Page 36 of Forever Relentless

Dustin nodded. “I panicked — full-out panicked — when I got mine. I was ready to call it a day and go flip burgers, not that there’s anything wrong with flipping burgers. But it was actually Hadley who took one look at it and said, ‘stuff them.’”

“She didn’t mind?” Jason asked in fascinated horror.

“Yeah, she minded, but she controlled the situation. So if it did come out, the impact wouldn’t be so bad.” He shrugged. “I mean, my mom would go insane and curse me out, but she wouldn’t disown me. I mean . . . not outright.”

“Your mom wouldn’t have disowned you,” Dante told him in exasperation.

“No.” Dustin looked wistful. “I wouldn’t get off that lightly.”

Even Jason laughed.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked as he pulled his shirt over his head.

“Keep your eyes and ears open,” Dante told him smoothly. “Report everything to us.”

“You mean spy?”

“They had no fucking issue spying on you,” I reminded him darkly. “They made you prey,” I told him quietly. “You either stay prey . . . or you learn to bite back.”

Jason nodded, not bothering to put his other shirt on. He looked at the stadium. “Think I might run some routes.”

Dustin nodded slowly. “Want some company?”

“You want to?” Jason asked him dubiously. “Or you think you need to?”

Dust sniffed. “Done my best thinking while I was running routes, quiets the mind.” He switched into his training top. “We need it, let’s do it.”

I took his gear off him, and Dante picked up Jason’s, and we left them to it.

“I like running routes.”

Dante looked over at me. “But?”

“It’s not the method I would use to talk someone off the edge.”

“Dustin has a unique perspective, sometimes.”

He saw me looking over at Briar, who had her camera up in front of her, pointed toward Dust and Jason.

“How are you going to deal with her?” He rolled his shoulder.

“Is that giving you an issue?” I asked, looking at his shoulder and ignoring his question about Briar.

“Yeah, niggling more than it should.” He let out a loud exhale. “I don’t know how much more I can take of this.”

“The shoulder or the . . . everything else?”

Dante huffed. “Both?” His fingers dug into his shoulder and rubbed. “I’m not good at secrets. I forget I’m not supposed to say anything.”

He hadn’t said it out loud before, but yeah, I knew. He wasn’t patient, and that could make him reckless. He liked to keep things moving. It was the same way he played the game, driving the offense up the field on every play.

“I think we need more before we expose it,” I reminded him.

“I know.”

And that’s what was pissing us both off, and probably for entirely different reasons.

Dante, Savvy, and Hadley wanted to shout about the injustice of the situation. I just wanted it out there so I could move on and put it behind me. The sooner it was out there, the sooner I could get back to focusing on just the game.