Page 66 of The Golden Receiver

Coach Erikkson never called me by my first name. He must have been serious. I sighed. “Okay.”

Coach Erikkson dismissed me, and I headed right back to Karloff Hall for a quick shower. Afterward, I did mean to go to class. I really did. I even had the book for my next class in my bag, but then I passed Willis while I was walking across campus and that dread filled me again. Anything could happen to Kieran while I was in class. I wouldn’t be able to protect him.

Instead of heading to my first class, I went to Kieran’s. I sat on a bench by the door and waited for him to come out.

Fifteen minutes later, Kieran appeared in front of me. “I take it Coach Erikkson wasn’t talking to you about class?” he asked.

I didn’t want to lie to Kieran. “He did, but it’s okay. I’m⁠—”

“No, Evander,” Kieran interrupted. His tone was sharp enough to draw blood. “It is not okay that you keep missing class because of me.”

“I have to keep you safe,” I reminded him.

Kieran pulled me back down onto the bench I’d just been sitting on. His hand covered mine. Without thinking, I flipped my hand over and laced our fingers together. The simple contact relaxed me. There was something about the casual intimacy of it that just felt… right.

“I think we need to talk,” Kieran started.

Well, damn. I no longer felt relaxed. No one ever wanted to hear those words. Those words were never paired with anything good. They were only paired with bad news, but he was still holding my hand. Maybe that was a good sign. He wouldn’t have held my hand in public if he was going to say something awful, right? He wouldn’t have this conversation in public, either.

I braced myself for the worst. Just in case. “Okay.”

“Calm down,” he started. “It’s nothing bad. We need to talk about your… God I don’t even know what to call it. Your compulsive need to protect me? The fact that it’s interrupting your normal life?”

Oh.

Well, at least he wasn’t saying that we needed to stop hanging out together. That would be impossible for me. Not just because we had to see each other on the team, but because my feelings for him had just gotten too big.

“Can I blame it on being a werewolf thing?” I asked him because it was easier than mentioning my feelings.

I didn’t want to scare him off.

Kieran shook his head. “No. You can say that you’ll relax. Just a little bit. You can say that you’ll go to class. You can tell me what I can do to help you with your fears. That will let me protect you.”

“I don’t need protecting,” I grumbled. I wasn’t the one that had gotten attacked. I wasn’t the one being targeted by disgruntled teammates.

Kieran rolled his eyes at me. He actually rolled his eyes. “You need protecting from yourself,” he clarified. His voice sounded like he was talking to a child.

“No, I don’t.”

And now I sounded like a child. Damn it.

“Evie, just let me protect you, okay? I’ll let you protect me, but you have to let me protect you, too. That means going to class, and I’ll do what I can to help make you feel better when we’re not together.”

“You could give Coach Shaw the names,” I suggested. “That would help me feel like you were a little safer.”

He gave me a look so sharp that it wouldn’t have surprised me if I’d started bleeding. “No.”

I wasn’t surprised. I’d spent a lot of time the last few days trying to get him to change his mind, but he kept stubbornly refusing. He kept repeating the same reasons, like hearing them for the fiftieth time would convince me that he was right.

“You want to protect me, but you’re the one⁠—”

“This isn’t about me,” Kieran interrupted. “This is about you not going to class. How about we figure out how you can start going to class without freaking out?” I opened my mouth to make the same suggestion I’d already made, but he talked right over me. “One that doesn’t include talking to either coach.”

I knew I wasn’t going to win this argument right now, so we came up with a few things he could do to help ease my mind—mostly just texting me that he got to class safely—and then, for the first time since I’d known him, Kieran walked me to class.

The texts helped.

Some.