on the road,” he said, eyes fixed forward as though the asphalt were a life-or-death puzzle. “It’s too distracting.”

“Okay, enough with the Surly McBroodyface already.” My patience snapped like a dry twig. I shifted in my seat to force myself into his peripheral vision. “Either you let it out, or I’m gonna make you pull over so I can beat it out of you.”

“Surly Mc-what?” He actually spared a glance in my direction. The first sign of life I’d seen since we’d hit the road.

I slid my hand over his thigh and squeezed it. “You’re a wall of anxiety, Trace. I’m going crazy with you refusing to talk to me about it. I can’t have you like this all day. Not around your family. And I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

He let out a careful, drawn-out sigh, his fingers tapping a restless tune against the wheel. “The last time I was home, everyone was on my back about my personal life.”

“Welcome to having a family,” I chided with a soft laugh.

But his expression remained clouded. “No, it wasn’t just the usual ragging. My mom… she has this really specific idea of how the next few years are supposed to go for me.”

Shit. I hadn’t seen that coming. I gave a stiff nod and waited for him to say more.

“Football was the first detour, and I barely fought my way back from that,” he added then. “She wanted me to quit. Wouldn’t hear anything about me staying on the team, or going pro even.”

“What are you saying?” I ventured, my own anxiety beginning to spike.

The tendons in his jaw twitched a few times as he considered his words. When he spoke, his voice had taken on a deep tenor. “The last time I saw them about the whole Delaney thing, she was pretty clear about how she felt. That a relationship on top of football would be too distracting. That I should choose one or the other and focus on my grades.”