Page 80 of Play For Me

“Oh man,” Violet murmurs, and I look up to see the three of them gaping at me. “You should see your face right now.”

“Shut up,” I mutter, standing. “I’m just gonna…” I gesture vaguely toward my room.

“Tell Sol we say hi,” Vega calls sweetly as I leave the room. I manage to flip her off before I get to the hallway. I can hear the three of them laughing behind me, but I don’t really care. Not when I’m going to be able to hear Sol’s voice in just a few minutes.

TWENTY-ONE

SOLOMON

The bus ride is torture. Cecelia is sitting closer to the training staff this time so that Devon can check on her. Knowing she’s so close but being unable to talk to her is making me feel crazy. I think about texting her, but I’m sitting right next to one of the assistant coaches, and the last thing I need is for him to see her name on the screen.

So instead, I just sit there for the duration of the trip without much to do except relive the night over and over in my head.

I can’t believe I actually slept with Cecelia Ransome last night. Jay has been teasing me for years, calling her my dream girl. Pedestals are a dangerous place to put people. Most of them will end up disappointing you when they fall from their imaginary height. But somehow, I’ve found that I like Cecelia even more now that I actually know her. Now that she’s a real person to me, not just the gorgeous girl on the other side of the room at the party who I can’t stop thinking about.

The real Cecelia is all the things I noticed about her over the years. Beautiful. Warm. Loyal. Funny. The life of every party. But now I know that she’s also stubborn as hell. More than a little scary when you get on her bad side. Capable of cutting a person to the bone if they dare to hurt someone she cares about.

She’s also vulnerable. She hides it well under her laughter, under her attitude, and I feel a ridiculous sense of pride that she’s let me get close enough to see it.

God, I like her so much.

I’m surprised to realize that I’m not feeling anxious about this. Which is crazy—I feel anxious abouteverything. And something this big, something that has the potential to affect both my academic career and my personal life, you’d think I’d be freaking out.

Instead, I just feel…peace. The same way I felt when I held Cecelia as she fell asleep last night.

I should be brainstorming ways to limit our contact, to keep things casual, but all I can think is that I want to get her into my apartment and convince her not to leave. I want to take care of her the way she took care of me the other night. I want to ice her knee and massage her sore muscles and feed her and make sure she’s happy and warm and?—

I’m so fucked.

When we finally get off the bus, I go to join the other trainers in off-loading our equipment. Cecelia catches my eye as she gathers her duffle bag and gives me a small, soft smile that has me wishing I could say fuck it to my job and go take her home instead.

But I manage to not absolutely lose my mind and get to work, already thinking of when I can text her later.

I’m just finishing up when Devon approaches me, the team’s head coach at his side. I immediately feel a swoop of fear in my stomach—did someone see us? Shit, am I about to lose my spot in the program?

Worth it,a voice in my head says, and I push it away before I can start thinking about last night in front of the freaking head of the training team.

“Solomon, Coach Carla and I were just discussing Ransome’s injury,” Devon says. I fight back a grimace. Cecelia would hate hearing that they’d been talking about her knee. “We wanted to thank you for bringing it to our attention.”

The coach is looking pretty grim. “I know CeCe isn’t always the most open about discussing injuries.”

I nod. “She’s very dedicated to the team. She doesn’t want anyone to think she’s not up for hard work.”

Coach smiles a little. “And she’s stubborn as hell.”

“That too,” I agree, because it’s impossible to be around Cecelia for five minutes and not see that about her.

“Well, the two of you have clearly developed a rapport,” Coach continues, and I fight to keep my face blank as my stomach clenches again. Israpportcode forkeep your hands off my star athlete?

“She never would have told me her knee was giving her trouble on her own,” Coach continues. “I think it’s clear we made the right choice assigning you to her care.”

Oh. Maybe I’m not about to be kicked out.

“Solomon is the top student in the program,” Devon says.

“Thank you,” I say, shoving my hands in my pockets because I’m feeling more and more awkward as this conversation progresses.

“I’d like the three of us to meet once a week and see where she’s at,” Coach Carla continues. “You think she needs to see a doctor?”