Page 41 of Campus Muscle

Malik glanced toward where Frank had stood a few moments ago. “You’ve been watching him all week.”

“You haven’t?” I didn’t bother to deny it.

Malik shrugged casually. “He’s just a donor.”

That was odd. First, every guy on the team ignored me like I was the plague, and now the captain of the team was casually hanging out with me and entertaining my ‘conspiracy theories?’

“Doesn’t any of this strike you as strange?”

“He’s putting money into the program,” Malik said simply. “We get better equipment and better travel. Did you see that new bus? It’s like a luxury limo compared to what we had last season. We literally used to pray for our lives every time we had an away game.”

All this time I’d been fighting to get a straight answer from someone, and it turned out the captain was a talker. I buried my excitement and pushed on.

“And you think that doesn’t come with strings?”

“Everything comes with strings, but that doesn’t mean they matter.”

Could he really be that daft? How could he possibly think strings didn’t matter? They mattered more than anything else! How could it be so hard for these guys to see through Frank Delaney’s act? Were things like buses really that important to them?

“Strings might not matter to you, but they do come with consequences.”

Malik gave me a quizzical look, but then he shook his head, and it was gone. Just like that. So that really was it. They didn’t see it, or they didn’t want to. Either way, it didn’t bode well for the Highlanders.

Lucas brushed past me next, and he had the biggest grin I had ever seen. “If you’re writing about us, you better make me look good.”

“You do that all by yourself,” I said dryly.

“Damn straight,” he shot back, already laughing as he jogged off.

Connor came by next, nearly tripping over his own feet as he tried to keep up. “Don’t listen to him. I’m the real star.”

“No, you’re not!” Lucas called from a distance.

I couldn’t stop my lips from curling into a small smile as I watched them go by, but something tightened in my chest. It wasn’t because they were wrong, but because they were so easy about it. They were so unaware. This really was just football to them. It was just another season and yet another game.

Coach Harris stepped off the field a few minutes later and wiped his hands on a towel as he headed toward the sideline. I intercepted him before he could go too far.

“Coach Harris!”

He glanced at me, and suddenly his expression fell. “Dakota.”

He looked completely exhausted. I had seen many coaches in my career, and a few of them had gone through this rodeo, but none of them looked as defeated.

“You’ve seen him,” I said, nodding toward the empty space where Frank had stood.

Harris followed my gaze, then looked back at me. “I’ve seen a lot of people.”

“Don’t treat me like you would one of them. We both know it’s not going to work.”

He exhaled slowly. “What about him?”

His words sent a great sense of relief through my system. He could’ve made this extremely difficult for me, but he chose to take this path and I couldn’t be more grateful.

“He’s involved,” I said. “More involved than he should be.”

Coach Harris studied me for a second before shaking his head. “He’s a booster.”

“He’s more than that.”