Page 72 of Campus Muscle

“For not going through with your tell-all article.”

The blood froze in my veins, and I pushed off him, needing to do something to calm the tension that had suddenly skyrocketed through my system. Trace turned to look at me and smiled as I slipped my robe over my shoulders. I felt like a total prick for what I was about to say, and turned my back so I didn’t have to look at him when I did.

“I’m still publishing my piece,” I whispered as I walked to the kitchen. “People have a right to know.”

26

Trace

The drive home felt like a slow-motion crash. Every time I hit the brakes, the phantom weight of Dakota’s legs around my waist seemed to pull at me, a lingering ache that made the pristine, manicured lawns of my neighborhood feel like a foreign planet. I still had the faint scent of her skin on me, a sharp contrast to the smell of blooming jasmine and expensive mulch that told me I was home.

I was a walking contradiction. The Highlanders’ star running back returning as a decorated victor, and a son who’d spent months lying through his teeth.

The gravel crunched under my tires as I pulled into the driveway. A countdown. Before I could even kill the engine, the front door flew open, and my sisters spilled out in a whirlwind of teenage energy designed to bridge the gap between me and the two people currently waiting behind the screen door like judge and jury.

“He’s alive!” Rachel, the youngest, shouted, throwing herself at me the second I got out of my car. The impact of her hug jarred the bruises I’d earned on the field.

“Barely,” I muttered, forcing a stiff smile as Tina and Amber swarmed me.

“You’ve been a ghost, Trace,” Amber said, her eyes scanning me with that older-sister intuition that usually saw right through my bullshit. “Mom’s been losing her shit for days. If you don’t go in there and give her something, she’s going to combust.”

“I’m working on it,” I said, letting them lead me toward the house.

The interior was a temple of order. Everything was exactly where I’d left it, yet I felt like an intruder. My dad was in the kitchen, standing by the island with a butcher’s knife in hand, methodically trimming fat off a brisket. He gave me a curt nod. The kind that said we’d talk, but only after he decided if he was still disappointed in me.

My mother was at the sink, her back to the room, snapping green beans into a ceramic bowl. The rhythmic click-snap was the only sound in the room until I spoke.

“Mom. Dad.”

“I saw the news.” She didn’t turn around. “I saw your speech. Hardly recognized you.”

“I’m still me,” I said, stepping further into the kitchen. The girls drifted toward the edges of the room, sensing the drop in atmospheric pressure.

“Are you?” She finally turned, her eyes red-rimmed but her jaw set in a hard, familiar line. “We sent you there to get a degree, Trace. To build a life that didn’t involve brain trauma and locker-room politics. And you lied. For months. You spoke to us on the phone almost every day, told us you were studying hard. None of that was true.”

“I’m on a scholarship, Mom. I’m playing at a level most guys only dream of.”

“And what did it cost you?” My dad’s voice sliced through her rising panic with a deep baritone. He set the knife down and reached under a heavy ceramic fruit bowl on the counter, pulling out a slip of paper. I just about clocked it as the check Frank must’ve sent, when he flicked it across the marble toward me. “This showed up in the mail yesterday,” he said, his eyes burrowing a hole in my skull. “From a Frank Delaney. Along with a letter thanking us for ‘raising a winner.’”

The sight of the check made my stomach turn. It was the physical manifestation of the noose Delaney was trying to slip around my neck. I didn’t even have to look at the amount to know it was enough to make my parents’ lives a lot easier. And my soul a lot cheaper.

“Don’t touch it,” I said, my voice sharper than I intended.

My dad raised an eyebrow. “We weren’t going to. We might not approve of your choices, Trace, but we aren’t stupid. This looks like a bribe. Feels like one, too.”

“It is,” I admitted, the weight of the confession finally breaking the dam. I leaned against the counter, suddenly exhausted. “Frank Delaney’s the team’s biggest booster. He’s been trying to buy me since the first game. He tried to get me to cheat on an exam, and when I wouldn’t, he started targeting you.”

The silence that followed was heavy. My mother stopped snapping beans, her hands hovering over the bowl.

“He’s dangerous,” I continued. “There’s a reporter at the school—Dakota—and she’s been digging into him. She’s going to publish an article that exposes everything. His corruption, his payoffs... and my name is going to be right in the middle of it.”

“Will the police be coming here?” My mother’s voice was a frantic whisper now. “Are we going to be in the papers? Trace, tell me you aren’t going to jail all for a stupid game.”

The thought of Dakota flashed through my mind. The way she looked at me in the darkness of her place, how she’d challenged me to be better than the world Delaney wanted for me.

But then I remembered the cold-hearted steel in her eyes when she talked about her story. The ruthless journalist who didn’t care who got trampled in the pursuit of the truth.

“I didn’t do anything illegal,” I told them, looking my father in the eye. “I didn’t take his promises of money or cars or anything, and I didn’t cheat. But the fallout is coming, regardless. I came here to tell you to burn that check. Copy it for the records, but don’t you dare deposit it. If his empire falls, I want your hands clean.”