Page 17 of Rookie Moves

The moment Colby gets up, I’m moving. I follow him down the hall, and as we near the locker room, I reach out to grab his wrist.

Without making it obvious, I gently tug him to the side to hide in an alcove and wait until the coast is clear.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” I say quietly.

He dips his head, and I resist the urge to place my fingers under his chin to tilt it back up.

Look at me.

“I haven’t, I’ve just been…”

“Avoiding me,” I finish with a smirk, letting him know I’m not mad at him.

He sighs. “More like embarrassed.”

“Well, don’t be,” I reassure him, and even though there’s no one around, I lower my voice to barely above a whisper. “I wanted to let you know I have an answer for you.”

His eyes bounce around the hallway in his own assessment, and then those golden eyes land back on me.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I suck in a shaky breath, and the words come out before I can second-guess myself. “I’ll do it.”

CHAPTER FIVE

COLBY

The words swim on the page, blurring together in a way that causes my eyes to ache. The peaceful silence of the library is being disrupted by the chaos running through my brain.

I’ll do it.

Tyler’s words have left me reeling since he said them yesterday. I haven’t been able to concentrate on anything since. I coasted through practice, going through the motions on autopilot, then again through my final class of the day. I don’t remember anything from the textbook I read last night, and nothing seems to be registering in my brain right now.

I’ll do it.

Fuck. Why am I more nervous now than I was before I asked him?

“Staring at the wall isn’t going to give you the answers.”

I startle in my seat at the sound of Stassie’s voice, jumping so hard in my chair I hit my knee on the table leg.

“Shit, Stas, why did you have to scare me like that?” I curse under my breath and rub the sharp pain away from my knee.

She drops into the seat next to me and arches her brow. “I said your name three times, but you were locked in a trance.”

Shaking my head, I lower my gaze back to the textbook in front of me. None of it makes any sense, and I worry I’m not in the right headspace to retain any of the information, no matter how hard I try.

“What’s up with you, anyway? I came by to see you, but you’d already gone,” she asks, retrieving her textbooks from her bag.

I glance around the library. We’re the only ones in this section on the second floor. The table we’re seated at faces a large window, but the view is blocked by a large willow tree. Most of the other students prefer to sit on the other end, where they have a view of the quad and the magnolia trees.

“Tyler spoke to me yesterday,” I say in a whisper.

Stassie’s eyes light up. “Yeah? What did he say?”

“He said he’d do it.”

She lets out a choked noise, sounding like a baby bird, and claps her hands quietly. “So, he’s going to help you?”